best practices

(via The 5 Rules of Storytelling Every Teacher Should Know about ~ Educational Technology and Mobile Learning )

All well-drawn characters have a spine. And the idea is that the character has an inner motor, a dominant, unconscious goal that they’re striving for, an itch that they can’t scratch. Judith Weston (via Andrew Stanton: The clues to a great story | TED.com )

All good stories (…) should give you a promise. [to be fulfilled] Make the audience put things together. Don’t give them four, give them two plus two. [“The Unifying Theory of 2 + 2”] Storytelling has guidelines, not hard, fast rules. A strong theme is always running through well told story. The best stories infuse wonder. (via Andrew Stanton: The clues to a great story | Video on TED.com)

Drama is anticipation mingled with uncertainty William Archer (via Andrew Stanton: The clues to a great story | TED.com )

Support Guidelines « Vesper Dave Wiskus ’ guidelines for handling @vesperapp support emails: Use Names Everyone Gets a Reply No Arguments Keep Records Be Honest Sooner is Better Ask for a Favor Say ‘Thank You’

iOS Design Patterns The tutorial is divided into sections, one section per design pattern. In each section, you’ll read an explanation of the following: What the design pattern is. Why you should use it. How to use it and, where appropriate, common pitfalls to watch for when using the pattern. (…) In the process of developing this app, you’ll become acquainted with the most common Cocoa design patterns: Creational : Singleton and Abstract Factory....

newfoo: Good Practices for Big iPhone Projects Developing a high-quality iPhone app can be tricky stuff for new and veteran developers alike – especially on larger projects. In this article, I’ll discuss several tools & techniques that have helped my teams and me to produce high quality work and helped save a lot of time. Use Multiple Build Configurations Use an Enhanced UIColor Use isEmpty Instead of Nil and Length Checks Use Logging Treat Compile Warnings as Errors Use Static Analysis Frequently Learn Apple’s Rules for Memory Management

Warnings I turn on, and why » Idle Time I’ve started turning on most of Xcode’s warning options and one warning-related build setting in all of my personal projects. I suggest you do the same. (…) The rest of the warnings, I turn on because either they make something clearer or they tell me about either real or potential (i.e., future real) bugs. See also boredzo/Warnings-xcconfig repo at GitHub.

High Scalability – Expandability: Steve Wozniak’s Biggest Success and Nolan Bushnell’s Biggest Regret Lesson: Think Geek The lesson: when your grownup self compels you to be lean and create something minimally viable – think geek. It may not make your accountants happy, but your “just because it seems like a great thing” idea might be exactly what you need to become more successful than you can possibly imagine.

Typography in ten minutes — Butterick’s Practical Typography This is a bold claim, but i stand behind it: if you learn and follow these five typography rules, you will be a better typographer than 95% of professional writers and 70% of professional designers. (The rest of this book will raise you to the 99th percentile in both categories.) All it takes is ten minutes—five minutes to read these rules once, then five minutes to read them again....