Use GMAil ,James?

Spotted in Smalltalk Tidbits, Industry Rants
I am a recent convert to GMail - very neat, love the overlaying of a thread of notes, best Web interface to mail I have seen

Back to Morris Minors

Spotted in Cincom Smalltalk Blogs

Computer controlled brakes anyone?

Paul Graham strikes again

Paul's latest essay is out:What You'll Wish You'd Known

Should I show it to my kids?

$79bn for Iraq?

Spotted in The Doc Searls Weblog

Take it out of the war fund?

Boring

Darn almost a week without a post - dam, what is wrong????

Crossing-the-chasm for laggards

Via James Robertson:It's Time to Fix Tech Marketing - Computerworld: "'How many consultants does it take to make your software work?'"

Darn, more MBA update required.

Disruptive Programming Languages

Spotted in Bill Clementson's Blog

In that presentation, he used Clayton Christensen's excellent book The Innovator's Dilemma to illustrate how even entrenched programming languages such as Java and C could lose dominance and market share when confronted with disruptive changes in technology

I used "The Innovators Dilemma" for "Open Source in Software Development" in my MBA dissertation, so I am a real sucker for this type of analysis. It is interesting that more and more presentations on new languages seem to be popping up; dissatisfaction with the main languages is growing, or is this a quest for more research grants? My bet is that it is the former, and a language radically different from C/C++/Java will emerge ( hopefully sooner rather than later).

Good luck Bill

Good luck to Bill Clementson: Spotted in Bill Clementson's Blog Sometimes unplanned career changes really help - I hope this is the case for Bill and the many other PeopleSoft folk.

Crikey ! Jolly good!

Graham Glass, etc.: School Disco

MDA Limitations?

Forrester Report Shows Developers Reluctant To Adopt MDA:
When companies hear about MDA, they are superficially interested, but when they realize what it entails, they back away. They fear MDA is rigid, is slow and will be difficult to implement

Awesome indeed

Spotted in Lemonodor

" "I became interested in Lisp-like languages mostly from hearing Python programmers look for x in the language, "because Lisp has it". So about two years ago, I armed myself with ANSI Common Lisp, and dived in. Since then, PAIP, The Little Schemer, The Seasoned Schemer, Lisp in Small Pieces, SICP, On Lisp (dead-tree version), EOPL, CLtL, etc. And I haven't looked back; it's over a year since I coded a program more than 100 lines in something other than CL/Scheme. As has been put in more eloquent ways on the RtL highlight reel, all other languages just look fundamentally wrong and unwieldy by comparison. More importantly, from c.l.l and p.l.o traffic, it seems that we're growing in number "

Awesome. "

Mid-rank nerd

Via WebMink:Wx Plotter Fun Tests - Nerd Quiz: "
"

How do I feel about this? Obviously WebMink is happy to be a Nerd - not sure I would be. But then perhaps it would be better to be totally unNerdy....

Don't compare the Mac Mini to the usual PC

Macintosh: It's a User Thing: "The Mac Mini is a game changing system. This thing is so small and cheap, it's opening up new possibilities. Put a Mac wherever in the home it would be handy to have a computer. The Mac Mini is a wonderful example of Apple thinking different that's going to be very profitable for them, and grow their market share significantly. It's the best thing they've done in computers since the iMac. Hell, I never did like the iMac that much. Possibly it's the best thing Apple's done in computers since the original 128K Mac. Despite Apple's perennial lagging in the Java and office software spaces, I'm more bullish on Apple than I have been in a long time. It's a great time to be using Macs or selling Mac software."

"The real problem with this, and dozens of similar posts and articles I've seen around the Net, is that they aren't comparing oranges to oranges. Instead they're comparing tangerines to grapefruits. A Mac Mini is not equivalent to a $499 Gateway PC or white box. It is better than these boxes. Size and design matter. "

I've just got to see one of these things - and I'm someone who puts together computers for th home - erhaps I'm jus getting lazy!!

Open Source Rexx

Catching up on James' blog:The Rexx Language Association - Press Release: "IBM Contributes Scripting Language to the Rexx Language Association"

I used to use Rexx ages ago, and a very good scripting language it was too.

But am I going to look at ObjectREXX now, after so much water has flowed under the bridge, and new languages, especially Python, seem to fil this spot now? Life is too short to investiage every new language......

How do you know want you want, if you don't know what is available?

Spotted in Smalltalk Tidbits, Industry Rants

I seem to remember Paul Graham making this point in "Hackers and Painters"; languages train you to think in their terms. Looking at a new language isn't enough - you have to get in there and try things out, otherwise you won't see the new; instead, look at what other exponents are doing and see whether it helps you - if it does how would you do it in your "normal" language?

Lip macros are a classic - hard to see why you might want them, especially if your language already has something clalled macros.

New Blog: Jean Bezivin

Jean Bezivin: U-Languages or M-Languages; more stuff on UML vs. DSL

The New Analysts

Since James was kind enough to comment on this blog, here is a pointer. A supericial skim shows something interestin. deli.cio.us pointer added for follow-up.

Spotted in WebMink

How to drive up your blog traffic!!

Jacqueline Mackie Paisley Passey: Blogger myths and facts!: "I frequently blog naked!"

PS: I don"T BTW!!

Via scoble

Apple iProduct homo[u]r

iProduct

Apple Haters

I laughed and laughed!!

Boing Boing: More on anti-Alzheimer's curry ingredient: "Interesting reply to my earlier post about the Alzheimer's fighting effect of curcumin, a chemical found in turmeric:

David Soleimani-Meigooni sez: Curcumin also has many other clinical properties such as anti-cancer/anti-tumor, anti-inflamatory, and anti-oxidant properties."

Boing Boing: An "information wants to be free" record label

Sound good ; where can I get thm in the UK?

Whiteboard UML /= UML 2 ?

Quest in Time: Unwanted Modeling Language: "That UML 2.0 is so geared towards Model Driven Architecture (MDA) that it will loose its focus as, and capability for, general analysis."

Fred also points to Martin Fowler's 2003 post with a similar theme.

But what are the specifics? What is missing or what was added that gets in the way ? I think some great diagrams have been added. And if you are sketching you can ignore the semantics that get in the way.

BTW the Rational's Eclipse based modeling tools referred to in Fred's earlier posting would be one of Rational Software Modeler(RSM) or Rational Software Architect, I assume. And they are both available .

Guardian Unlimited | Online | The war on copyright communists: "Software builds on other people's ideas. Claiming royalties on certain fundamental ideas looks like an easy road to endless riches: BT attempted to patent the clicking on hyperlinks in the world wide web. Microsoft has applied for 1,500 patents, some of them nearly as ridiculous. If these were granted, or enforceable, it would stifle innovation and work against the beneficial effects of copyright."

The New York Times > Technology > I.B.M. to Give Free Access to 500 Patents

Have Skype, will travel

Spotted in BeyondVC I think the combination of voice over IP and presence information is very good. BigCo IT departments are trying to stop this citing security and bandwidth problems. I have not seen mention of any Skype security concerns. On the subject of cost savings from Skype, they can be used to justify upgraded infrastructure.

If anyone has seen any case studies on adopting Skype ( or similar) in a corporate environment, let me know.

Well done Southampton University

Quite old news but I missed it completely:Press Releases - University of Southampton

Crystal Balls

Graham Glass, etc.: "IBM announces a new open source language, intended as a successor to Java, that runs on existing JVMs and CLRs. This seems like a natural extension of their existing open-source strategy, and would allow such a language to evolve quicker than through the current means."

Rumo[u]r mill - Live Journal

Six Apart to buy Live Journal?

So long as BizOrg still works with the resulting system I give my approval:-)

Whowa

Spotted in Planet Python

I agree

Java IAQ

A very intersting resource for Java coders:Java IAQ: Infrequently Answered Questions: "Infrequently Answered Questions"

Via William Bland

Scheme and Java

Making it stick.: 3MLOC: "and indeed, Scheme! Yes, the JVM source includes jscheme.jar, used to generate some CORBA classes"

Good luck Grady

Grady Booch faces a tough choice:developerWorks : Blogs

And he compares it with that great human disaster in the Indian Ocean. One personal choice, and the death and suffering of thousands ; life can be tough on any scale you care to look at it. There are no perfect solutions, no fail-safe prevention strategies -we just have to keep going.