Brett Morgan's Insanity Weblog Zilla : Days of our lives. Honestly.
Updated: 6/10/2002; 1:22:27 PM.

 

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Friday, 19 July 2002

Jython Database Munching

Thought I'd see how Jython database coding compared to Java. I needed a quick n dirty script to push some data between databases. Jython rolled in at about 12 lines. Go here to see for y'self. :)
9:08:59 PM    

Who let the lawyers out of the safety restraints

Google tells Amazon Light to Cease and Desist. Amazon Light, a very cool new use of the Amazon Web Services recently introuced (and clearly inspired by Google's Web API) provides a cleaner-than-Amazon interface to the same data. However, they recently report that they've been asked to cease-and-desist by Google's lawyers. The site was very much like Google's (screenshot) but it was clearly in good taste. I'm not sure why Google is so testy about it. Is a books.google.com coming soon? I wonder if they'll go after Whois Report next. [Thanks to Kevin Burton for alerting me to this.]... [Google Weblog]

And, here I was quietly thinking that imitation is the highest form of flattery. Stupid wankers.
5:35:41 PM    


Stepping through XSLT

Amazon Web Services and REST.

A few days ago, Amazon announced their web services program.  Unfortunately, I had two days without much time to play.   Tonight I finally had a little time. 

Amazon's progam supports both a SOAP/RPC model and a RESTful model.  Using the RESTful model, I cobbled up the Amazon results box on the right side of this page.  This is the XSL file that I used and this is the URL I called.   A few observations:

  1. My task was made more difficult by the lack of good error messages from Amazon.  Note the the XSL file specifically passes error messages through.  At first, I wasn't even seeing what little Amazon did send and that was murder.
  2. XSL needs some good tools for debugging and testing.  As it happens, XSL is a programming language with few (maybe no) support and debugging tools.  What's worse its a rule based language, an unfamiliar paradigm for most people.  People used to give me a bad time about Scheme and LISP.  Can't believe they'll use XSL.  See my earlier rant on XML based programming languages if there's some doubt as to how I feel. 
  3. Amazon apparently caches the XSL file that they read from me and so I had to keep renaming it.  There's probably some way to tell it to clear the cache, but hey, what do you expect me to do, actually read the docs? 
  4. The hardest part, by far, was figuring out the right verb in Frontier to do the HTTP call to Amazon and return the result. 

All in all, a surprisingly easy task.  Someone who knew both Frontier and XSL could have probably done it in under 15 minutes. 

[Windley's Enterprise Computing Weblog]

Try ActiveState's XSLT tools, for example:

  • Komodo, a multi language IDE based on Mozilla. Includes the capability to debug XSLT,
  • Visula XSLT, a plugin for Visual Studio specifically for XSLT.

I have heard good things about debugging XSLT in those environments, like the ability to single step the rules so you can better understand how the transformation rules are being applied. Akin to DrScheme's stepper.
5:25:01 PM    


More KM Requirements

IRC Logs Available. As long as everyone is using irc.werken.com for #maven, logs will be available, in real-time, in a variety of formats.... [maven]

Remembering knowledge transfer from instantaneous environments. Could be exceedingly useful in a call center environment.

But, to be able to mine this is really heading into the AI land of understanding english. IRC is so unstructured that anything less is really not going to be all that useful.
5:16:54 PM    


Sign of the times

I am now getting spam asking if I am in debt. Well, err, d'uh. Why do you think i am scratching like mad looking for work? Heh. It is, however, an interesting sign of the times. No longer am I getting baraged with offers of penis enlargement, or rape pr0n, but debt management consultants.

Next I will get spam asking if I want a lawyer to sue people who are spamming me. Hmmmm.
5:08:04 PM    


Programming for fun and ... errr

I learned to script in HyperCard in 1984, and every bit of programming that I now know stems from the rush I got when I realized that I could tell a computer what to do. I was making little stacks with hyperlinks from buttons and images and text before the World Wide Web was a gleam in Tim Berners-Lee's eye. In fact, it's only quite recently that the web has begun to catch up with the interactive possibilities that lurked beneath the simple exterior of HyperCard.

So I'm pleased to see that SuperCard soldiers on, and that an OS X version is due this summer (perhaps at MacWorld?). SuperTalk is an easy-to-learn language, and a great way for beginners to get a feel for writing applications without having to get down in the syntactical weeds. [both2and: beyond binary]

I am still trying to figure out how to introduce programming to non-computer freaks. I think the above post is the reason why. Being able to program a computer is a buzz. I suppose my yearning to empower people to stop being users of computers, and start being controllers, is a form of religious zealotism.

I still think programming is the ultimate form of users interface. Usuaully, the ultimate form of self-torture. Oh well. I never said my beliefs were rational. :)
4:06:30 PM    


Reaction to Dumbing down the UI

Charles has a thorough reaction to my flippant dumbing down ui post. I have to say, I agree with most of what Charles has stated.

The take home summary here is that my post was made from the point of view of a selfish power user decrying the loss of ability to do things quickly, where as charles is pointing out that eliding anachronisms from user interfaces can lead to easier to learn & easier to predict user interfaces.

It becomes a question of ease of use for beginners vs ease of use for experienced users. It really is a hard thing to do to design a user interface that is easy to use for first timers (of just your program, of any program in this category, or of computers in general), but one that can allow, and encourage, the user to become a power user. An interesting study in the possibilities of subliminal teaching.
3:25:07 PM    


Eclipse 2.0 + Jikes 1.16 = jdk 1.4 ide for OSX

Holy Shiznet Batman. I got the latest version of Jikes installed! Now I've just got to figure out how to point NetBeans to it. [weblog.masukomi.org]

Do yourself a favour and try eclipse instead. It has support for jikes (seeing as though eclipse is developed by IBM), and there is a native OSX build. Looks purty too.
1:59:20 PM    


Mac Hall Comic Strip

Mac Hall. Mac Hall is funny. you should go read it. Read it all. Archives too.

Quite possibly the best drawn online comic I've seen so far. [weblog.masukomi.org]

Looks funny. :)
11:49:05 AM    


RSS Readers

dmoz RSS news reader page. I noticed from my referers that there’s a page listing RSS readers at dmoz. [inessential.com]

There's a few there. Even a replacement for radio's news aggregator apparently. Might have to check that out. See if it less buggy.
11:46:49 AM    


Porn Clerk Stories

"True Porn Clerk Stories" [Daypop Top 40]

hahahahaha
11:45:09 AM    


DB Visualiser

I have to say it does look very nice! How does it compare to DB Visualiser? [rebelutionary]

Got an URL for DB Visualiser?
11:43:55 AM    


Analogy history

James Snell to Dave  Smoking is a google-bomb that many thoughts in your head link to.  You have a [googleBox] in your brain that whenever you think of something, it pulls up a list of related ideas.  Smoking is still in the top ten results for you.  You may have broken the habbit, but it's going to take a while for your on-board google database to reindex.  These are the types of analogies I enjoy.  I made one minor edit.

[Sam Ruby]

It's fun to watch the arc of analogies used to explain the brain. During the clockwork age, the brain was compared to huge clock, during the explosion of the telephone, it was a telephone exchange, during the ramp up of pc's, it was a computer, and now it is a GoogleBox.

I think, in essence, we are slowly getting better and better analogies of the brain. I hope so, anyway.
11:37:12 AM    


The future use of idle cycles

Viscous Circle. I attended a presentation Tuesday by IBM on their pSeries (nee RS/6000) line and AIX. The movement of SP and mainframe technologies down to lower-end systems is exciting, as are the Linux efforts. The problem with the Linux affinity program is the same that Windows NT had on PowerPC, MIPS, and Alpha: application support. The applications, typically Oracle, you would run on these systems are binary only for Intel architecture systems, so Linux affinity doesn't get you much. However, Oracle and IBM expect you to run AIX — and if there's something you need that's Linux-specific, run Linux in an LPAR.

But after all the talk of engines and workloads, I got to thinking about what workloads might require the horsepower that's available in systems from HP, IBM, Sun, and others. Most people aren't simulating nuclear blasts, predicting hurricanes, exploring for oil, playing Gary Kasparov, or pretending to fly through space. And because of Moore's Law, cheap systems provide more than enough power.

What new uses will come along to take advantage of this capacity? Will it be nothing more than incremental operating system upgrades? [The Peanut Gallery]

I am of the belief that sooner or later (sooner if I get my shit together, to quote the whitlams), that huge chunk of excess cpu cycledom (a large number of people just leave pc's on these days) is going to be used for AI style stuff.

There is exciting stuff about to happen. Watch this space.
11:34:23 AM    


Laptop + train = coding

Linux on Laptops Manufacturer Report Card [Slashdot]

Y'know, one day I'd like to buy one of these. In my four months at cisco I have become quit addicted to the 2 hours each day spent quietly coding on the train, without the interuptions of management, the phone, the blog, or the instant messaging systems. Peaceful, tranquil, effective.
11:28:26 AM    


© Copyright 2002 Brett Morgan.



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blogchalk: Brett/Male/26-30. Lives in Australia/Sydney/Carlingford and speaks English. Spends 60% of daytime online. Uses a Faster (1M+) connection.
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