Newly discovered design pattern : "Code Well" -- patterns, of course, being simply boilerplate coding to work around language inadequacies
Big in 2008 - Dynamic languages on top of high level languages are the coming thing
Size is the enemy -- and that's before observing that bugs/line has remained pretty constant even as languages become more expressive
Closures and memory -- a salutary reminder that garbage collection is no silver bullet
IE8 passes the Acid2 test. This is big news.
Yes, you can over-do (or mis-apply) web accessibility.
Is "providing solutions to problems" the wrong metaphor for software development?
Demo site for an InfoCard selector ASP.Net control.
As a coda to their 2006 tour, sigur rós played a series of free concerts around Iceland. This is the film of that tour, from their playing enigmatically backlit behind gauze at venues designed for such events, through to acoustic sets in open country, via village halls and deserted factories, and what passes as village greens; in front of packed crowds, in places where they outnumber the permanent residents, to solitary splendour.
Interspersed with the songs are some words from the band, and plenty of atmospheric location film, showing quite how desolate and marginal a place Iceland is -- and some of the native musical traditions and innovations, like the chap who makes percussion instruments from slate scree and rhubarb stalks.
But under it all, it's a hundred minutes of sigur rós music video, which you will either like or not.
As part of their not leaving well enough alone, the tosspots running the country have come up with the laughable idea of adding a Welsh element to the Union Flag.
And I am glad to see that in a Telegraph popularity poll, the idea has been well and truly subverted.
GATTAI JACK DA! -- I'd vote for that!
A sort of Miyazaki does Ghost in the Shell series, set in a not too distant future, with cyber ("dennou" in Japanese) technology that is slightly magical (in the Clarkean sense at least); and everyone who is with the program has a set of AR glasses painting their world. In the overlay are pets (like the dennou-pet dog at the far left), pests (unauthorized autonomous programs called "illegals" - top right - and the official "anti-virus" programs like Sacchi - bottom right) and programs that work a bit like magic spells.
Two girls, both called Yuuko, but "spelt" differently -- one could be read as "gentle girl", Yasako (centre); the other as "brave girl", or Isako (left) -- transfer to a new school, where their paths, and pasts, intertwine.
The series starts out rather like "Just William" in cyberspace, turns into "illegal of the week" ("Long Neck, ;_;"), before the plot that has been being set up in the background picks up into high gear for an intense finish. And although the big reveal isn't world-shattering, it is handled well (unlike other series -- Higurash Kai, I'm looking at you), and the series ends with a proper sense of closure.
There was a "Just kiss her, you idiot!" moment at the end, just before the credits rolled, that was then modified by the epilogue that ran in parallel with the credits, but without damaging the sense that the story had been tidied up nicely.
One of the very best series of the year, with only Mononoke and Seirei no Moribito as competition.
I saw this on Wednesday, the opening night, early evening (which turned out to be in the middle of a long working day, but that's a story for another rime and place).
It was a competent adaptation of much of the best of the three books by far, though shorn of much of its depth and symbols (especially the Magisterium); and CGI is advanced enough today that the dæmons looked fluid and plausible. And the spiral power/helical motor propulsion units for the airships and carriages seemed like the sort of thing that really ought to be.
These days, it's the people who seem to be more fake, or at least the acting feels less than completely sincere. I wonder if I'm getting a touch of the too much anime "3D is pig disgusting!" effect; or just jaded by Hollywood mannerisms.
Not bad, but a bit shallow.
Two elegant uses for extension methods - boilerplate removal, and fluent interfaces.
But beware extension methods that don't honour the contract suggested by their name.
What I learned from Ruby that makes me a better programmer when I use C# -- anonymous methods can be used just like closures when invoking .Net asynchronous method pairs.
I saw the first film in this sequence, Night Watch, at the première at the film festival a couple of years ago; and seeing that the sequel was on for the late show, decided to be a dirty stop-up (and wreck my normal pattern of hibernation at this time of year) and go to see it.
Again, mostly harmless -- it could have done without the mushy bits and the oh so precious teasing with body-swap lezzing about -- but with some of the most spectacular driving effects I've seen in years.
Having pulled a maguffin out of the air in the prologue, the resolution is not a surprise, but the journey there was quite fun.
Using a blunt instrument to sharpen your saw -- looking for the silver linings.
Ruby 1.9 approaches release -- what I want for Xmas is…
The Browser Wars return -- with a key player missing.
The E-mail Standards Project -- new spin-off from the Web Standards Project.
The big ball of mud and other architectural disasters -- how many can you spot?
Clojure -- a Lisp dialect for the JVM.
Scripting on the Java Platform -- considers the obvious suspects, but misses other options such as Scala. With a bytecode cross-compiler and a common API abstraction, it would be possible to virtualize even your VM…
Think Big -- Are we sweating the petty stuff too much?
Sequentially -- Temporal and frequency adverbs for JavaScript.
Samurai - Protecting Critical Data in Unsafe Languages
On the second time, I actually managed to get through to the end of the series. Some of that was the same media-related issues as with the previous series, but much was to do with it meandering around for a while before settling down to being a fairly standard action/thriller, the sort of thing you'd expect Bruce Willis to be appearing in.
It has a strange relationship with the manga, since episodes 20-21 re-use the setting of the chapter Phantom Fund, but cutting it jaggedly loose from context -- and yet it ends with the opening scene to the first chapter of the manga (as if to say, that's it, the manga and/or movies come next).
Mostly harmless.
Process : the true scope is unknowable -- considering the known unknowns
Can language choice assist the pursuit of happiness?
Can expressive languages make code more accessible?
(Yet another) tale of why good developers don't always make good managers.
The challenge of teaching yourself a new programming language -- of which there are plenty of candidates (Ruby, F#, Erlang...) for reboring your thought processes with
Leadership advice from WWII -- still as valid today
Developing an STS with AD FS 2 (part 1)
Ruby.Net 0.9 release -- compiles your Ruby code to an assembly, which the DLR doesn't as yet.
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Copyright © Steve Gilham, 2003-2013
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Code snippets released under the WTFPL
