Data syndication has changed my life. And, if you’re reading this (or space-barring past it!), it’s probably changed yours, too. A long time ago, but not so long ago that there weren’t any good web sites yet, if you wanted a break from the daily humdrum of your job or life, you might find yourself methodically cruising your browser bookmarks, “just to see” if there had been any recent updates to your favorite web content.

Syndication, e.g. RSS, changed all of that. Now, instead of wasting hours clicking bookmarks and scanning visually for new material, you simply press the space bar in NetNewsWire. Again, and again, and again. Throughout the day, and possibly without paying much attention at all to the updated content as it whizzes by. Once you’ve space-barred through everything the web has to offer, you might even find yourself guiltily refreshing feeds, putting an undue burden on servers of the world just to feed your need for more inputs. Or is that just me?

Syndication has brought luxury of riches, such that I’ve overcompensated for the desire to always have something new to read, by oversubscribing to everything the world has to offer. Now I’ve got plenty to read, but I’m interested in almost none of it.

I have thought about culling my subscription list for some time, and occasionally have done so upon realizing that some alleged programmer’s blog is actually more often about her uninspired opinions of the local school board, or the Latin American drug trade, than about the programming topics I expected. It always feels good to drop one of these feeds with the knowledge that my space-barring thumb will be saved much future work.

Today I finally took a good look at Rands In Repose, a weblog about engineering management, but also about Apple, and about giving presentations, and about having a slightly cutting take on all that happens in the world, and damn it all, brilliantly written! It’s a rare instance of finding a weblog where I not only want to keenly monitor what comes next, but also want to dig deep into the archives to take in what came before. Other weblogs have inspired this reaction (e.g. Joel on Software and Daring Fireball), but these moments don’t come often. Content like this demands to be read, yet I often end up flagging it for later access, because I don’t have enough time right now. Where is all the time going? Space-barring through crap! (Or writing long-winded weblog entries … )

I unsubscribed from 20 feeds today and added Rands. The new “Attention Report” in NetNewsWire 3, combined with the existing “Dinosaur Report” makes it easy to identify candidates for the knife. In general, if I space-bar through something all the time, I trust that it will show up as unloved on the attention report. So far it’s been a “trust but verify” type of experiment. “But I love that guy! I’m sure this is a mistake. Double-click. Oh yeah, he’s a brilliant Mac programmer who writes mostly about the Chinese democracy movement.”

My closing advice? Unsubscribe to at least 10 weblogs today (possibly this one!), and add Rands. Expect and accept only the best when you next press the space bar. Then get back to work!

A variety of influences tonight pointed me towards my earliest published article, for MacTech, in 1999 or so:

MascBug Revisited

I was really just a kid. But I had learned an awful lot about debugging, thanks to my awesome job in the Apple system integration team. I guess that made me feel pretty confident about writing an article – for a real magazine, even. So what if hundreds or thousands of other developers knew more than I did about software development, I knew a lot about debugging! I had spent a few years testing and then developing the Mac OS system file (and system enabler), and was confident that few would be as up-to-date with MacsBug as I was.

Debugging is a skill I have kept throughout my professional career. If you’ve got a bug, chances are I can help you get to the bottom of it. I’m effing good at that. The fact that I can write code is somewhat incidental, because my primary skill is as a debugger.

This is especially handy when I’m debugging my own code, because I’ve got the bug writer and the bug buster within easy reach :)

The MacTech article is antiquated – depressingly so – but many of the concepts still apply to OS X debugging. If you’re at a loss for how to approach buggy code in your project, my old 20-something article might actually be of some use to you.

When it comes to debugging, some things never change.

This Sunday will mark the two year anniversary of Red Sweater Blog. I find it hard to believe it’s been such a long time, and yet such a short time, since I started writing here. With over 360 posts so far, I guess I’m averaging about one every two days. Not bad, for a busy programmer!

This run would not have been possible without MarsEdit, the application that makes writing for the web palatable to Mac users. Little did I know a year ago that the application I love so much would be my product a year later. To paraphrase the Remington shaver guy, “I liked it so much, I bought the source code!”

The past year has also been exciting outside of my programmer life. I got married! We’re almost 2 months into our fabulous marriage, now.

In January I responded to what seemed to be a bunk software acquisition deal by challenging developers to sell me their product. I had an amazing response when over 30 people made me separate offers. The application I ended up buying is now marketed as Black Ink, and is the premier desktop crossword-solving application. (Note: MarsEdit didn’t happen until a bit later, and was unrelated to that original challenge.)

Late last year I was engrossed by the sad story of James Kim, who died in the Oregon wilderness after the rest of his family was rescued. His memory is a recurring reminder to value family and friends while we have the pleasure of their company.

The sad news was offset somewhat by the uplifting charitable software sales I took part in. Mike Zornek’s Child’s Play Day helped raise over $10,000 for a charity that helps kids in hospitals have a bit of fun. Jason Harris followed-up with a Holiday Cocoa Duel, which raised over $2300 for a variety of charities, chosen by the participants.

October marked the first iteration of C4, where I met dozens of amazing developers for the first time. I also had the pleasure of meeting John Gruber, whose HIG Is Dead talk had such an immediate impression on me, that I went straight home from the conference and redesigned FlexTime.

That redesign of FlexTime came only a few short months after it was first released. An idea that started brewing while I was developing complex AppleScripts to cue my yoga practice, I worked on it off-and-on for a couple years before finally releasing it in August, 2006. The application was met with a mixture of applause and confusion, which I think is a fairly good omen for an unusual new application. I’m looking forward to getting a chance to refocus my efforts on expanding its functionality over the next year.

Incidentally, this marks the end of my first “real year” of trying to be an indie software developer. That is, producing and selling software directly to the public. I had been selling shareware for several years, but never focusing so intently on it. Shortly before the release of FlexTime I gave myself permission to cut back on consulting and pursue a full-time career in developing my own products. I’ve taken an unusual path to get here, but I’m glad I took the chances I did. I wrote quite a bit about this last year in The Road Less Traveled, written in concert with Paul Kafasis of Rogue Amoeba.

This summary of the past year’s posts is only the tip of the iceberg. If you like what you read here on the blog, but are a fairly new subscriber, you might find some interesting stuff digging through the archives.

As always, thanks for reading! This would be extremely boring and ungratifying if I were writing these words to myself, only to be pondered in the lonely solitude of my office. Your comments and feedback (often more inspired than my own writing) make all the difference.

Dude! Want to make a bunch of developers your best friend? Then write an online payment processing framework, allowing new developers to easily harness the power of PayPal or Google Checkout.

That’s what Andy Kim of The Potion Factory just did. This is definitely one of those “wish I could run Rails” moments. Still, a move worth applauding. Thanks, Andy!

(Via Gus Mueller)