And this is exactly what Apple wants us to think; be in awe of the favor that they are doing developers. This is an abusive relationship to say the least.
I'd rather the initial animation slide up from the taskbar. and it would really be context sensitive if it could slightly buzz/vibrate/gain users attention in case it 'detects' that the user is stuck. what 'detects' actually is the context and could be configurable by the author based on wait time, scroll up-down, highlights of keywords etc. I can't think of a really fit example for this, but perhaps any web based application that requires specific input for relevant results such as mint.com?
Just the dose of practicality that my senior year at university needed. Makes me feel I can actually accomplish something with the right mix of communication, tools and team.
The quick-select algorithm is a really simple and effective way of selecting the k-th smallest element and one that would be nice to cover. It's especially useful in situations where you need O(n) selection of the median element.