On the Interwebs, number 14

Some websites I have found interesting (in no particular order):

node.js — I know I linked to this last week but I think I described it wrong. While it bills itself as “Evented I/O for V8 javascript”, I think of it is more as the easiest and fastest way to run javascript code outside of a browser.

Hello World From V8 — Speaking of javascript, a walk through of how to get just plain jane V8 up and running.

Why Retweet works the way it does — I always love write ups about why people have designed things the way they have. Additionally, I think retweeting was complete noise and a nuisance up until these changes.

BrowserCouch — A project working to implement the CouchDB APIs in a browser. I hope they continue to work on this (it doesn’t look like it has seen any action in a couple months). Additionally, I love the documentation. Having the code in one column and the description of that it does in another is pure genius.

Writing great documentation — Speaking of documentation, a piece on exactly what documentation to write. For the most part I agree with him: the single most important things for using a new project are tutorials.

How to Make a US County Thematic Map Using Free Tools — This is why SVG is the greatest. You can open it up, look at it, parse it using code and modify it really easily.

The Go Programming Language — Google Tech Talk by Robert Pike on the new systems programming language Go. While this still looks like way more work than something like Ruby, Python or Javascript, it seems much better than C.

Email Entry in Web Forms — A discussion of solutions to the annoying “Confirm Email Address” fields in web forms. You know why those fields are stupid? Because of a little thing called “Copy and Paste”. Seriously, I have never once actually typed my email address twice.