A quick rant about DNS config

Isn't DNS configuration just about the worst user experience anywhere?

We have to deal with DNS config through those paragons of virtue, hosting providers and (worse) domain name registration sites.  I know, I'm tarring them all with the same brush but I don't think I've ever seen a site for name registration that doesn't make me feel slightly dirty for using it.

The underlying technology is pretty horrendously over-engineered, but it does have the excuse that it has been around for a long time, and when it was invented it was probably reasonable to assume that anyone who would ever have call to register or administer a domain would have a degree in computer science.

But it's even worse when those registration sites put a front end on it in the name of simplification.

It may be true, but it's not as helpful as it could be.  

They put UX design effort into making it really easy for you to sign up for your domain name in the first place.  Once you've got it - and they've got their money - they don't seem to care about whether you've got your config right or not, and the interfaces typically all look like they were knocked together in an afternoon some time back in 1993.  And heaven forbid you should want to take your business elsewhere by transfer your registration to another provider - they'll put a lot of red text and explanation marks so that you know this is REALLY DANGEROUS!!

DNS config is made worse by the problem that it can allegedly take up to 48 hours for the internet to propagate your changes, so it's easy to think that a misconfiguration is, in fact, just a configuration waiting to propagate.

It wouldn't be hard to make a nice, easy-to-follow interface for common DNS config tasks.

• Instead of a complicated A and CNAME record grid, the user could answer simple questions like "What's the IP address of your server?", "What's the primary domain name for your site?", "What alternative names also point to the same site?", "Should this site work for the 'naked' domain example.com?" 
• I wonder how much time has been spent globally on filling in the MX records for hosting your email on GMail - years, probably, for a task that could easily be automated on the basis of ticking a box that says "I'm using GMail".  (Presumably the same is true of other email providers too, but I'm just a lot more familiar with GMail.)   

Hell, for good measure it could even spit out some sample Apache / nginx config snippets too.  

Coding revisited

So a couple of months ago everyone was talking about how 2012 is Code Year - how's everyone getting on with their coding lessons?  Personally, I was writing code for years, but got more involved with the product management side of things over time. As I'm currently unencumbered with a day job, I'm exploring some ideas for new products and startups - and rediscovering the joy of writing code myself! There are so many tools and examples, and so much knowledge available on the internet that it's possible to build some powerful prototypes surprisingly quickly.  Here are a few of the things that I've been enjoying.

• Python.  So much power, in so little code, and very intuitive for an ex-C programmer.  If you don't already know it, learn it now.  
• jQuery.  Learn a little bit of Javascript, but don't go too far before you try jQuery.  Manipulate web pages in so few lines of code. 
• Bootstrap.  Hell, I don't care if my prototypes all look like Twitter if they look as good as this - it's a lot better than I will design myself and it's all there on a plate!
• Stack Overflow.  If you're new to the planet and haven't heard of SO: when you're Googling for the answer to a programming question, pick the responses from Stack Overflow and you won't go far wrong.  There's surprisingly little dross here and a lot of very authoritative knowledge.  

And as a bonus to exercise your brain, take one of the free courses at Coursera.  I'm about 2/3 through  Stanford Algorithms I, and loving it.  Just about enough reminders of all the maths that I've forgotten since university, it goes along at a decent pace, and it's only 5 weeks long so it's not like signing up for a life sentence.  (Oh, and did I mention that it's free?!) 

So what am I writing with all this code?  I've made a few changes on Tank Top TV, but I'm currently focussing on a great idea for a social media tool that I hope to be able to share more widely in a matter of a few weeks - watch this space!