Android: Created By Bright Kids

Remember the rant about bright kids with no experience?

Well, turns out, experience is something you *do* get, but sometimes right after the world laughs in your face. And sometimes even that is not sufficient.

Consider, for example, the SensorManager. Consider how it is a concrete class, and there is no way for you to provide *your* mocks to develop an application, unless you add an extra abstraction layer. And how you have to come up with an abomination (see line 81) to fight it?

And how much simpler would it be if they just made SensorManager an interface and made getSystemService() return a concrete implementation?

But I have a hunch that we're stuck with it - it didn't change from Android 1.0 to 4.0.3.

Wonder how many jewels like this are there in Google's APIs.

PS: It is not a fault of OpenIntents' guys that they had to create this abomination, they did the only thing they could under the circumstances - kids at Google didn't leave us any other choice.

They Talk Behind Our Backs, Part II

More of the same...

Ever got those Shopping Helper mails from Newegg that you get shortly after you search for something, but don't buy it? Well...

Last couple of days I've been actively researching all things BeagleBoard.

And guess what, I get a "Shopping Helper" message from Newegg telling me about best selling motherboards... Haven't been on Newegg for ages, and, for sure, haven't had even a fleeting interest in buying one there.

So, how did the information about me searching for *board on Google get to Newegg? I guess I'll never find out. But I get shivers down my spine already.