Archive: October 29, 2005

Saturday, October 29, 2005

1. InformationWeek Weblog: Kurzweil, Hawkins Offer Different Timetables On Development of Self-Aware Computers (via Michael). To read and listen to the podcasts.

     ¶ (0) Tags: [Programming, Science]

2. ESUG: Online Smalltalk Videos (via Steve). To watch.

     ¶ (0) Tags: [Programming]

3. Sony BRAVIA - The Advert. (via my bro). Check it out. The high-def Quicktime took quite a while to load, and as there's no progress bar I thought it wasn't working, but it eventually loaded once the whole thing had downloaded.

     ¶ (0) Tags: [Commercials]

4. In search of the One True Layout (via Keith).

     ¶ (0) Tags: [Programming]

5. Monads in Perl (via Keith). Perl helped me understand continuations , now maybe it'll help me understand Monads

   Also, here's a thing on Arrows in Haskell (via Keith), which is is some kind of generalization of Monads, it seems.

     ¶ (0) Tags: [Programming]

6. mnot’s Web log: XSLT for the Rest of the Web (via Keith). That's exactly what I intended to do a while back, but never got deep enough into figuring out how to use libxml2 correctly in Python to get something generally usable.

     ¶ (0) Tags: [Programming]

7. Batman Begins was surprisingly good. Recommended if you haven't seen it. I bought the DVD when I bought my laptop so I'd have something fun to watch on it. Watched it in pieces (even while on the bus in New Brunswick) and finally just finished it. Oh, and Gary Oldman rules, as does Michael Caine. Great music too.

     ¶ (0) Tags: [Personal, TV/Movies]

8. Cox & Forkum: Ahmadinejad's Final Solution.

     ¶ (0) Tags: [Opinions/Politics]

9. Cox & Forkum: Grim Countdown.

     ¶ (0) Tags: [Opinions/Politics]

10. Photo Matt » Akismet Stops Spam. Akismet is a web service you can filter your website comments through to protect against spam.

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11. The Zen of Microformats [@lesscode.org], via Simon:

    To me, what’s exciting about microformats is the same thing that’s exciting about dynamic languages, REST, F/OSS, and other seemingly unconnected technologies and concepts: they are all evolving under the fundamental principle that you cannot adequately plan/design large systems upfront and expect them to be successful. That we don’t know anything until we’ve observed it. Respect for this simple truth leads to dramatic changes in how one builds and evaluates technology and you can see this happening to great effect (and with equally great results) in each of these communities.

    But I still don't quite get what a microformat is.

      ¶ (0) Tags: [Programming]

12. Leak Free Javascript Closures, via Simon. Working around browser bugs like this is the reason I don't want to do web development. (Well, that and that I can't make things pretty, and don't like trying.) Of course, I suppose you're always going be working around bugs in something, but not like you do in web development.

      ¶ (0) Tags: [Programming]

13. Here's a video of how to build a web browser with Ruby and Glade in 10 minutes. To watch. Via Simon.

      ¶ (0) Tags: [Programming, Ruby]

14. Does Visual Studio Rot the Mind?, by Charles Petzold! "Ruminations on the Psychology and Aesthetics of Coding... A Talk Delivered at the NYC .NET Developer’s Group, October 20, 2005". To read. Via Simon.

    Update: More at Coding Horror (via Keith).

      ¶ (0) Tags: [Programming]

15. Via John Wiseman, this is the first I've heard about hexagonal chess.

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16. SISC - Second Interpreter of Scheme Code, via Chris Double:

    SISC is an extensible Java based interpreter of the algorithmic language Scheme. SISC uses modern interpretation techniques, and handily outperforms all existing JVM interpreters (often by more than an order of magnitude).
    
    In addition, SISC is a complete implementation of the language. The entire R5RS Scheme standard is supported, no exceptions. This includes a full number tower including complex number support, arbitrary precision integers and floating point numbers, as well as hygenic R5RS macros, proper tail recursion, and first-class continuations (not just the escaping continuations as in many limited Scheme systems). SISC also attempts to implement the standard as correctly as possible, while still providing exceptional performance.
    
    SISC also provides useful real-world extensions, such as networking, elegant exception handling, a scope-friendly module system, support for SLIB, numerous SRFIs, and a Java foreign-function interface.

    Ooh.

      ¶ (0) Tags: [Programming]

17. The Scheme Pet Store, via Chris Double. Here's the announcement.

    I would like to announce the availability of the Scheme Pet Store, a version of the Java Pet Store, written in Scheme. This application demonstrates the creation of a non-trivial, e-commerce-based web application in Scheme.

    Since it's built on top of SISCweb, it's probably built with continuations, so it may be a good example of how to build a real web app with continuations.

      ¶ (0) Tags: [Programming]

18. An Overview of the Singularity Project | Lambda the Ultimate. Singularity is a project out of Microsoft Research whose goal is "to develop a new system architecture and operating system (named Singularity), with the aim of producing a more robust and dependable software platform". Their implementation language is an extension of C#. Seems like I'd be able to learn a lot if I followed the links here.

      ¶ (0) Tags: [Programming]

19. Just What is it that Makes Martin-Löf's Type Theory so Different, so Appealing? | Lambda the Ultimate (to read).

      ¶ (0) Tags: [Programming]

20. Backbase - Rich Internet Applications, via Chris Double. To check out.

      ¶ (0) Tags: [Programming]