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Just ran across a new Open Source shopping cart system, Magento. We've been using Zen Cart for a while now, and it's great to see an alternative.

It's too bad the spammers are out to piss all over the public commons. Since I've started writing more regularly here, I've been getting inundated with pingbacks and trackbacks, and have to keep marking them as spam, a couple dozen a day.

Ok. Last post on the quality code series. One of the downsides of getting older is realizing you do have shortcomings. You know how when you're young, going into a job interview, the toughest question is the one about your weaknesses?

I was listening to the latest episode of LugRadio the other day, and they had a discussion on vendor lock-in by open source distribution companies.

I've spoken with a lot of entrepreneurs around Seattle, who have a misconception that using open source might somehow force them to give away their intellectual property.

Before code can be customizable, it must be clear. But clarity is not enough, if you're going to be using a codebase in multiple places.

Programming is an exercise in understanding a problem. To program effectively, you need to fully understand, in intricate detail, the problem your program is solving. Sometimes as a programmer you don't fully understand the problem until you've wrestled with it a few times in code.

Programming borrows a lot from the construction industry. Many programming terms derive from construction: hacking, builds, development, architecture, scaffolding, frameworks, and dozens of others. But in some ways, programming has an element of power beyond construction.

Continuing on the series, the next item on the list seems to be the mistake I see the most--putting slow code in loops, loading up things that don't need to be loaded, making simple requests expensive.

There are many articles that cover PHP vulnerabilities, but I've run across a lot of programmers and code that seems oblivious to them.

We're hiring programmers, over at Freelock. I've been going through lots code samples to try to identify how experienced and competent a particular developer is. I also do this on a regular basis to evaluate how solid a particular open source project is.

... but are you sure price is the most important thing?