Blog review: "Steve Hanov's Blog"

Steve Hanov’s Blog is a grab bag of content produced by an accomplished professional programmer, Steve Hanov.

Canadian Hanov has a Master of Computer Science from the University of Waterloo. He has worked at a number of companies, including Research In Motion. He has developed a number of pretty neat applications, a lot of which have to do with processing text, voice/audio, and image.

A lot of Hanov’s posts are fairly technical and immediately applicable, but still quite informal and human. You can tell what he is posting is derived from experience in the field (because he generally tells you about the context that gave rise to the idea or app he’s sharing).

He shares a lot of work and useful ideas, but also some quirky projects and humor. He started a comic strip in Imprint, the University of Waterloo student newspaper, which he continued and archived on the blog.

One very abstract post on using visual data structures may be useful to me in thinking about how to analyze algorithmic trading patterns as I test them and compile a shit-ton of data. Maybe it won't be too useful, though. We'll see.

In his most recent post, he shared what he has learned about operating a Canadian business that sells software to Americans. At the end, he asks his readers to share their tips, a good blogging practice.

As for his style as a blogger, I like the variety. He offers a variety of content (from hardware to programming to accounting to humor), and he switches up the length and depth of his discussions as warranted.

This allows you to alternate your level of engagement. I think this, combined with the useful content and easy tone, encourages both staying on the site longer and returning for more.

One post was almost fitting for a meme it was so short and to the point. He chose a font style and a larger font size reflecting this.  In it, he breaks down why it’s important to think before you program about whether you will be handling “o, 1, many, or ‘a zillion.’”