Remember those childhood games where you are given two nearly identical images and your objective was to find some number of subtle differences? Well, I shouldn't have to play that game when I'm using your damn website.I show here two examples of a common practice that is plaguing the modern web. First, a clipping from a project page on github.com.  And now the second image:  See the difference? My question is this: why? That edit button is the only component of the entire page that has a hide-by-default-unless-your-mouse-is-in-a-certain-vertical-and-horizontal-range behavi...

Today, APIs play a bigger role in software development than ever before. The evolution of computing has been dominated by ever-increasing levels of abstraction; the use of higher-level languages, of course, but also the development of platforms, libraries, and frameworks. Professor Douglass C. Smith claims the progression of this second category far outpaced the development of programming languages.  Developers are also noticing that difficulty has shifted from designing algorithms and data structures to choosing, learning, and using an ever-growing set of APIs. Yet, many developers may b...