Just because...

Just because everyone can now create an XML schema because of all the easy to use GUI tools, doesn't mean that everyone should create XML schemas.

Elitism? No. Most of the people in my experience who are enamoured by the glitzy tools for XML schema development don't have the faintest notion of the fire they are playing with. The wouldn't know a third normal form or an extensible coding system or a cost-center tag, if it jumped up and kissed them.

I can use AutoCAD but I wouldn't dream of designing a house because I don't know enough about houses or building or any of that stuff.

Grrr...

Ultimately, we is just meat machines

Two intriguing and scary and thought providing things this bright Spring morning.

1) trust is a chemical? Is nothing sacred?

2) Metaphor lives in a brain region. I know some people who have obviously taken some severe knocks to their left angular gyrus :-)

Oxen of the Sun

It is increasingly obvious that dynamic languages on the JVM are going to be huge.

Yup. By no exterior splendour is the prosperity of a virtual machine more efficaciously asserted than by the measure of how far forward may have progressed the tribute of its solicitude for those of a dynamically typed disposition.

Hoopsa , Oxen, Sun.

Geddit? I'm easily amused huh?

Hoopsa, boyaboy, hoopsa!

The happy day cometh.

Definition of design

Design: the implicit expression of a set of limitations.

Sticky stuff you cannot see

Blessed is he who names things well, for he shall ship V2 of the Web App without breaking anything.

URLs -- the Dark glue of Web-based process-to-process integration.

Going dotty

I'm shocked, stunned and somewhat embarrased to admit that I have only recently cottoned on to the power of graph visualisation programs such as graphviz.

The .dot files that are at the center of Graphvis are a wonderful example of the expressive power of a well thought out, plain text notation.

When I type "start foo.dot" on a Windows PC command line, Microsoft Word starts (because .dot is MS Office speak for "Word template"). That is of course, fair enough, but it sure tickles my irony bone.

interludrature for geeks

Interludrature is a portmanteau word that jumped into my head in a restaurant Friday.

It combines "interlude" and "literature".

The interlude in question on Friday was the delay between ordering food and it actually arriving in a rather good Italian restaurent.

The literature in question on Friday was the May 2005 issue of the invariably-useful paper publication Doctor Dobb's Journal.

Although I read a lot of geek stuff online these days I still get, and plan to continue to get, Dobb's on paper. Why? Because it is the right size and has the right density of content to be perfect for use use in the inevitable forced interludes in day to day geek ambulations. Its perfect for restaurents, airports and (dare I says it) comprehensive calls of nature.

I keep a stack of Dobb's in a "to read" pile and make sure that my laptop bag always has one or two of them stuffed in it.

Recommended.