general

Halloween tricks

October 31, 2003 19:31:41.255

Heh. KIds come to my door:

Them: Trick or Treat!

Me: We'll take the trick

Them: Huh??

Me: What, no trick? I'll have to take all your candy

Funniest response to that yet? One kid yelled No! and ran off. Yes, I do give them candy after the exchange :)

What do you want, I'm wearing a jester outfit this year...

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blog

What's a weblog?

October 31, 2003 19:25:46.122

If you get asked "What's a weblog?", then read this. I'll have to consider my answer to that question sometime, but the post I linked to is a great summary.

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blog

Rolling your own blog code

October 31, 2003 17:56:11.948

Java Today has an article on rolling your own vs. buy - an old argument, actually. The "Huh" part for me came here:

He changes the too frequent parsing of the feed that he described in his first article by adding "a new class to handle the selective updating of feeds based on the provided update information." In the second half he creates a blog roll using " the JSTLforEach tag to loop through the feeds, creating a list of links to the home pages for the feeds. For good measure, we also print the dates of the feeds, so we can see when each one was last updated."

Huh? Why would I be parsing xml when I create a feed? I have an actual object model here - the blog entries are all objects - I push a static xml file out whenever there are new entries/updates/comments, and have the server create XML from the objects using a Sax driver. Having the static feed files reduces load on the server as well. As to update times, well - that's part of the object model I created for the entry objects. As to the blogroll, that's a list of what I read on a normal basis (i.e., created by hand) - not a list of things I happened to link to....

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general

Let the prep begin

October 31, 2003 17:37:24.038

We are throwing a Halloween party this evening, so we are deep into party prep. Happy Halloween all!

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news

What not to do to have fun

October 31, 2003 13:42:47.469

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news

Check out the new ABC News RSS Feeds

October 31, 2003 13:28:19.122

Dave Winer has linked to a bunch of new feeds from ABC News. The feeds are a little funky, but BottomFeeder handles them ok. RSS is spreading wider and wider...

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development

MS redefines refactoring

October 31, 2003 10:55:33.094

Michael Lucas-Smith is not amused by the things MS calls refactoring.

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development

Microsoft to X-Plat developers: Drop dead

October 30, 2003 21:30:17.804

Microsoft tries to create greater lock in with LongHorn:

Michael Wallent in this morning's Longhorn UI panel: "We want to make existing applications look like DOS applications when they run on Longhorn."

His point was actually that Longhorn applications will exhibit not just different visual style but different behaviour. It is not a matter of applying Avalon chrome to an existing application. The actual interaction must change to fit the Longhorn Way. That means WinFS integration, shell visualisations and so on.

Hey - what if Windows isn't the only platform I care about?

Update - Apparently, I'm not the only one thinking this

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cst

Adding Columns to a DataSet

October 30, 2003 20:56:33.069

Here's a perennial favorite in VisualWorks: You have a dataset widget, and you would like to dynamically add a column at runtime. How do you do that? Well, there's been a support tip on this for years - and I made use of that tip in BottomFeeder. The all new view has 2 modes:

  • Show a restricted tree, with only the new items
  • Show all new items in a 2 pane (no tree) view

For the latter view, we add a column (with the feed name) to the dataset, so that you can tell where the item in question came from. So how is that accomplished? Here's the relevant code snippet:


	table := self widgetAt: #feedListID.
	columns := table columnDescriptors asOrderedCollection.
	columnSpec := self class zoomedColumnSpec decodeAsLiteralArray.
	columns addFirst: (columnSpec columnWithBuilder: self currentBuilder).
	table setColumnDescriptors: columns.
	table invalidate.
	self hasAddedColumn: true 

The spec is the spec for a single column - I extracted a column spec (copy) from a dataset spec, changed the attributes to match what I wanted, then saved the result as a class method. Then, at runtime, I can grab that spec object, and just slam it into the dataset. It can be removed just as easily. That's it!

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examples

Customizing the VW Tree Widget

October 30, 2003 16:16:14.557

Supporting the new in tree view in BottomFeeder, I had to get the tree widget - the one holding the feeds and folders - to dynamically change based on attributes of the contained items. As it turns out, the tree widget already supports that quite easily - Have a look at class TreeModel. From the class comment:


childrenBlock:  block with one argument.  Is evaluated to get an
object's children.  The result is expected to be a
SequenceableCollection.  Defaults to: [:ea | ea children].

So the childrenBlock is what determines what the tree shows. Change the block, and you change the items displayed. In my case, I simply had to add query methods to the folder and feed objects. These methods look like this:

RSSFeed>>displayChildren
	"custom display of items"

	^#()


RSSFolder>>displayChildren
	"custom display of items"

	^self children select: [:each | each hasUnreadItems]

Feeds have no children; they are nodes. Folders, on the other hand have to be tested. The #hasUnreadItems method actually does the work of drilling all the way to the bottom of a given folder, in search of unread items. The main point is though - in order to change the way the tree displays, all I had to do is send this message in response to a user request:


	self feedTree list childrenBlock: [:each | each displayChildren].


which replaces the default block of:

	self feedTree list childrenBlock: [:each | each children]

And that's all there is to it. Modify the block that determines children to display, and create any necessary support protocol in the objects you put in the tree. I had been resisting looking at this, as I somehow convinced myself that doing this would be hard. I got constant prodding from Micahel Lucas-Smith though, and - as a result - got a new feature added to BottomFeeder

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BottomFeeder

All New in Tree - working

October 30, 2003 13:45:23.148

Tests are fine, but - If your test sucks, it proves nothing. That's what I took away from this afternoon's little discovery. I had not been able to reproduce the reported problems with the all new in tree view for Bf - and it was the sample feed setup (the test) that was wrong. My tests weren't deeply nested enough to show me that I simply wasn't following the tree nodes down all the way - and thus, missing some of the nodes. Having fixed that, the view now works as expected. That gets me a step closer to allowing 3.2 out the door - it was the last known issue.

Post 3.2, the code will switch to VW 7.2 - and a new runtime. With a new runtime, I'm breaking the system into more loadable components, so that updates are less monolithic. I'm also going to start looking into a way to save/load the feeds and feed info faster.

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humor

Scary Movies

October 30, 2003 10:38:05.383

Geek Humor in movie titles....

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news

Blogging, and (job) security

October 30, 2003 9:10:19.858

I saw this news yesterday - Microsoft laid this guy off because of a picture he posted to his blog. The issue seems to be security - MS is a large company with a number of enemies, and they have policies dealing with physical plant security - i.e., no photos. This photo seems pretty inocuous, but it also looks like they were simply following policy. It's another thing you have to be careful about in corporate blogging - bottom line, you kind of need to imagine that everything you write is actually a phone call at corporate headquarters - and ask yourself whether such a phone call would be appropriate.

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management

Imagine that - issues in outsourcing

October 30, 2003 8:47:53.663

The Register reports that there are emerging issues with outsourcing in India:

India's business process outsourcing market is expanding rapidly, but cracks are beginning to show. Concern is growing over a tightening supply of skilled IT workers, and a high rate of attrition among workers in the sector, particularly in offshore call centers.

So - demand for these jobs is up - which tightens supply, makes people move between jobs more quickly - and raises costs. Not a terribly big surprise - Silicon Valley watched that progression in a big way during the late 90's, and it's simply repeating itself in India. Watch for costs to rise enough that over the next few years - given the inherent overhead of outsourcing - savings will pretty much evaporate in India. That will drive the business elsewhere, but:

  • English language skills aren't as prevalent elsewhere as they are in India
  • The problems brought up in this article are going to repeat no matter where the outsourcing goes

Basically, the savings associated with outsourcing are going to be a pretty short lived phenomenon.

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development

Suggested projects

October 30, 2003 8:35:33.237

Ted Leung has a suggested Python project - creating an automated type annotater for Python programs - the stated goal being to provide a tool that could be used on Python files to give some confidence that type unsafe operations were not going to happen. IMHO, there's a better goal for that kind of thing, and it's something we see the need for in Smalltalk - communication with external systems. Whether we think it's a good idea or not, the majority of the non-Smalltalk development world is manifestly typed. In particular, the popular RPC mechanisms - CORBA, SOAP, RMI, DCOM - all expect manifest type information. What that means for a Smalltalker (or Python developer) is a need to annotate the interface - IDL, WSDL, etc. Having something that reliably inferred types for the purpose of generating those interop specs would be highly useful - and, IMHO, far more valuable than any other output. A good set of tests proves more about correctness IMHO.

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news

Re: Flying home

October 30, 2003 8:28:17.504

Via Doc Searls comes this link - a shot of the smoke plumes from the California wild fires from space. Whoa

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rss

RSS - taken for granted

October 29, 2003 18:17:17.314

InfoWorld TechWatch has an interesting take on RSS - it's reached maturity with the tech crowd, while "corporate" still isn't using it much. I can attest to that - the Smalltalk engineering group here at Cincom uses RSS, blogs, and aggregators quite a bit - but our marketing group is still trying to wrap their heads around the idea. It's going to be catch up for awhile at that level, I think

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development

Sad, really

October 29, 2003 18:05:53.630

So here's a post on LongHorn, replete with the now obligatory "It's better than Mac" yelling. In the middle of the post is something I found amusing, and kind of sad:

Speaking of Allchin, you've not lived until you've watched a group vice-president (Allchin owns Platforms, which means that he has ultimate responsibility for what goes into Windows - what you'd expect to be a fairly PHB role) go head to head with Don Box on the latter's preference for emacs (Allchin's apparently a vi man) and then write code live on stage in front of seven thousand geeks and a worldwide audience. Oh, and argue variable naming conventions too. Either a) the guy's been drilled to within an inch of his life or b) he's a quick re-learner (or, even more scary, c) he's more competent than about 50% of the dreck that wears the "Software Developer" badge)

So - to write code, neither of these people use MS tools (like, say - VS, or even an MS text editor)? They stood in front of an audience and made the implicit point that either Emacs or VI are better for code development than MS tools are. That, to me, is a marketing blunder of the first order. Wonder if anyone else picked up on it....

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BottomFeeder

BF to 7.2

October 29, 2003 15:47:29.190

There are a few things to iron out before I can release 3.2 of BottomFeeder - but I've also started the transition to VW 7.2. That's going to be released in November, and it will require a new BottomFeeder runtime - so while I'm at it, I figured I'd clean up a few other issues. There are some packages I've decided to split out and make loadable at startup - mostly so that they can be more easily updated by end users. I've got the basics of that in order. I've also got most of the 3.2 issues ironed - the only possible worry is the new "new in tree" view, which I've gotten some reports of trouble on. I'll be looking at that and trying to reproduce.

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development

Relative urls in a redirect

October 29, 2003 9:55:23.520

I'm not sure I like the way that the new sblog is set up. In particular, have a look at the feed. That's a link that immediately issues a 302 to a relative url. I'm not sure that's a great idea; nevertheless, the fact that it wasn't working in BottomFeeder was a bug which I just fixed (in the dev stream). The problem was - I wasn't expecting relative urls in the redirect (which is a bug). That's fixed; you should be able to deal with SBlog feeds now (or any other feed that issues a 302 and redirects to a relative url)

Update: - as you'll see in the comments, the lack of links in the feed is an "out of time" issue, not something silly. So what I wrote below just makes me look bad. Oh well... removing foot from mouth...

I have another issue with the SBlog feeds though - there are no link items - either for the feed itself, or for the items. Now, I understand the whole idealogical position of "HREF Considered Harmful". That's all fine and good, but it clashes with the expected usage of the web and of blogs. Those feed elements really, really need links....

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development

Positives from the MS PDC

October 29, 2003 8:42:55.260

Peter Drayton writes about an interesting event at the MS PDC:

Larry O'Brien's Alternate Programming Languages BOF is happening later tonight. There was some scheduling confusion, in case anyone is wondering where/when: it's at 11pm tonight in room 406AB. Here's the BOF abstract:

C# is super and VB .NET is invaluable, but it's been argued that the greatest benefit of .NET is the level field it provides for programming languages both familiar and exotic. This session brings together language enthusiasts and implementers in a casual atmosphere to discuss and demonstrate both existing languages and works-in-progress. Does the runtime help or hinder particular programming types? Is anyone using alternate languages in production? And, is it possible for us to perform an impromptu interop-a-thon: F# -> Eiffel -> Haskell -> Python -> Fortran -> Smalltalk -> ... ?

If you're at the show, see if Smalltalk gets a mention.

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marketing

Organizational Blogging

October 28, 2003 21:07:40.258

Windley has some excellent advice for anyone looking to promote blogging within an organization. The primary one:

Don't do it if you're not prepared, as an organization, to speak the truth. Blogging promotes, but also requires to some extent, a culture of candor.

That's really, really important, IMHO - and it's one of the reasons that I'm totally unimpressed with the campaign blogs of the various presidential candidates - they are all nothing more than blow dry marketing exercises. Part of the appeal of blogs for readers is getting a much less filtered view of a person and/or an organization. If you can't handle opening up that way, then you probably shouldn't bother.

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general

weird problem

October 28, 2003 20:52:58.595

ok, this was just bizarre. I had to run my daughter out to dance class - before I left, the mouse wheel wasn't working with BottomFeeder. I figured I must have somehow broken something, and decided to just leave it while I was out. 2 hours later, I get back. I get the login screen - keyboard doesn't work. Ok, maybe the USB cable is loose. No dice. Try the laptop's basic keyboard - still no response. Ok, this is now really weird. I can't login; fortunately, I can shutdown from the login screen. A reboot clears the problem. So my question is, what the heck was it? Do I have some virus/worm that got through my firewall? Did my machine overheat and stop something from working right? Did XP just have a senior moment? Is this some bad side effect from the last Windows Update? I have no idea....

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news

The Problem With Abundance

October 28, 2003 16:43:20.771

Peter de Jager has some interesting thoughts on how adaptations for scarcity (both human and technological) backfire when the norm switches from scarcity to abundance:

Anyone considering a new technology should at least ask the question: "What are the long term consequences if this advance reduces costs to zero, or increases access so that everyone with a desire to do so, can use the technology?" That might seem to be a giant 'societal' question of value only to economists and city planners, but it has applications closer to home.

I'll have to think about this one. He makes some interesting points.

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news

Online variance across the world

October 28, 2003 16:36:51.548

Here's an interesting story on the variance in internet usage (men and women) in different regions of the world. The author has an interesting theory on how the 'market size' of language usage affects community building.

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cst

Online Tutorials

October 28, 2003 10:35:05.271

The CST Online Tutorials have changed urls a few times over the last couple of years - I've posted the link above in response to some questions about where they are. In response to a site redesign by Cincom marketing, it's likely that the Smalltalk pages will be moved again in the near future - the main page link will work - but it's probable that the internal links will be rearranged. To get to the online tutorials:

  • start at the main page
  • Select the Education link on the left bar
  • Select Online Tutorials, which should show up under Education after you select it

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law

Looks like the GPL will be tested

October 28, 2003 8:35:17.851

SCO is making an effort to completely discredit the GPL. Looks like the test in court that some people have wanted for the GPL is increasingly likely to take place.

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management

Conspiracy, or ineptness?

October 28, 2003 1:51:36.914

Gordon Mohr explains why one should never attribute to conspiracy what can be more easily explained by imcompetence or sloppiness....

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marketing

Does it walk the dog too?

October 27, 2003 22:17:47.122

The marketing speak runneth over:

Here's my quick, two sentence definition of Indigo in order to give you an idea about the scope of this thing:

Indigo is the successor technology and the consolidation of DCOM, COM+, Enterprise Services, Remoting, ASP.NET Web Services (ASMX), WSE, and the Microsoft Message Queue. It provides services for building distributed systems all the way from simplistic cross-appdomain message passing and ORPC to cross-platform, cross-organization, vastly distributed, service-oriented architectures providing reliable, secure, transactional, scalable and fast, online or offline, synchronous and asynchronous XML messaging.

Hmm. I believe I've been hearing that "solves every problem known to mankind" thing since CORBA and COM came out. Let the marketing hype begin!

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cst

DotNet Connect in VW 7.2

October 27, 2003 22:10:00.482

David Buck likes what he sees from us so far in the DotNet Connect. It'll be preview (beta) for 7.2 - fully supported in 7.3

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sports

What a shocker

October 27, 2003 20:24:12.160

Red Sox fire Grady Little. The owners say it wasn't because of the game 7 (ALCS) screw up, but - I'm sure that played a very large role in the decision.

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events

Ottawa STUG - upcoming event

October 27, 2003 19:59:52.698

The next meeting of the Ottawa Carleton Smalltalk Users Group will be:

Video Screening: Squeakers
Date Nov 19, 2003
Time 7:00 pm

At this meeting, we will be showing the video called "Squeakers". This is an excellent documentary on Squeak and Alan Kay. Here's the description of the video:

Dr. Alan Kay, known as "the Father of the Personal Computer," has devoted his life to the subject of computers and early childhood education. Thirty years of computer innovation and a deep understanding of how children learn is behind his Squeak programming language - and the new math and science projects shown here with fourth to sixth graders.

A 44-minute Hi Def film of interest to parents, educators, and anyone concerned about how children learn, SQUEAKERS features Alan Kay, Jerome Bruner, Seymour Papert, and a special appearance by Quincy Jones.

Location Details

The meeting will be held in Room 5115, Herzberg Laboratories (building 13 on the map ). Pay-parking is available in Lot 1, 2, and parking meters can be found along University Drive. Free parking is available across Bronson Avenue opposite Lot 5.

Please RSVP to david@simberon.com if you plan to attend

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development

Re: Roller Weblogger

October 27, 2003 16:39:23.249

Don Park complains about how large Blog Roller is. I just checked my blog package - it fits in one loadable parcel, drags in a few goodies and base components - and is a total of 83 classes. Maybe Don should look at Smalltalk if he wants to avoid bloat....

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events

Smalltalk Party in Berne

October 27, 2003 9:56:01.909

Smalltalk Party in Berne, Switzerland:

SSUG is organizing a Smalltalk Party (successor of SqueaNic, SmallNic :). We invite all Smalltalkers to join this event to share their enthusiasm and knowledge about Squeak.

WHAT SMALLTALK EVENT
WHERE UNIVERSITY OF BERN - IAM Bern, Switzerland
WHEN Saturday 8th of November 2003 -- 12pm until ...
CONTACT email : bergel@iam.unibe.ch

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security

Now I know why I keep getting spam

October 27, 2003 8:51:56.215

The Register explains security within the context of the average user. Talking to a professor who gets a lot of non-technical computer users in his classes, we see some revealing answers to what most technical folks think are simple questions:

"Do you update your anti-virus software regularly?" I'll ask them. Most look at me as though I'd just asked them if they refloozle their hossenblobbets with tinklewickets. A few will tentatively volunteer a timid, "I ... think so?" Some are willing to admit that they don't even have anti-virus software. At least they're sure.

"Do you run Windows Update regularly?" I'll ask next. Hmmm ... those hossenblobbets really do need refloozling. Some state that yes, they do run Windows Update, but they have no idea what it is doing to their computer, so they just agree to everything and assume it's all good. Most say they've never done it once, if they even know what it is.

"Do you have DSL or a cable modem at home?" is my next question. Ah, finally! A question they can all answer. They know the answer to this one! About half usually have some sort of broadband connection, and they are enthusiastic in their answers: "Yes, I do! You betcha! Love it!"

"Great!" I continue. "Do you have personal firewall software running on your computer? Do you have a router/firewall so your Windows machine isn't directly connected to the Internet? Did you remember to turn off file and printer sharing if your Windows machine is directly connected to the Internet?" A pause ... and we're right back to hossenblobbets and tinklewickets.

It's enough to make someone who cares about security throw up his hands in frustration and just give up.

Here's the great disconnect between most technical users and the people who just want to use computers as a tool. Most people look at a PC the same way they look at a piece of stereo equipment or the TV - they plug it in, and they want it to just work. If there's any user interaction at all, they want it on - at most - the level of interaction they have with a ReplayTV or VCR. You simply cannot expect average users to deal with firewalls, security updates, etc. I know I've posted before that having Windows Update on by default would drive me nuts - but I think it's probably the right answer (so long as it could be disabled manually - most people wouldn't bother).

It's worse than that though. For way too many years now, Windows has been shipping with the defaults set to wide open. Maybe that was excusable through Windows 95 - but by Win 98, ME, and 2000? And XP? This is why there are so many zombies out there sending spam and viruses - because these systems have been shipped in what amounts to a broken state, and the unsurprising has happened - they've been compromised. In most cases, the infections won't clear until those systems are junked and replaced with new systems (presuming that the security defaults for those new systems are reasonable).

Next time one of your non-tech friends asks for system advice, suggest a Mac. You'll be doing the entire world a favor.

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open source

Linux can be as bad as WIndows

October 27, 2003 8:25:51.915

Charles Miller explains how Linux - RedHat specifically - can be as bad as Windows (possibly worse; I've had bad things happen as a result of Windows Update, but never had it result in a completely broken system... yet).

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news

Truth - stranger than fiction

October 27, 2003 0:38:09.062

News flash - Toy dog fart sets off security alarms at airport. That's just too weird....

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BottomFeeder

Amazon Feeds from Bf

October 26, 2003 23:34:37.159

I pulled the Amazon feed builder from the dev build earlier today, but now it's back and upgraded - I though I had broken something, but it seems to have been a problem on Amazon's end. That's fixed, and you can now build RSS feeds for Amazon from Bf - for Books, CD's, and DVD's. It's all pretty cool, and it works nicely. Enjoy!

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development

Going Gaga

October 26, 2003 18:31:49.402

In response to Ziv's comment here:

I'm fully expecting to get Smalltalk - and more specifically, VW and OS - critiques from readers and users. If they aren't happy, I want to know why. As to "caring about performance" with regards to graphics in the kernel - I'll remember that next time I set up a web server; you just gave me another reason to make sure that I use Linux, Unix, or FreeBSD instead of Windows for any critical server task. If MS thinks that game performance is more relevant than uptime, there's very little else that I need to know. With respect to Word, go look for other complaints - I'm hardly the only one that has problems with bullets and numbering.

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development

Longhorn hype continues apace

October 26, 2003 11:36:12.300

Scoble quotes another developer who's gone gaga over Longhorn. What these guys need to do is get out more. Here's a few things they might want to answer:

  • Are graphics still down in the kernel? If so, why? So that we can enjoy full crashes more often? This was right in NT 3.51, and has been wrong ever since. So do the right frelling thing
  • Can I actually put a bullet point where I want it in Word yet?
  • Does Word still produce html designed by morons?
  • Is the window title area still wasting scads of screen space, as it does in XP?
  • Is Log off/Shutdown still located under 'Start'? Do you have any idea how many users get thrown by that?
  • Will every update that comes to the OS require a reboot? Get with the program and figure out what modules are,. for goodness sakes
  • Will the disk defragger in Longhorn actually work, or - like the one in XP - will it spend hours looking at my disk and then give up, having done close to nothing?

I've actually been disappointed in every release of Windows since NT 3.51. Why? Because 3.51 was stable - it ran without crashing, and - at least as I recall - without rot. XP doesn't crash as often as NT 4 did, but it certainly rots after awhile - if I don't reboot after a few days, the whole system slows down. All 9x (and ME) did that, NT 4 did that, and XP does that. 3.51 didn't. As with Word, I suspect that the dev team got bored with a working system and started adding fluff because it was fun.

Here's a tip. I don't care about your new storage model. I don't care about your new API. I don't care about the new L&F. What I'd like to see is apps that aren't actively hostile (the entire Office Suite after Office 97) and an OS that is at least as stable as NT 3.51.

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sports

So much for this season

October 26, 2003 7:47:31.448

The Yankees lost last night, and I didn't even see it - I got the news on my phone, which I checked at the movies. I just got back from Japan, and the wife wanted to see a movie - so off we went to see "Intolerable Cruelty". I had low hopes for this, as it had "chick flick" written all over it - but it was surprisingly good. I laughed a lot - the movie got my attention and held it. I'd definitely recommend the movie. Not as much fun as "Kill Bill", but it was a good flick.

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itNews

Tablets - not selling

October 25, 2003 14:41:17.331

For all the hype on Tablet PC's, my theory about how people prefer to interact with a PC seems to be mostly correct - keyboards rule over writing. Why? Even if you don't really touch type (I don't), you can get a lot more entered a lot more quickly via the keyboard. It seems that many people, like me, just don't like to write longhand if we don't have to. And the manufacturers are getting antsy:

With Tablets failing to attract many 'corridor warriors' and premium pricing making them highly uncompetitive in market awash with bargain notebooks, vendors continue to find making money an uphill battle. Under a million will be sold this year, less than five per cent of the global notebook market, with HP the leader.

If I have to write by hand, I prefer paper - yellow pads and notebooks. IMHO, a Tablet for writing is about as useless as it gets

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general

Gender Genie

October 25, 2003 14:20:34.915

See if you can fool the Gender Genie - I certainly couldn't.

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development

Rhapsodizing over Longhorn

October 25, 2003 14:14:52.669

Scoble waxes lyrical over Longhorn again:

So, how would I look at Longhorn then? It's a rethink of the entire platform. Look at what Windows 95 did for the world. It caused a huge wave of new and innovative applications. The Longhorn wave is going to do the same thing.

Meanwhile, Word still sucks

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smalltalk

Smalltalk Advocacy

October 24, 2003 17:18:05.626

Cool Smalltalk advocacy from Blaine Buxton:

Smalltalk has always enjoyed a small tight community that I love dearly. I'm proud to be part of a smaller community. It sets you apart from the crowd. Being a Java developer is like being one of the millions. Does this mean I would still love Smalltalk if it got popular? My answer would be @#$%& YES! I choose my language on what I am most effective in and find wonderment in. I went back to Smalltalk again because I am more effective in it that Java. I never have to think about the language, only the problem at hand. In Java, I was always forced into thinking about the language with its many shackles to prevent you from hurting yourself. I like being free.

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travel

Back on the ground

October 24, 2003 11:46:44.599

I'm not home yet, but I am back in the US. Landed in Chicago a couple of hours ago - some food and coffee later, I was on the prowl for pay phones with Data Jacks. I actually found a few - but finding one with power nearby (grr - see this post for why that's a problem) was a real hassle. Finally found one, so I've got my mail, my news feeds updated, and my backed up posts up. Home soon now...

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general

Why the spam doesn't stop

October 24, 2003 11:42:57.382

Because it works:

About a third of people responded to a spam, seeking more information. And 7 percent actually bought a product or service.

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news

Search by text in the books?

October 24, 2003 11:40:41.454

CNET News reports that Amazon is now allowing full text search by book content - not just subject, author, and title. Wow...

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development

PDC - not for non Softies?

October 24, 2003 11:40:19.912

InfoWorld TechWatch has only half the story:

Microsoft apparently will keep either pretending that Java is nothing to worry about or will keep trying to get developers to drop it altogether.

Yep. And Sun will keep pretending that Linux isn't that important. Want to guess which blind spot will end up doing more damage?

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continuations

Continuation based web apps explained

October 24, 2003 11:40:00.162

Avi Bryant pushes out a useful analogy for Continuation based web apps:

My argument is that this content or service view of the web doesn't scale up to the application level. It's like unix commands - it's nice that you can string together cat and sort and grep to do useful things, and that these provide services that anyone can take advantage of. But even though the loose coupling is great, you're going to have a real hard time writing emacs as a shell script. Or even pine. At a certain point, you need a richer model of state, of components, and of control flow. Building a complex application by stringing together a series of simple stateless parts, at the level of granularity we're talking about (essentially one user interaction per part), is madness.

Go read the whole thing. I'm not entirely certain that I completely agree (I'm more of the mind that HTML based apps suck), but he makes some very good points

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continuations

Continuation based web apps explained

October 24, 2003 11:40:00.162

Avi Bryant pushes out a useful analogy for Continuation based web apps:

My argument is that this content or service view of the web doesn't scale up to the application level. It's like unix commands - it's nice that you can string together cat and sort and grep to do useful things, and that these provide services that anyone can take advantage of. But even though the loose coupling is great, you're going to have a real hard time writing emacs as a shell script. Or even pine. At a certain point, you need a richer model of state, of components, and of control flow. Building a complex application by stringing together a series of simple stateless parts, at the level of granularity we're talking about (essentially one user interaction per part), is madness.

Go read the whole thing. I'm not entirely certain that I completely agree (I'm more of the mind that HTML based apps suck), but he makes some very good points

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itNews

surefire failure

October 24, 2003 11:39:48.031

The senate passes a 'do not email'http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-5095408.html?tag=nefd_top ] anti-spam bill. I'm not sure which will happen first:

  • Hackers gettiing into the email registry for fun and profit
  • Rapidly changing consumer email addresses making the list worthless

I'm sure this will be as popular as the 'do not call' list. I'm also sure that it will be every bit as useless.

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general

I'm with him on that

October 24, 2003 11:39:21.778

In a piece on the Windows iPod, Dare Obasanjo says somthing I've been thinking about converged devices for awhile now:

I guess I'm about the reveal myself as being a Luddite but I have no problem with the B & W iPod interface nor am I interested in taking pictures or playing videos on my music player. This annoying convergence of features has not interested me in my cell phone (which happen to have lost useful features over time like password protected address books for frivolous shit like games, web browsing and taking pictures) and I definitely don't want it in my music player especially if it keeps the price high instead of allowing it to drop to a more reasonable amount so I can pick up a few as Xmas gifts.

That's pretty much how I feel about it as well. I don't really want a mini device with a finger cramping keyboard replacing my laptop, and I don't really want a phone/mini pc combo that doesn't fit in my pocket either. I'm more than happy to carry multiple devices, thank you very much....

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travel

Why I hate foreign airlines

October 24, 2003 11:39:13.520

I've flown a lot of non-American carriers now - nearly always on long haul flights. I'm going to start avoiding them. Why? Well, here I am - long flight from Tokyo to Chicago on JAL - and there's no power at the seat. How flipping stupid is that? It's a long flight, and it would be nice to be able to use my laptop for more than a little while. until the foreign carriers grab a cluestick, I'm going to go out of my way to fly US carriers.

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