In no particular order, here’s what I’ve been studying lately:
- Javascript. I’ve avoided this language over the years because of its low speed and shoddy reputation. But the language implementations seem to be getting faster and the available libraries seem to be getting more interesting. I’ve just watched all of Doug Crockford’s YUI lectures on JavaScript, and I’m thinking about trying to use the language in some toy projects.
- git gui - this git command, available in recent builds of git, make Git changes pretty easy to author.
- The Undercover Economist - this is a great book about economic theory. It’s pretty easy to read while shaving, or waiting for compiles. Lots of good anecdotes and tools for modeling the behavior of consumers and firms. I took 3 economics classes in college, and they didn’t teach me as much practical information as I’ve learned from reading this book.
- Hacker News - this link voting site has replaced alterslash and reddit programming as my daily comp-sci news site. I like the emphasis on start-up news.
- wmii - yet another tiling window manager. I tried a bunch of tiling window managers, and this one seemed to “click” with me. I found that I could customize it easily, and it mostly “just worked” the way I wanted it to. We’ll see if I stick with it or go back to Gnome. [Follow-up. I went back to Gnome (and then to OSX). Oh well.]
- Chrome - now that the Linux and OSX versions have Flash support, Chrome has become my default web browser. I like its clean UI.