One of the great joys of Jython (and Python) is its interactive mode. I have lost count of the number of hours debugging I know I have saved by being able to break out into an interactive shell and poke around inside a running application - examining variables, modifying stuff, doing 'what if' tests and so on.
This Jython interactive servlet looks interesting for this kind of work.

posted by Sean 6:29 AM

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Niticotinis sound like just the job for Ireland in the new year when pubs will be smoke free zones (mar dhea).

posted by Sean 8:20 AM

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Doesn't this sound gorgeous:
"...a faceted structure relieves a classification scheme from the procrustean bed of rigid hierarchical and excessively enumerative subdivision...".

posted by Sean 3:13 AM

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Everything about Rob Pikes old Bell Labs page is wonderful. Read it twice - especially the first bit. Howzatt for an email address r@google.com - an icon to brevity.

posted by Sean 4:35 AM

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Total registered voters = 19,000. Total ballots = 5,352. Total votes cast (!) = 144,000. Interesting.

posted by Sean 6:57 AM

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Thanks to Pat for this link to firebird extensions.

posted by Sean 3:05 AM

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I downloaded Firebird not expecting much yesterday and today it is my default browser. An excellent piece of work.

posted by Sean 1:30 AM

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Hierarchies are a great modelling tool. Why? Because (a) they map well onto the way our heads manage complexity and (b) they allow us to model context. We can put things within other things and nuance the semantics of the contained by means of the container and the container's container and so on.
This, for me, is the essence of XML. Throw away the containership model and what have you got? A language that allows you to describe flat structures. Structures in which context does not play an important role. Structures in which semantics are spot-welded to atomic units of data. Structures in which all contextual knowledge is squeezed out in favour of (ugh!) out-of-band storage of semantics and or (double ugh!) ontological particle physics featuring the standard quarks, leptons and guages known as dates, integers and strings. The impotence of numbers is an ITworld article on this topic.

posted by Sean 2:29 AM

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In this paper, we present Google, a prototype of a large-scale search engine....
From prototype software to English language verb in 5 years. Pretty good.

posted by Sean 11:06 AM

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Good to see Plone getting the recognition it deserves.

posted by Sean 3:30 AM

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Lauren Wood and Tim Bray are the speakers at the next XML Ireland event taking place in TCD, Dublin on Wednesday, 19th.

posted by Sean 12:32 AM

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