New Categories - UI and Business of Software

We're adding two new categories to the Webapper blog. I've always been fascinated with user interface design challenges, not least of which because the browser has always been a difficult place, to say the least, to build software. So one of my resolutions in 2008 is to do more writing on the topic--book reviews (currently reading the tome Designing Interactions), experimental development we're doing (working with the Google Web Toolkit at present), etc.

As for the "Business of Software" category, since I'm a developer who now primarily steers the ship here at Webapper, I'm ensconced every day in this topic, and so again, I've resolved to write more about it here in '08. There's a great book by that title by Eric Sink, and I think it should be required reading for any developer (independent, employee, or whatever). In this new category, I'll be focusing on all the supporting "stuff" that we need as developers--paychecks (and good pay rates), clients (and skills for managing them), project management skills (including dealing with the always-thorny topic of budget and timeline estimates), methodology (source control, testing, etc.), industry trends, and others. Some of these topics may be somewhat technical (like using source-control), but again they'll always deal with things that support us in doing good development, but that aren't specific development or troubleshooting topics. And, of course, much of what I/we write here will be from the perspective of a shop where ColdFusion is a cornerstone technology.