Jeff Vodel provides tips for writing more comprehensible code, in a very humoruous article. They don't just apply to solo coders, people who inherit or update your code down the line will also thank you. Even though they're written for C programmers, his advice applies to any programming language. For web programmers, #5 should be heeded, as we've learned that the code we run on the server typically contributes only a fraction towards how long users must wait to see your web page. You get more bang for the buck by reducing how much data browsers have to download (file sizes) and how many connection it must make (hits to download css, images, javascript files, etc...).

This means that, if I make a stinky mess, I'm doing it in my own nest. When I'm chasing down a bug at 3 a.m., staring at a nightmare cloud of spaghetti code, and I say, "Dear God, what idiot child of married cousins wrote this garbage?", the answer to that question is "Me."

I've written previously my own set of tips to write readable php code.

There is an excellent case study in NY Times on how Zen's ultra simple camcorder the Flip has grabbed 13% of the camcorder market and been the best-selling camcorder on Amazon.com. It did this not by offering every feature and tech acronym buzzword under the sun, but by making it trivially easy to use. David Poque says,

Instead, the Flip has been reduced to the purest essence of video capture. You turn it on, and it's ready to start filming in two seconds. You press the red button once to record (press hard -- it's a little balky) and once to stop. You press Play to review the video, and the Trash button to delete a clip.

There it is: the entire user's manual.

"But Oscar, we don't make camcorders or gadgets. Whats your point?" The success of the Zen lies in getting out of the way of users who want to record a video clip. User's don't need to adjust a million settings, don't have the option of adding special effects, zooming in and out, and so on. They just point and record. Next time you're building out a new web site, section of your web site, or any point where you're asking users to interacts with you - fill out a form, post a comment, make a donation - try to eliminate as much cruft as possible and reduce the interaction to its barest essence. Ideally, and I'm probably a bit of an idealist for writing this, this would mean an email newsletter subscription form that, shocker, has only one field for the user's email address, and no more. Or a donation form that is simply the amount to donate and fields required to process payment. The less hoops you make users jump through, the more users may jump through your hoops.

Google Analytics releases a new feature two weeks ago, allowing sites to anonymously share data with comparable sites. Benchmarking site traffic has been something we've suggested to clients in the past, and in a few cases have facilitated it on a small scale. But now, you can compare how your blog, online community, association, or non-profit's website compares to peers who also use GA. I'd stress that you're comparing yourself to other peers who use the service and choose to share the data so there is some selection bias, and its up to Google to decide who you are compared with. Still, it makes available data that would otherwise be expensive or impossible to get, and as more sites otp to share their traffic, it can get better. You can learn how to enable this and what you can compare over at googlesystem.

The system is very beta at the moment, and the "Verticals" used to categorize sites are few at the moment. It can still help answer questions like:

• What are overall traffic patterns in my sector?
• Is my traffic growth/decline part of an overall traffic growth/decline or unique to my site?
• What's an "average" site like mine get in Page Visits/Visitors/Bounce Rate/New Vistors, and how do I compare?
  

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