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January 31, 2006
I Think I Might Even Know Both Of Them ;)
Cafe con Leche XML News and Resources
Meanwhile, over in AOL-land Netscape has released version 8.1 of its namesake web browser for Windows based on Firefox 1.0.x. This release plugs some security holes. All users (both of them) should upgrade.
Every so often, Elliotte Rusty Harold will throw in a subtle zinger that those in whom have a bit of an understanding of the subject matter will be left crying from the preceding convulsions of laughter.
This time its not so subtle and the audience of 'understanding folk' *MUCH* larger.
NOTE TO US Geological Survey: Ignore the next five(5) minutes of 'activity', K. ;)
Posted by m.david at 07:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 30, 2006
[Announce] IKVM.NET Version 0.24 Now Available
I released 0.24.0.1 to SourceForge. João Saraiva reported that ikvmstub doesn't work correctly for mscorlib, but I've decided not to fix that for this version and instead make the correct mscorlib.jars available for download: .NET 1.1 and .NET 2.0
A lot of *EXTREMELY* interesting and important updates this time round. According to Jeroens description from his January 16th post announcing the first release candidate for version 0.24:
A new release candidate based on GNU Classpath 0.20 that was released this weekend. The GNU Classpath progress has been truly amazing. Updated japi results are available here. If no major bugs are found in this rc it will turn into a release, probably by the end of the week or early next week.
With each and every release of, first, Classpath, and then, IKVM.NET, the Java/.NET interoperability picture becomes *MUCH* more clear, and as such, impressive! There are still a few things here and there that require a bit of work e.g. as I've recently discovered, Regular Expressions, a language feature new to the Java language as of v1.4, are not as complete as they could be from the Classpath side of things. However, both Sun and Microsoft have implemented RegEx using the Traditional NFA model, and as such, you can simply use the 'import cli.System.Text.RegularExpressions' made possible by the Java bytecode stub version of the mscorlib.dll. For those unaware, in addition to the mscorlib.dll > mscorlib.jar, there is also System.dll > System.jar, and System.Xml.dll > System.Xml.jar that comes pre-packaged with the IKVM.NET project. If you want to implement others, you simply use the ikvmstub.exe file to compile the desired .NET assembly to a stubbed Java bytecode jar file. Pretty simple and *EXTREMELY* beneficial!
A lot of work has gone into both the IKVM and Classpath projects, led by Jeroen Frijters and Mark Wielaard, respectively. A *HUGE* thanks to both of you as well as the extensive list of other folks who have contributed to both of these projects in *ANY* capacity.
True Legends of Software in both the making *AND* the here and now!
Thanks guys! :)
[UPDATE: I suddenly realized that while I added Jeroen, the developer of the IKVM.NET project, to the "Legends" list a while back (see main page, left column) just as important to the Saxon.NET project (and, as such, the reason Jeroen has *MORE* than earned his inclusion on this list) is the Classpath project. I've already mentioned Mark Wielaard as the lead for this project. And now I've fixed the mistake of not including him in this group of *ELITE* developers who have in one form or another helped in extending both the support and reach of XSLT, promoting its usage as a Domain Specific Language.
Welcome Mark! My apologies for just now realizing that you were not a part of this list before now. Like Jeroen, you most certainly *MORE* than deserve to be a part of this exclusive list!]
---
IKVM.NET v.0.24 Compiled Change Log
---
* Integrated GNU Classpath 0.20
* Changed nant build files to use NAnt 0.85-rc3 syntax and features
* Removed support for compiling classpath with jikes
* Added support for targetting both .NET 1.1 and .NET 2.0 to the build files
* Removed assembly names from type names in map.xml (to better support targetting a different version of the CLR)
* Added conditional compilation support to map.xml parser (based on target CLR version)
* Changed map.xml Object.hashCode implementation to use RuntimeHelpers.GetHashCode when targetting .NET 2.0 (RuntimeHelpers.GetHashCode is broken on .NET 1.1 and the non-virtual call trick is no longer verifiable on .NET 2.0)
* Added map.xml Object.equals implementation instead of relying on System.Object.Equals.
* Changed map.xml VMSystem.identityHashCode to use RuntimeHelpers.GetHashCode when targetting .NET 2.0
* Hardened VMSystemProperties to work better on the Compact Framework (where several methods are missing)
* Fixed several NIO socket bugs
* Changed FileChannelImpl to work on the Compact Framework (stdin, stdout and stderr are missing on the Compact Framework)
* Hardened VMClassLoader to work better on the Compact Framework
* Changed static compiler to use ReflectionOnly context for loading and generating assemblies (when compiled for .NET 2.0)
* Added conditional compilation #ifs to the runtime to work better on the Compact Framework
* Changed compilation of invokespecial bytecode to be verifiable on .NET 2.0
* Added IKVM.Runtime.Util.GetInstanceTypeFromClass() to go from java.lang.Class to System.Type. Note that due to the object model mapping issues there is no one-to-one correspondence from Class to Type, so this method returns the "instance" type, which is logically equivalent to doing Class.newInstance().GetType().
* Fixed ikvm.exe to give a proper error message when using the -jar option on a jar that doesn't have a manifest or a manifest that doesn't have a Main-Class attribute.
* Added several hacks to ikvmc, ikvmstub and the runtime to support loading assemblies in the ReflectionOnly context.
* Implemented optimization in compiler to remove redundant box/unbox operation is many cases.
* Changed compiler to explicitly implement all inherited interfaces, for compatibility with the Compact Framework.
* Fixed DotNetTypeWrapper.LoadTypeFromLoadedAssemblies to support generic type instantiations.
* Optimized compiler to push/pop only the rightmost requires arguments when doing method argument conversions.
* Implement "this" reference tracking in verifier, to enable code generator to emit more efficient (and verifiable on .NET 2.0) non-virtual base class method calls.
* Optimized compiler to use short encoding when possible for backward branches.
* Removed unnecessary verifier hack branch at the end of methods that don't use exception blocks and used short form of the branch.
* Fixed Math.pow(1.0, Double.INFINITY) result on .NET 2.0.
* Added SourceFileAttribute to module when running in dynamic mode, to enable source file reporting when running on .NET 2.0.
* Changed code generator to leave out redundant branches.
* Fixed infinite recursion in resource loading when SecurityManager is installed.
* Changed WinForms event loop thread to STA.
* Fixed handling of open generic types (by making sure they are invisible to Java code).Posted by m.david at 10:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 29, 2006
"Hi. How Can We Help Put A Smile On Your Face? Leave You Alone? Hmmm.... Well Okay."
Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life - I Thought Democracy was the Answer
Lots of people talk about democracy without really understanding what it means. Spreading democracy isn't about making the more places share American culture, it's about giving people the freedom to choose their way of life. The hard part for the U.S. government is that sometimes their choices will be different from the ones Americans would like them to make.
Fabulous commentary! If you are subscribed to the Quote of the Day feed, you will see this twice. Sorry! But this is such a fantastic point, that having two copies in your feed-reader isn't such a bad idea. And you can delete it if you disagree. :)
So here's the question:
The American Way, or the pursuit of happiness, is a nice thing, but I can think of a TON more bad things that have come about because of this pursuit, than I can good. Now don't let that statement cause you to believe I think we are evil people! Most of us are good, honest, hard working folks, and the ability to seek happiness coupled with the ability to seek such happiness via the mechanisms afforded us by Freedom, is often times a *VERY* good thing!
But happiness is defined at a personal level. Not at a national level, and ESPECIALLY not an International level. While I would not want to live in ANY other country from a long term perspective, there are a lot of things we take for granted, and assume that others, even though they come from *COMPLETELY* different cultures, backgrounds, and more, all believe that the "American Dream" and the "American Way of Life" is the end goal.
It's not. In fact, we're an *EXTREME* minority!
What then brings happiness to others? I have my ideas, but they're just ideas... In reality, I don't know what help brings a smile onto the face of someone living in the apartment next door to me, much less another culture in another part of the world I've never visited, and more than likely, even seen in pictures. But I know who to ask:
Them.
Helping to bring happiness to others is a good, admirable thing for us to do. But how about we ask the titled question, first, and be prepared for the suggested answer, respecting others desires to live their life in the way THEY think is right and WILL help keep a smile on THEIR face.
Not ours. Theirs. Isn't it THEY THAT MATTER MOST? [UPDATE: In fact, is that the general idea behind Freedom? One's ability to choose for THEMSELVES, and not have THEIR choices made FOR THEM? By trying to give Freedom, do we instead take it away? Maybe not intentionally. But the best intentions don't always bring the intended results.]
Question: Is the good, happy, warm feeling you/we feel because of "helping" shared with those in which you/we help?
Maybe next time asking first isn't such a bad idea?
Or better yet, if they can, let them ask us.
What if they can't? Something tells me if they can't, we already know. For example, the people of Zimbabwe need our help. Senator Hatch even wrote me a return letter suggesting he would support aid.
I'm 100% certain the aid has not arrived yet.
Maybe it got held up in customs?
Probably, huh?
No. Probably not. In fact, DEFINITELY NOT!
Why?
Posted by m.david at 09:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
On Problematic Mangled Lists
Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life - OPML-o-mater: An OPML-based Recommendation Engine
[NOTE: Hey Dare, [see comment below. Thanks!]
---OPML... otherwise known as the supposed outline format that should not be named. And no, I don't mean "shall not".
"Shall not", as in Harry Potter's arch enemy, Voldemort, or "He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named" (I think that's correct.. or is it "Must-Not-Be-Named"? It's been a couple of years, but one or both of these sounds right.. I hope!
To all HP fans:
If I'm wrong, and you're offended. Ummm... Get a lif... err... I mean, I'm sorry? I mean sorry!! Yes, Yes, Come to think of it, so very, very sorry!!! :D Hermione, please don't hurt me :D
I'm gonna tip-toe away from this one while I still can...
Actually, maybe I Aughtttaaa RUN!!! YES, RUNNNNNINNNG WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA!!!!!!!!!!!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! ;) :D
--
Well then... :) Back to the purpose of this post:
--The OPML-o-mater delivers a personalized list of RSS feeds in an xml format called OPML.
The "OPML-o-mater"?
Oh...
Dear....
GOD!!!!
Do I laugh? cry? Or how about I just stick my finger down my throat and gag this awful feeling out of my stomach and replace this horrible taste in my mouth? Even the taste of... uhhh... nevermind... While the tast of 'OPML' *IS* horrible, I have a weak stomach... So I'm just gonna let you feel in any missing details as you feel necessary...
You're welcome. It's np. ;)
---
Next Item Up For Bid!!!
---xml format called OPML
xml format? xml format??! XML FORMAT???!!!!????!!!!!
R U Jokin'???!!!
If footnote one from my last post, and the refering content's subject matter is, in mine AND *MANY* others opinion, not XML -- others, BTW who, unlike me, choose to play things politically smart and wisely, as they should, avoid making public there own feelings on the matter. With that said, there are things I purposely remain 'stupid' about... This is one of them.
Anyway, if THAT'S *NOT* XML, then this horrid creature from a random Shift_JIS text generation experiment gone HORRIBLY wrong to begin with, to then be served up as UTF-8 (or utf-8... but if it starts as Shift_JIS, I don't thing the case of the tagged encoding really matters as this point. Either way, the result is FUBAR!) is MOST CERTAINLY not!
OPML files can be imported by any competent RSS Reader/Aggregator.
Competent RSS Reader/Aggregator? Does anyone else look at that and state, "Ummm... how about just a valid XML parser? Shouldn't THAT coupled with an easily accessible and understandible specification be all that is required?
NOTE TO ALL XML DEVELOPERS OUT THERE: There are now THREE core areas you *MUST* have apparently if you hope to be grouped with the "any competent RSS Reader/Aggregator":
- a compliant XML-parser
- the ability to write an aggregator against a well known and easily acessible spec
- the "Luck of the Irish"!because working with the various flavors, interpretations, etc... of what is a horrid supposed XML file format in OPML...?
You're gonna need it!
In fact, you're gonna need MUCH MORE than JUST the Luck of the Irish! But lets start there and take things one step at a time before setting any loftier goals. If you knew the size of the mountain you were getting ready to clime, you wouldn't ;)
You want the feeds from the OPML-o-mater because they're known quality feeds --
: according to?
at least they were when we entered them.
You're opinion then?
Excellent! Quick Question: I'm interested in learning more about R5RS. Which feed would you recommend to be the most knowledgable, at least "when you entered them in", of course?
Can you describe the determing factors you used in deciding which feed would best suit the needs of those of us interested in accessing content deemed as valuable to the subject of R5RS, especially in regards to implemtations that held to ideals of *STRICT* core compliance first, to then push things to the next level in regards to extending the libary of modules made available?
Or maybe -- and here's a wild thought -- but maybe those of use who actually have such interest, and care enough to know what R5RS is *BEFORE* Googling for it -- wouldn't *WE* be the more qualified of folks to determine such content to other folks with similar interests?
Even if you already have all the feeds you need, it might be worth a look to discover if we've one or two you didn't know about.
Or maybe -- and here's Yet ANOTHER WILD THOUGHT! -- maybe I could just create a custom Technorati feed using the keywords or links I have interest in for each feed, and, while it relies heavily on the number of links point at a resource, or entries mentioning a topic or keyword, to determine value, while --
--- hmmm... althougth, I'll admit -- we don't gain the *LUXURY* of the feeds being *HUMAN FILTERED* and as such deemed *GOOD*! (at least they were when you put em' in there, right?)
Well, then thats GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME!
...err wait, no its not.
In reality, whats more important to me is that the Technoratis, and the PubSub's and the syndic8's (and theres LOTS more) all have REALLY SMART FOLKS, probably just like you, but who have written some REALLY GOOD, *PROVEN* software apps, and the content they serve doesn't come with a
"It was a good feed when we put it there.. we're not sure what happened???!!! These things happen, though... Seemingly good feeds, end up turning to a life of HEINOUS irresponsibilities!"
[MOMENT.BRIEF: I think I need a tissue... I get all choked up when I think about such ENORMOUS potential that has been lost!]
...errr, wait. No I don't.
BbzzzzzzzzzzT.NEXT!
---
[Comment to Dare: This isn't slamming you or the subject matter of your post, or even, although it probably comes across a bit this way, Bob Rebholz, and instead OPML in general, and the notion that Bob suggests that "finding and filtering desirable content for the rest of us" is a good thing. In fact, this has given me a sudden and immediatte desire to spend a few hours this evening finishing something that will fulfill what it is you want to accomplish with Bandit. In fact, if you ping Uche (I'll ping him quickly now to let him know I made this post) he should be able to at very least help in getting some of your own creative juices flowing a bit in regards to how one of the main projects we have been working on could fit quite nicely into what you're taking about...]Posted by m.david at 07:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Book[@title = 'Head First UML' and @author='Russ Miles' and @last='Russ has a REAL blog!']
// @author RussMiles.com - Home
I am now a Head First author! Thanks in no small part to Brett McLaughlin for all his great support, my audition for HF UML has been accepted and the process of getting the whole shebang contracted is now well underway with training in Boulder, Colorado being kicked off next month.
K, so the first two attributes I had a bit of a jump on the rest of ya.
Sorry.
I know! That's not fair is it?!
Well then,
Take it up with Russ! Comments are now open! There's also an Atom feed. NOTE: Need to talk to the Squarespace folks as they seem to be only serving up Atom 0.3. As soon as thats gets fixed I will make sure and post a link and encourage others to use their services ;)
Other XML data feed formats? I didn't realize there *WERE* any other besides Atom? Oh, my bad...
Sorry... There's an RSS 1.x/RDF feed as well (specified by the good folks behind the RSS 1.x/RDF specification.) That's my bad... I think 'data feed~=Atom', 'semantic web~=RSS1.x/RDF'. That's what through me off.
Huh? More? No, I'm sorry, there are no other...
Oh wait, are you thinking of RSS "2.0"?
That's not XML. [1] ;) :D
---
Oh, that '@last' bit... Apparently I need to read my email more thoroughly next time as it seems Russ sent me an email like a week ago on the subject and it somehow... um... I guess got missed 8|Uhhh... Ooops :)
Sorry 'bout that Russ! But now I know... and now others do to :D
Congratulations on the title Russ!
For those keeping score @home (<- theme? :) that would be...
count them with me...
and now Three titles in the last two years for Russ...
One word: Damn.
Enjoy Your New Knowledge That a Head First UML 2.0 Title Is On It's Way and, Even Better, Authored By Russ Miles-enhanced day!
--
[1] : Ok, technically speaking, it is.But then again, technically speaking... I don't give a shit. If you hope to be a big grown up version of XML someday, you need to use *ALL* of XML, not just the pieces you kind of sort of understand, calling the other pieces irrelevant, or frivilous, or, more specifically, suggesting that the power exists in the fact thats its *NON-STANDARD/STANDARDIZED*!
Huh?
I promise you, they're necessary.
At least by big grown up developers they are. The power being refered to exists in simple things... like namespaces. Without them this "power" otherwise *CAN NOT* exist.
Power exists in Atom and in RSS 1.x/RDF. It doesn't exist in that other format.
Posted by m.david at 04:57 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
January 28, 2006
IronPython Beta 2 Now Available
Hello IronPython Community,
We have just released IronPython 1.0 Beta 2. The focus of this release was fixing bugs that you found and reported (big thanks!), cleanup and re-factoring of the code base and we also made significant progress towards cleaning up FxCop warnings.
You can download the release from:
We responded to the major bugs you discovered with the interactive console in the beta 1 release by dramatically improving our test coverage for this scenario. We now run our test suite both in a normal mode and in a mode that simulates the interactive console. This should prevent future regressions that only appear at the console.
Finally we also continue to improve compatibility with CPython. IronPython now passes all of test_types, test_format, and test_time in addition to the the 28 standard regressions tests that we passed without modifications in beta 1.
We'd like to thank everyone in the community for your bug reports and suggestions that helped make this a better release: Brandon Furtwangler, Catalin Lungu, David Richter, Erin Renshaw, Greg Chapman, Hector Miuler Malpica Gallegos, J. Merrill, jd
A list of the updates, bug fixes, etc... is below:
More complete list of changes and bug fixes:
============================================FxCop cleanup – a large amount of the code base has been made FxCop clean, a large amount of work still remains
Improved internal API surface by making more things private that should bePerf Improvments for nsieve
Bug fix: pow was missing
Bug fix: eval(“1, 2, 3, “) wasn’t returning a tuple
Bug fix: compile(“x = “, …, “eval”) not returning syntax error
Bug fix: error in site.py doesn’t get reported
Generators no longer use exceptions for flow control
Error reporting cleanup
Bug fix: Failure to load a referenced assembly will now throw an exception
% string formatting is complete & passes all Python tests
Closure implementation vastly improved
re module more robust to None inputs
strings can now be multiplied by bools
Bug fix: OldClass that defines __getattr__ now works properly
SystemException now properly maps to StandardException, can now catch Python exceptions using CLR name
Bug fix: type and None now both have __class__ attributes
Added auto-conversions to IDictionary
Bug fix: exec handles bad input better
Bug fix: string formatter allows %d to be used with float values
Generators now use function environments
eval(expression) now raises a SyntaxError for statements
All of time module implemented except day of year / week of year custom formatting
Bugfix: exec x in y doesn’t work properly
Bugfix: del this_name_is_undefined raises different exceptions at console vs imports
Aliased reference support in clr module
Bugfix: Can’t import top-level class from .NET assembly
Code generator updates: Self-hosting on IronPython, generated code moved into their own files
Bugfix: exec(code, dict) is broken
Super console now inserts spaces when there’s no input
CustomDict, Module, Environment cleanup
Bugfix: Closures don’t initialize to Uninitialized
Bugfix: Floating point conversions didn’t handle subclasses of float
Bugfix: Comparison broken for subclasses of float
New fast path for calling overloads w/ different types but same number of arguments
Bugfix: For comparison via IPythonComparable, it wasn't true that a < b <==> b > a
Bugfix: cannot reload sys module
Compile / Execute PythonEngine now allows access to _
Bugfix: clr.References formatting improved
Bugfix: No conversion from System.Collections.Generic.List`1[System.Type] to its self
Bugfix: IndexError thrown when trying to subclass twice from a CLR interface
Bugfix: os.path functions give wrong result on non-Windows platforms
Bugfix: func_code should include the line number of Python functions
Binder binds all names, including globals
Bugfix: Cannot execute generated EXEs
Improved property handling to match CPython
Bugfix: Can’t call CLS instance method w/ keyword arguments
Bugfix: __r???__ method doesn’t get called if we can’t bind to __???__ operator
Bugfix: Binder binds incorrectly when global statement is in outer scope
Bugfix: caller context is now flowed to eval
Binder now binds all names before code gen
Pre-populating locals before code gen
Bugfix: changes to local variables are not affected in the locals() dictionary
locals() now uses environments
list.sort() is now stable and optimized to minimize comparisons
re module bug fix to now clear multi-line / dotall options.
Bufix: Oct and dir were missing PythonName attribute
A module’s __dict__ field is now always a Python Dict (or subclass), not a CLS dict
All tests now pass in Console mode
Dynamic methods used more to prevent leaks
Bugfix: Function f(*args) def'd in console, with two locals, raises a SystemError when accessing second local
Bugfix: Defining a function g which returns a function h (defined inside the body of g) causes a null reference exception at top-level in the console
Bugfix: Class defined in console shows unusual behaviour
Bugfix: IronPython kills CLR
Bugfix: Generators broken in the console
Bugfix: Python Engine: calling multiple python methods
Posted by m.david at 12:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 27, 2006
Senator Sununu on the Audio Flag: "Do we need this mandate at all?"
"The suggestion is that if we don't do this, it will stifle creativity. Well...we have now an unprecedented wave of creativity and product and content development...new business models, and new methodologies for distributing this content. The history of government mandates is that it always restricts innovation...why would we think that this one special time, we're going to impose a statutory government mandate on technology, and it will actually encourage innovation?"
Posted by m.david at 07:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
VoteLinks: <a rel="vote-for" href="...">You've Got My Vote, Technorati!</a>
Vote Links
preamble
Indexing and tracking applications treat all links as endorsements, or expressions of support. This is a problem, as we need to link to those we disagree with as well, to discuss why.specification
I propose that we add a set of three new values for the rel attribute of the <a> (link) tag in HTML. The new values are "vote-for" "vote-abstain" or "vote-against", which are mutually exclusive, and represent agreement, abstention or indifference, and disagreement respectively.Could it get any easier than <a rel="vote-for" href="http://thislink.foo">bar</a>, <a rel="vote-abstain" href="http://thislink.foo">bar</a>, <a rel="vote-against" href="http://thislink.foo">bar</a>?
Yo folks involved with/aware of the VRT project: Whatchya' think?
Posted by m.david at 04:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
"It's Those Damn Canadians Again!"
So here I am on my nightly stroll around my downtown SLC neighborhood (not sure you can consider malls, office buildings, and Temple's a neighborhood, but I'm gonna run with it anyway ;) and, just outside my apartment complex, I find what looks to me like a great little 'eco-friendly' blog post in the making.
"Fantastic!" I think to myself. "I have my camera with me... I'll take a picture and then go home and blog about how great and wonderful it is that folks here in the U.S. are starting to get the point that we can't keep drowning our environment with eco-pollutants and expect to have a half way decent place for our kids to survive in (no, I don't mean live... at this stage survival is about the best I think we can hope for!)"
"Click. Snap!":
"Hmmm.... Out of curiosity I should look to see what type of eco-friendly vehicle this is so I can do a little research and see what this baby's packin'!"
"Ahhh... Hell No!...":
"What," I think to myself "its not enough for our 'Neighbors to the North' to stake claim to the Brothers Bray who are teaching us a thing or two about how to properly build software and live a good 'citizen' based life, but now they've gotta show us how to be eco-friendly too?!"
"Hmmm... Good for them!" I say outloud.
Posted by m.david at 03:36 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
January 26, 2006
PII and Criminal Records
Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life - Personally Identifiable Information and Online Services
Interesting piece by Dare, and definitely an important read. The only thing that has me scratching my head comes from his reference to the wikipedia entry of Personally Identifiable Information:
Criminal record
Obviously this question is directed towards the Wikipdia article:
How is a criminal record not PII?
I can see the point that a lot of people can and have committed the same crime, and as such knowing just the crime doesn't necessarily connect the person to the specific instance of a crime. But who does random Criminal Background Checks? If you're running a CBC you're doing it for a specific reason, right?
I can see a researcher doing a study on a particular crime, attempting, for example, to pinpoint a surge in a particular crime being committed and attempting to find reason for the surge. But that would seem to be the exception as opposed to the rule.
I'm not suggesting that a Criminal Record is *ABSOLUTELY* not PII, I'm just having a hard time seeing the justification.
Anybody wanna help me out here?
Posted by m.david at 10:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Planet Atom Now Live :)
John, Sylvain and I have been working at this on and off for over a month now (we've all been swamped with other things—the actual development of the site was fairly straightforward). Planet Atom is built on an aggregation from Atom 1.0 feeds into one larger feed (with entries collated, trimmed etc.) It's built on 4Suite (for XSLT processing), CherryPy (for Web serving), Amara (for Atom feed slicing and dicing), atomixlib (for building the aggregate feed) and dateutil (for date wrangling), with Python and XML as the twin foundations, of course. Thanks to folks on the #atom and #swhack IRC channels for review and feedback.
I heard rumor that this was in the making. Good to see its now live! :)
Posted by m.david at 06:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 25, 2006
IE to Support Native XMLHttpRequest object?
Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life - IE to Support Native XMLHttpRequest object
To keep focused when checking email throughout the day, I only have one feed coming into my 'Web Clip' viewer in Gmail, that of planet.xmlhack.com. It's always a fun adventure to see who's behind the various post's that catch my interest enough to click, as this information is not provided via this interface. After reading this particular title, I was prepared to give whomever it was a little history lesson if the content turned out to be anything like what the title inferred -- that Yet Again Microsoft was late to the game on this one, but is succumbing to the pressures and ultimately 'giving in.'
Much to my surprise, it was Dare... someone who had no need for a history lesson of any type. In scanning through the post I was happy to see him tack the following to the end:
I wonder if anyone else sees the irony in Internet Explorer copying features from Firefox which were originally copied from IE?
Yep!
In fact, this sentence from Sunava's post:
> IE7’s implementation of the XMLHTTP object is consistent with that of other browsers, simplifying the task of cross-browser compatibility <
:seemed WAY TO APOLOGETIC!
Taking a snippet from from Jon Udell's PDC interview with Bill Gates [I've provided a larger chunk below to provide context]:
BG: Who did DHTML?
JU: You guys did. You guys did, I know that.
BG: Okay. And you know, it's there. Other browsers did the same thing, that was great.
No need to apologize, Sunava :) You folks led the pack for a good five years before before the rest of the browser world caught up (speaking to the XMLHTTP object specifically. DHTML (at least a good portion of it) has been supported since back in the days when they called Firefox "Netscape". Some of you may be to young to remember the way things were WAY BACK in the 20th century, but it's true story none-the-less. ;)
Still, its good to see that MS is exposing the functionality of the XMLHTTP object via a scripting interface, as this DEFINITELY helps bring the security of any given application WAY UP, while at the same time bringing a nice little present to the folks who haven't been able to take advantage of all that this control has to offer due to a "no ActiveX" policy.
Obviously, if you're going to go to the extent of creating a scripting interface, choosing to not-follow the implementation made first by Mozilla and then followed-up by Opera and Safari, would have been the wrong way to 'win friends'. But I think its safe to say that once the decision came down to provide this interface, deciding on how to implement it was pretty simple.
EXCELLENT NEWS! :)
---
A bit more context from the above quote:BG: Say again what you think the two parallel paths would be?
JU: So one would be... Well in the world of data, it would be, let's say XQuery, ECMAScript for XML, things which are standards, in the world of presentation, the future evolution of DHTML and CSS and things like that, as you're actually even using yourselves...well you have been for a long time, but you're using now in a new context with these gadgets on the desktop. So that's one style of doing things.
BG: Who did DHTML?
JU: You guys did. You guys did, I know that.
BG: Okay. And you know, it's there. Other browsers did the same thing, that was great. In terms of this Atlas runtime stuff, other browsers may well do the same thing. Actually, a lot of the Atlas stuff is even independent of that. So I'm not sure of the parallel path you're drawing. Certainly when you look at something like LINQ, there's always going to be these query type things that are outside of normal programming languages. And great, we'll support those things. But the complexity for a developer of having this funny query utterance which is separate from their functions and their logic, that's never going to be as simple as being able to have the set-type operators right in the language itself. And so the two will co-exist. If somebody wants to have that big XSLT thing or XQuery thing inside their source code or just a reference off to another file that has that, great. We support that. The brilliant thing is giving you a choice of having that right there in the logic in a way that's readable. That's the breakthrough, is that the impedance between -- okay, here's my data mapping logic and here's my business logic. Those two things can be in a readable piece of code.
Posted by m.david at 05:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Future Term For "Search" =
"Found" = A paraphrased version of the point I was trying to make in my second to last post.
While we will undoubtedly be typing text into things for quite some time to come, the difference between 'today' and 'tomorrow' is the fact that at the moment we still have to go looking for the things we are desirous to locate. Of course blogs/data feeds have definitely started pushing the momentum in the right direction. And there are several tools out there now that bring contextual content to our doorstep without even 'asking' and instead implying through the blog posts and/or emails we write, the web sites and blogs we visit, etc... In fact, Google has been slowly developing a *MONSTER* of a contextual content delivery mechanism for quite some time.
With that said, Yahoo has been focused around contextual content delivery since day one. In fact, whats interesting about all of this is the we are slowly but surely watching the Yahoo-style of 'search':
* go to Yahoo.com and click around till we find what we want -- or the 'browsing the aisles' type of search. Of course the ability to actually type in a search phrase exists, but their core focus has always been directory-based, or better said, click-to-find.
and the Google-style of search
* Type in what your looking for and get the results delivered to your browser window. Google of course has been pushing things towards more of a Yahoo-style with their various "Portal" projects, but type-to-find has always been their bread and butter.
begin to merge together taking on both a push and pull type look-and-feel. (Maybe the LLUP project makes a bit more sense now?)
Whats even more interesting is that behind the scenes both Microsoft via various contextual search agent projects and Novell via the Beagle project -- which was actually started first, outside of Novell by Nat Friedman and Edd Dumbill via the Dashboard project -- have been working on these same types of systems. [NOTE: See this post from over a year ago for more detail.]
So in reality its not just Google and Yahoo! but Microsoft AND (of all companies! ;) Novell who all have a chance of taking a fairly large slice of the "Future Found Pie."
Hmmmm... ;)
Posted by m.david at 03:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Make ONE call today and save lives
Dear [You who are reading this]:
Thank you for taking action with hundreds of thousands of ONE supporters and encouraging President Bush to keep the promise in the fight against AIDS and extreme poverty.
Today, we're asking that you take one more step. Right now, President Bush is making final decisions about his 2007 Budget Request to Congress, and your one call could help make the difference.
Please call 1-800-786-2663 and ask President Bush to support a $5 billion increase in the fight against global AIDS and extreme poverty in his budget request to Congress.
Your phone call could have a tremendous impact in helping people in the world's poorest nations lift themselves out of poverty. Sticking to the commitments we made in 2005 could help save over 4.5 million lives a year by 2010-all we need is your voice.
Call 1-800-786-2663 TODAY and show the world that America is committed to keeping our life-saving promises.
Thank you,
The ONE Team
Posted by m.david at 03:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Good For You Yahoo!
Scobleizer - Microsoft Geek Blogger � Cede search to Google?
Come on Yahoo. Steve Rubel is right. There is so much left to do it isn’t even funny and if a company discovers a better way to do search they can take share away from Google (which, yes, does have a monopoly share of the search market). I can’t find a ton of stuff on Google, though, the job simply is NOT done! Google hasn’t even tried to do good blog search yet, for instance. Technorati/Feedster/Pubsub kick Google’s ass, which is really sad cause all three aren’t very good at bringing you the best bloggers.
So I agree with the first part of this... there's so much to do, its not even funny. Where I immediatelly take an about face and state "EXCELLENT MOVE YAHOO!" is where Scobel and company suggest this was a bad move. Bad move?
Nope.
Let me put it to you another way...
The future of the search, isn't.
Still confused?
Yahoo!'s not. Neither is Google.
Why put all of that money into acquiring Blogger to then sit on it for all intents and purposes, as is, for a couple years if you were of the belief that in and of itself Blogger 2003 = Blogging 2007+?
It's not. So why push that direction?
If delivering the 'there's so much to do' pieces was really deemed as 'MISSION CRITICAL' in the here and now, with as much talent they now have on 'campus' (does Google have a campus?), don't you think they would have delivered by now?
As such,
Q: Why haven't they?
A: What's the rush?
We're not ready for the paradigm shift yet so to force such a shift now goes beyond *ANY* justifiable business logic. Take for example:
During his Microsoft years Adam Bosworth and his group of developer heavyweights built IE4, DHTML, the XML parsers and processors, the XMLHTTP object, etc... etc... etc..., delivered them.... and
7 years later the world caught up (in terms of both recognition, support on other platforms (XmlHttpRequest), and bandwidth capacity in regards to both high-speed internet access, and processor capability)... And gave it the name of a bathroom cleaner.
Given his position at Google, do ya think Adam Bosworth might be taking the "the web is not ready for this yet... Let's take the time to both build this to perfection and not deliver it until the web is ready for the next step." stance?
I personally can't say one way or the other, as I have no clue...
But it certainly does seem to make a lot of sense.
Speaking in terms of Yahoo!... They have the same level of talent on their 'campus' (same question as above?). They've made a very pointed effort to focus on recruiting folks like Micah Dubinko (W3C XForms Spec Editor) and Dave Beckett (W3C RDF Core and Data Access WG) who, while they undoubtedly have the ability to build a great search engine, are instead focused on XML data binding, presentation, and interaction, and HARD CORE semantic web core technology development.
Do you think Yahoo! might recognize something these other folks seem to have set aside as trivial?
Yep!
What Yahoo! just did (in my opinion, anyway) had nothing to do with conceding and everyting to do with pure and simple GENIUS!
Instead of pushing resources into areas who's shelf-life (in its current "text input box" form) has less than a couple of years left, they've instead sent Google a message...
The message?
"We get it."
"Ready to to take this to the next level?"
LETS GET READDDDYYYY TOOOO RUUUUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMBBBBBBBBBBBBLLLLLE!!!!!!!!
---"ba ba ba bapa bapa, ba ba ba bapa bapa, ba ba ba bapa bapa, ba ba ba bapa bapa, , ba ba ba bapa bapa, , ba ba ba bapa bapa, , ba ba ba bapa bapa,
"YA'LL READY FOR THIS?
"badup bapa bapa."
Things are about to get interesting in this space...
I'd stay tuned for this one for sure :)
Posted by m.david at 07:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 24, 2006
SAML v1.1 On The .NET Platform?
SAML STS for WSE 3.0 QuickStart: Home
Welcome to the community workspace for the SAML STS QuickStart project. This project is a QuickStart from the patterns & practices team at Microsoft. It uses extensibility points available within Web Servies Enhancements 3.0 to built a Security Token Service (STS) that issues Security Assertion Markup Langauge (SAML) v1.1 tokens to requesting applications. To download the QuickStart sample code and associated documentation, simply join this workspace and sign in. You'll see the link in the lower right-hand corner of this page in the "Downloads" section.
And the beat goes on, dadadumdadum...
Posted by m.david at 01:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Practical Common Lisp [Peter Siebel/Apress] Nominated As Jolt Finalist
Books: Technical
-- Agile Web Development with Rails by Dave Thomas et al. (Pragmatic
Bookshelf)-- Framework Design Guidelines: Conventions, Idioms, and Patterns for
Reusable .NET Libraries by Krzysztof Cwalina and Brad Abrams (Addison-
Wesley)-- Practical Common Lisp by Peter Seibel (Apress)
-- Service-Oriented Architecture: Concepts Technology and Design by Thomas
Erl (Prentice Hall)-- Why Programs Fail, First Edition: A Guide to Systematic Debugging by
Andreas Zeller (Morgan Kaufmann)-- Wicked Cool Java: Code Bits, Open-Source Libraries, and Project Ideas
by Brian D. Eubanks (No Starch Press)
I picked up my copy of Peter Seibel's Practial Common Lisp title a few months back, and while I haven't been able to spend as much time as I would like reading and studying this title, what I have read so far is *FANTASTIC*. Highly Recommended to those who want to begin studying Lisp building real world applications instead of your typical theory type samples you tend to see in a lot of titles (see Amazon link below.)
While I don't use the Mac I purchased a while back much beyond my coffee break/shop laptop, true to the "REALLY USEFUL" MacAttackers Mantra, I have discovered many other uses for it. For example, in the following pic you will discover how nicely it works as a book stand, propping up my copy of Practical Common Lisp for a quick pic:
Of course it works just as well a book stand for reading as well!
I hate to admit it, but the MacAttackers are right... It's *UNBELIEVEABLE* how truly useful a Mac can be! :D
Breathtaking, really... ;)
Enjoy your Practical Common Lisp-enhanced (oh, and Mac-as-a-bookstand!) Day! :D
Posted by m.david at 12:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 23, 2006
[Announce] GenerationWe.org Is Now Live
I recently suggested that I had something else to add to the topic of "World Matters". I do. Here it is.
On the frontpage of the community home you will find the following description:
GenerationWe.org represents a new way in thinking about topic-based communications. Using secured end-to-end messaging via a combination of technologies brought together as part of the nuxle.us project (SAML, XMPP, LLUP/Blip), GenerationWe will allow the ability to communicate with anybody, anywhere, on any topic, using a completely decentralized interface. Advantages to this type of system include:
- Subscribe/Unsubscribe to Atom data feeds for a particular forum topic.
- Notifications when a new message has been posted can be set at any level; top-level (all posts to forum) or message-specific.
- Notification contains header-type information with a subject-line summary and (if necessary) associated keywords. Based on pre-configured settings you have the ability to automatically access messages of interest, or access them only when you explicity state "access this message". This puts *COMPLETE* control into the hands of the user without the need of interaction by a forums administrator
- more...
For the early stages of this project the forums are now open. Please Note: While the creation of any topic is possible, a majority of the content discussed will be specific to project developers and may not be of interest to non-developer types. However, with that stated, I have started a forum thread regarding how those of us who live in the United States and other countries involved with the Iraq war can help make a bad situation, better. If you have some ideas, please take the time to share them with the rest of us. Thanks!
The first forum post reads:
It seems to me that one of the most overlooked/under-used abilities of those of us who live in the United States and in other countries that allow such freedoms, is the ability to get involved and make changes. I recently made a post to my personal blog that suggested that maybe a better approach to solving the problems that have come about since the 9/11 tragedies, in particular the Iraq War, was to create a plan and then attempt to put that plan into action using the power afforded to us via our voting mechanism. I then suggested that others who have more notice in the tech industry use their notice and their knowledge to help develop such a plan and bring attention to this plan when the time was right. What I forgot to realize was that I had the ability myself to get the ball rolling. So I am.
Maybe my approach is naive. And maybe what I believe is possible, isn't. But until I try, I'll never know. If I never did try, not knowing coupled with the guilt of "what if" is something I would have to live with for the rest of my life. I already live with enough "what if"'s, I have no desire to live with any others.
I don't have or know the answers to how to help make a bad thing in the Iraq War better. But I'm hoping that others might.
As such, the forums are now open.
Thanks for your involvement everyone!
Until I have finished my commitments/responsibilties to my publishers I don't have a lot of extra time to put towards this project as well as the other related projects. But I do have some. And what I have, I will give.
I've also talked with Kurt Cagle on this subject and he too plans to get involved as do several others. As time permits you will more than likely see some blogs entries appear. Hopefully as time continues, LOTS of blog entries. For now though, I personally can't make any promises and I don't want to make them for anyone else either. None-the-less, expect some activity over the coming weeks and months in these parts.
If you have interest in becoming actively involved in the development of this project and would like a blog setup on this site, please let me know. I will be checking email in the evenings (-0700) and will respond accordingly at that time.
Thanks in advance for taking the time to get involved!
Posted by m.david at 04:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 22, 2006
Disney Buyout of Pixar Confirmed; Jobs = Largest Disney Shareholder
Boing Boing: Disney swaps stock for Pixar; Jobs is largest Disney stockholder
Disney swaps stock for Pixar; Jobs is largest Disney stockholder Britain's Torygraph newspaper is reporting that Disney has bought Pixar in an all-stock deal. Pixar had run out its deal to deliver movies for Disney distribution and was set to strike out on its own; in retaliation, Disney shut down it traditional animation division and replaced it with a CGI division that was every bit as lacklustre as the traditional animation division. Now it's gone ahead and bought Pixar from Steve Jobs, leaving him the single largest stockholder in Disney (!).
The all-share deal will make Steve Jobs, the chief executive of Apple, around $3.5bn and the single largest shareholder in Disney. Jobs created Pixar in 1986 when he paid $10m for the computer animations division of Lucasfilm, owned by Stars Wars creator George Lucas.
I'm attempting to overcome the paralyzing effect the shock of this news has placed upon any attempt at brain activity (no comments from the peanut gallery! ;) and have discovered there are too many unanswered questions to try and think about in one sitting. Questions such as:
* What kind of effect could this have on a future that as time has moved forward seems more and more like a Yahoo!/Microsoft DRM stranglehold on the future, and, with this announcement, instead looks a little more level in terms of the playing field?
* How much of an effect will this have on other studios being unwilling to sign exclusive deals with Yahoo! in terms of internet distribution?
* Will Microsoft's WMA and WMV media file formats find themselves on less peoples media devices because of this agreement?
* How much of this brought about the recent announcement that Microsoft would no longer be providing and supporting a version of Windows Media player for the Macintosh platform? [NOTE: For those of you suggesting that the recent announcement of a five-year agreement between Apple and Microsoft to provide a version of Office for Macintosh null-and-voids this question, keep in mind... Different Business Units = Different Relationships]
* and more...
Seems like an eXplorations podcast in the making :)
Posted by m.david at 04:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Yo Technorati, Your Fly's Unzipped
Technorati Search for: www.xsltblog.com
Buy retin In Acyclovir 18 hours ago Uprisen, buy retin Ostroem, Archbishoprick Hughson, his last-will-and-testament, and Peggy Carey were arraigned for felony, and pleaded not carpet-sweeper. The following gambisons of the laws of the XSLT:Blog[@author = 'M. David Peterson']/Code-of-t...
I noticed the first of these "Buy retin" links on the list of folks linking to this blog two(2) days ago, blowing it off as something the folks at Technorati new would, or at least could, become a problem, and were well on their way to fixing it as I doubt mine is the first/only blog that the spam-blogs have linked to.
But in getting my day started I checked my Technorati account to see if their were any links that did not also appear as a trackback and found yet another "Buy retin" link. This is obviously something that could become a HUGE issue if not dealt with within a reasonable amount of time as Technorati becomes an even more popular and a mainstream source to find up-to-the-second information regarding a specific topic/trend (and there's no doubt in my mind that they will.)
Just so the rest of you know, I'm making this post not to point out fault of any kind and instead as a courtesy. Everyone (more specifically the male-types on this planet) forgets to zip their fly every once in a while, and with the level of talent that they have at Technorati, no doubt they will figure something out in a reasonable amount of time. As such...
Yo Technorati, your fly's unzipped. :)
Posted by m.david at 11:40 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 21, 2006
Why XHTML?
I’ve always believed XML to be over-hyped. It’s good technology, but it’s a buzzword.
A buzzword?
Huh... Just a quick question... How old can a technology be before it loses its "buzzword" status? Here, I'll make it easier... give me a comparison to other buzzword technologies...
... like other buzzwords, such as Ruby and AJAX...
Oh... well that helps. Thanks!
---
To catch the rest of you up,No, I haven't gone all retro on ya and pulled out a post in some old-school forum from 1999. Thats the wonderful thing about XML data feeds. This information is readily available and can be read by both humans and machines with ease. According to the data feed that contains this post (I'd link to it, but you may have to trust me when I state I'm doing you a favor by not linking to it) this post was published on
Mon, 24 Oct 2005 03:44:16 +0000
"But I don't need an XML data feed to tell me that! I could be a REAL BIG BOY programmer and just extract that information from the Last-Modified Entity header which I can then use to safely determine the last time the file was saved to the server, and use this information to accurately determine the last time new content was added, right?"
Oh boy...
You know what... I'm killing this post here as its a complete waste of time trying to talk to folks who, in late 2005, consider XML a buzzword, comparable to other buzzwords such as Ajax and Ruby.
Generally speaking, I try to keep my requests to God to a minimum based on the notion that I have two arms, two legs, a brain, and the ability to use all of them in coordination (at least most of the time anyway.) With this ability I try to do as much on my own, saving requests for help when theres something I TRULY can not do on my own, and furthermore is something that I feel would not be a waste of His time:
Dear God, HELP US! Amen.
Now all we can do is hope.
"Shhh... Ya never know -- oh, I mean -- Yarrrrr never know... if we're REEAAAAALLLLLLLLYYYY quiet it might not even know we're here."
Probably a safe bet.
Posted by m.david at 01:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 20, 2006
[e]CLisp[e]?
Bill de hÓra : Eclips-ing Python
Okay, this just sent chills down my back...
Peter Seibel declares victory. Now all we need is an Eclipse plugin for CLisp- they could call it "Eclispe". And then there would no question that Eclipse, was in fact, a 120M dollar port of Emacs to Java.
I'll stop about 10,000 miles short of suggesting that IBM purposely built deeper meaning into the naming of Eclipse than what the word itself represents. I think we can safely remove any hope that the Eclipse foundation might be willing to listen to any ideas of switching the position of 'p' and 's' but if an OSS project were to start up in response to Bill's post (or maybe one already exists/has been started?) I WOULD propose the following tag-line:
eCLispe : The e's Are Silent
NOTE: There's good reason(s) I hack instead of market. Example ^ ;)
Posted by m.david at 07:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 19, 2006
Googlezmo?
While obvious the marriage of Google and the The GizmoProject (as mentioned yesterday, Gizmo is by FAR and Beyond my favorite VOIP/IM combo-client, which just so happens to be built on top of SIP) doesn't have the same type of "Googlezon" potential, it was either "Enter Gizmo (Exit Skype?)" or "Googlezmo".
If you're response to this was:
"You chose 'Googlezmo' of 'Enter Gizmo (Exit Skype?)?'"
my simple answer would be:
You can read!? No way! Well, if you can read, can you write too? You can?!
Fantastic!
I guess that mean you can go write your own damn blog title Mr. Smart E. Pants!
NOTE: For those of you are pretty sure you just witnessed me
have a hypothetical conversation,
with myself,
that then led to a hypothetical argument,
with myself,
which then came to an end with a hypothetical insult,
directed to myself,here's my advice...
Don't believe the hype!(othetical)
Oh my, did I really just say that?
Yikes!... It's only getting worse, isn't it.
Well then, let me get straight to the point before I make any more of a fool of myself than has already transpired... ;) (Too late!)
Allright Mr. Snippy!!! Thats about en...
...you know what, nevermind... I think Mr. Crazy has had plenty of time outside of his cage today, don't you? (dont answer that!) ;)
As such (or for now, however you choose to view it), from the above link we find:
San Diego, CA January 18, 2006 -- SIPphone and Google Talk became the first major instant messaging networks to launch complete compatibility between their userbases. This relationship is the culmination of over six months of cooperation between the two companies to bring a fully interoperable communication experience to the world. Available immediately, Gizmo Project and Google Talk users have seamless connectivity between the networks as if they were one.
Google Talk and Gizmo Project have invested engineering resources into the server and clients to make communication simple and easy. Interoperable features incorporated between the two services include:
* Instant messaging, which allows users of Google Talk and Gizmo Project to communicate across networks.
* Full address book management, including the ability to send invitations to members of other networks.
* Presence (online, offline, away) so you can see if your contacts are available to chat.For those of you who might find a nice visual aid of just what the Gizmo project offers, I flat out robbed the following graphic from the GizmoProject site. But given that its
a) in the open domain, and
b) being used as an advertisement banner to get people to visit their site, and
c) I could really give is a shit either way as I'm tired, grumpy, and in serious need of an attitude adjustment (isn't part of fixing the problem, recognizing you have one... or twelve.. or whatever? ;)
[Thats not the image, the next one is... but I wanted to point out that when I've become too lazy to even find reason to open up Photoshop to, create a new graphics, or at very least tweak an existing one, and instead am willing to use the same graphic from two post's ago... You know it was time for bed a LONG TIME AGO for me... Sorry for making you victim... I feel really bad :( (BBBAAAAAHHHHH!!! (that was supposed to be a sorta of "Hell Na'/whateva" combined, but I'm guessing it probably came across more like a sheep, huh? Sleep is NECESSARY SOON! :)
Anyway, heres the image I was refering to...
For those who are now stating "Wow! Thats a lot of Bells and Whistles," you might be amazed at just how spot on accurate you are with that statement... Ok, so its not perfect (I'm not so sure I would be all that happy if somebody were to blast me with one of the plethora of Bells, Whistles, and other things with similar (or worse!) annoying qualities. Am I alone in this?) but in all serious it beats Skype in EVERY category including sound quality, native ability to record both sides of a conversation for podcasts and such, no limit on the number of folks in a conference call (actually, there might be, but if there is is somewhere close to the 100 person mark... I think that should be just fine for everything EXCEPT if my family were to choose to have a family reunion on using the Gizmo Conference call feature... and this doesn't include the other half of my family (cousins, aunts, uncles from my Mom's side) that live (mostly) in Perth, Australia (a few have moved to Europe, a few others in 'Uni' (as they term what here in the US we term as college ( I think we're the MAJOR minority... if I'm not mistaken, Uni is pretty common EVERYWHERE but the US) at various Australian Universities.
To save you the effort, and still get the general feel, here's a screen shot from the above linked family-reunion from a year and half ago (I was taking the pics):
Moving past this, and back to the point of the post, which I swear existed when I first chose to make not of this announcement!
Anway, I noticed (and swyped as well) this image of the Adium mascot. I learned of Adium via a Tim Bray post a few weeks back, and after installing it on my Mac laptop, has become have since made it my default IM client on this box. While intially I purchased the laptop as a test machine for the Safari browser, I actually adopted it as my default local coffee house machine as its a bit smaller than my Thinkpad although thicker and a bit heavier. Still, in cramped coffee shop quarters the 12 inch body of the iBook does help, and its a good time to get to know the OS and hardware as well.
BTW... for those unaware, I am an AVID Thinkpad fan! Bought my first in '97 and have upgraded regularly since... until, of course, they sold this portion of their busines, at which point I'm pretty sure to 'you're damn skippy' positive invoked a week long panic attack and at least a tear or two in both mourning and fear of what I was going to replace my t40 with when it came time to "Let Go and 'LETS GET SOME MORE, BABY!!! WOOHOOOOO... THINK-PAD, THINK-PAD, I GOTTA HAVE MY THINK-PAD!!!" which, I guess, is the same type of behavior I critize MacAttackers for having...hmmm.... well, for me its different... (you sure about that M.?)
Ummmm.... No.
(yeah, bed.... soon :),
So anyway, even though I had vowed that after IBM sold things off to Lenovo, my beloved ThinkPad's would be all but gone in a few years, I am happy to see that, thus far, they have done an OK job of keeping things fairly close to what make them such GREAT laptops in the first place... reliability, size, speed, weight, etc... etc... etc...
Then again, with this recent campaign that introduces the titaniumn frame as "the future" I may be speaking too soon.
Hey Lenovo...
DON'T FUCK WITH PERFECTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WE DONT WANT TITANIUM, WE DONT NEED TITANIUM, WE JUST NEED OUR SIMPLE BLACK THINKPADS.Ya think you could handle that?
I sure hope so....
Last part of this post, and then off to LaLa land for me (no, believe it or not, I'm not already in LaLa land ;)
So based on Tim's post, I loaded Adium, and have found it to be an EXTREMELY useful and well thought though design, just as Tim made mention (not that I doubted it to be the case. Tim tends to be right more often than not... Like many, I do disagree with his recent XML post, but I can also understand why he posted it after watching every person on the planet attempt to create their own formats, and as such we end up with some REALLY BAD STUFF!!!
So how does any of this relate to Googlezmo?
Those of you that use Adium will recognize the following mascot icon:
Obviously this was originally just taken off the Adium site, but this one came off the "Extra's" section where you will find the necessary link to download direct integration for Adium/Gizmo which, as mentined, now support the ability to log-in with your Gizmo app to the Google Talk XMPP/SIP-based system.
Sweet!
Enjoy your day! :)
Posted by m.david at 10:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Have You Hugged George Christian Bina Today?
Even with as much hype regarding the release of Oxygen XML 7.0 I've been pushing your way, it's only just now that I am finding a chance to play with the final release for the first time.
Yeah... I need to get a life ;)
But not yet.... still have commitments to finish out... Soon though, VERY SOON (at least this is what I keep telling myself (and you (speaking collectively to the part of the blogosphere who happens to be paying attention at this moment (or that moment)) for that matter ;))
K, I'm not even sure I understood what I just wrote.. bad sign.
So anyway, I took a few moment to watch the above screen cast of Oxygen 7.0 on action, and I have one thing to say:
THANK YOU GEORGE (AND COMPANY)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If I could hug ya right now, I would (don't let that scare ya though... I currently have no plans of traveling to your part of the world for a surprise visit.
With that said, I do plan to attend several industry conferences this year, so if you're at one of them... well, you've now been warned ;) :D
Have I ever mentioned how much I LOVE OxygenXML?
No?
Well then....
I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML I LOVE OxygenXML times infinity!
Thanks again George (and company)! Once again, you've outdone yourself and as a result, have made ALL of us who are proud users of OxygenXML about 10 times more productive than we were before now... which given the fact we were all users of previous Oxygen releases meant you had to dig down deep and find a way to Yet Again Amaze Us With Your Talent And Dedication.
There was never a doubt in my mind before now that the 7.0 release would be spectacular!
But I had NO IDEA how spectacular, spectacular could be. :)
NICE!!! :D
NOTE: For those of you who might be reading this and thinking:
a) uh, phreak!
b) he's being paid to say this, no ones THAT MUCH of a phreak!My answers:
a) you nailed that one, didn't ya!
b) part one: nope. not a dime. part two: no comment. ;)BTW... to ensure that I don't find myself in some awkward situation at some point because of part one of question b... Due to the good graces of George from a while back, the Saxon.NET project, something I'm a part of ;) was given 10 licenses for Oxygen to use for the ongoing development of this project. Obviously Oxygen in an XML/XSLT/XPath/XQuery editor, so while I've never used Oxygen as a way of working on the Saxon.NET code directly, combined with the notion of developing test files, another important point to point out is that George spent a considerable amount of time last year working on bring integration of Saxon.NET into Oxygen. Combined with the fact that Oxygen provides by far and beyond the best XSLT debugger on the market (and has for a LONG time!) you can easily see just how important a role Oxygen has and will continue to play in this project.
With the above in mind, I will admit that I still use one of those 10 licenses to this day, as do many of the others who in various ways, help with making Saxon.NET a better project. But if you look around my site, theres one thing you'll notice that doesn't exist, and after a VERY BRIEF experiment (two or three weeks if I remember correctly), will NEVER exist on my site.
Ads.
Well, I take that back... there are a couple times I have promoted books that I own and enjoy and have linked to Amazon.com via my Associates Account. But if you could showcase that I've done this more than five times in the year and a bit history of this blog, I would be SHOCKED!
Don't get me wrong... I'm not trying to bring praise to myself, and suggest that I am a better person because I don't have ads on my site, and others do. I have no problem with ads... as long as their on other peoples sites :) They just don't fit my style, so I don't have them on my site. So, with this said, there are a few things I do promote. The group of folks, groups of folks, and companies in the left hand column of the front page of this blog, and anyone I feel deserves to be praised for all the good things they have brought into this world...
George is one of those people. I use Oxygen on a daily basis, and if not for his ongoing generosity to keep the Saxon.NET project "funded" with licenses, would have quite happily have paid for each and every inexpensive upgrade I have enjoyed over the last few years. And I am in no way the only person who feels this way...
Just ask ANYONE else who uses Oxygen. They'll tell ya. :)
Enjoyr your OxygenXML-enhanced Day, everyone! :)
Posted by m.david at 06:05 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
January 18, 2006
Take the next step [via the One.org Campaign]
Just received this from the One Campaign. I mentioned a bit ago that I plan to post an entry with each request that comes through the pipeline, and that hasn't changed. As such please read the message that recently arrived in my inbox (obviously you will need to replace my name with yours... I think thats probably OK, don't you? ;) and if you feel compelled by the message, please take action accordingly.
Thanks! :D
---
Dear M. David:Thank you for taking action! You and over 75,000 other ONE supporters have already written to President Bush and asked him to keep America's promise to fight AIDS and extreme poverty. Now it’s time to take the next step:
Please call 1-800-786-2663 and ask President Bush to support a $5 billion increase in the fight against global AIDS and extreme poverty in his budget request to Congress.
With this funding, America could increase efforts to help the 100 million children out of school around the world get into a classroom and moving toward a brighter future. Education is a tool that works in the fight against poverty— so effective that America joined over 180 nations in committing to ensure that all children get a chance to go to school. In America, we know that education is the key to opportunity. Whether it’s a child on a school bus in Des Moines or in a classroom in Ghana, education is an incredible investment that pays off, helping people have longer lives, healthier families and a stable income.
Call the White House today and ask President Bush to keep America’s promises and fully fund the fight against AIDS and extreme poverty.
To ensure your voice is heard, ONE has set up a toll-free number that will connect you directly to the White House in Washington, DC.
Call 1-800-786-2663 TODAY and help make poverty history.
Together, we can show America's commitment to keeping promises that have the power to transform millions of lives.
Thank you,The ONE Team
---Posted by m.david at 03:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
It's Official : Open federation for Google Talk
Official Google Blog: Open federation for Google Talk
We've just announced open federation for the Google Talk service. What does that mean, you might be wondering. No, it has nothing to do with Star Trek. "Open federation" is technical jargon for when people on different services can talk to each other. For example, email is a federated system. You might have a .edu address and I have a Gmail address, but you and I can still exchange email. The same for the phone: there's nothing that prevents Cingular users from talking to Sprint users.
While this news was expected, the fact that this announcement has been officially made means several things:
* A major presence player has chosen to focus on XMPP (Jabber) and SIP (Session Initiation Protocol, see this post for more information.), the two major open standards for communication via XML messaging, and voice, respectively.
* Any client, server, component, or code library that implements Jabber or SIP can interact with Google talk.
* The open standards movement just got a HUGE jolt that should ignite some serious investment of cash flow into applications that extend upon XMPP and SIP
* The other IM folks need to think long and hard about whether or not this presents enough of a threat to their own IM networks to warrant adding support for XMPP.In regards to SIP, believe it or not, Microsoft was the first major company to implement an SIP-based telephony product in Windows Messenger. They've had support for four or five years if I'm remembering correctly. Although, in quickly looking I don't see any real signs of life of the Voice.NET project, which was one of the projects that implemented integrated support for SIP... anyone know if thats now dead? Anyway, not a huge concern, and could have very well been absorbed into the Windows or .NET Messenger projects (the second seems likely.) In fact there's a version of Windows Messenger (different from MSN Messenger... not sure if MSN Messenger implements SIP or not... but thats not of major concern, as the provided links points to a version that supports .NET messenger service, which I believe, although I need to check to be absolutely certain, is the service that MSN Messenger uses.) which provides direct support for .NET Messenger service, SIP, and Exchange 2000, and as such, should allow you to communicate with any users of MSN Messenger, SIP-enabled client (via a server such as Asterisk*), as well as through Exchange 2000. Very nice and VERY extensible from a programmabilty standpoint. Thats a tough package to beat!
HINT: With MS already providing support, Google now providing support, and FANTASTIC clients already in place such as the GizmoProject (which I will use quite often... it kicks Skypes A$$ -- the above linked SIP post will explain more), and Asterisk* or Windows Live Communications Server providing the necessary server-side support, do you think that it might be a good idea to start building integrated support for SIP, or use the exposed API's from any of the above to build IP-based telephony into existing or future applications? Probably a good idea, huh ;).
A quick note: I always find it funny that the areas of MS that provide support for open standards tend to be ignored or conveniently overlooked by the anti-MS-folks/open standards advocates.
Anyway, the question mark that remains through all of this is will MSN and Yahoo follow suit? Maybe I'm being naive here, but I would think that with a 5% ownership now of AOL, gaining support for users of the AIM network is a no brainer. In fact the work for this has already been done and is available as a gateway for corporate users already. Whats also worth mentioning is the fact that Microsoft’s Live Communications Server 2005 SP1 and Jabber Inc.'s Extensible Communications Platform already have gateway support for their customers to communicate across application lines. See this announcement for more details.
Actually, with all of the above, coupled with the recent announcment that Microsoft and Yahoo! had come to terms to allow intercommunication between users of MSN Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger, coupled with existing Jabber/MS and Jabber/AIM gateways in place, adding Google to the mix (and the fact that they own (or soon will, anyway) 5% of AOL) should it just be a given that in the not to distant future interoperation of IM and Voice clients from all major IM and IP-based Voice providers has nothing to do whether this will happen, and instead when (stealing a quote from Paul Graham found in the article I linked to in the previous post regarding Lists)?
Seems like it to me.
What about Skype? That's their choice... its their funeral if they don't, so I'll leave that one alone for now.
Oh, one last note... Through the good work of Eve Maler and her colleagues at both Sun and Microsoft, we will be given support of SAML via Passport (how many 100's of millions of Passport users are there?) as well as interop between Microsoft's .NET Windows Communication Foundation and Java. Through my own recent studies, and through recent email and conversation, it has become obvious to me that SAML and the other web services specifications provided by the good folks of the Liberty Alliance are by FAR and BEYOND the future of secured identity web services interopt via single sign-on mechanisms. Does anybody else make the obvious connection? ;) :D
Regarding Google: In thinking through this, I would almost go as far as suggesting that Google is a bit late to the XMPP/SIP game... While doing a good job of promoting the fact that they are going this direction (not a bad thing, I'm in no way suggesting this is anything but a good thing on Googles behalf), in reality, did they even have a choice?
Maybe not, but either way, it really doesn't matter as I think we can safely now state that through various mechanisms, all the pieces are in place and XMPP and SIP are the future of web-based messaging and voice communications.
Enjoy your XMPP and SIP-enhanced Day!
Posted by m.david at 09:40 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
All Roads Lead To Lists
Over the last few days, there has been one thought running in my head - 'All roads lead to Lisp'. I've tried to get it out of my head but like a tune from the radio, it has firmly lodged itself into my head and refuses to let go. Why this state? Call it a confluence of several items. In particular, these 3.
I found the above quote and link via a recent post from Don Box. I can't really afford the time to browse the blogosphere, but my brain hurts at the moment while I fine tune the final text and code samples of three different chapters, so decided to quickly hit the "bare essentials", a list which includes (but not limited to) Don Box, Chris Sells, Tim Bray, Sam Ruby, Lambda-the-Ultimate, and the planet (Planet XML (http://planet.xmlhack.com)). NOTE: I realize I could get Tim Bray's posts via the planet, but there are times when I can't make it through the full list of "bare essentials", and as such I will start with Don, Chris, Tim, and Sam, and then move to Lambda and the planet if time allows, something that will more than likely happen this time around because of writing this post. But its an important post, and I'll get a quick glance of the planet (and hopefully lambda) in before I close out for the night... a day is not complete without a general feel for whats up in the land of XML and Lambda. :)]
Beyond the fact that the above post ROCKS! and taking the time to read it is a REALLY GOOD IDEA, one thing thats both relavent to this post as well as the Browser-based XML title (and as such, a justified expense in regards to what limited time I have available to spend):
In what I guess could be termed a "discovery" conference call [1] this morning with Eve Maler and Russ Miles, I mentioned to Russ I would add a certain task to my "list" and then commented that if it wasn't for lists I would never get anything done (even WITH lists I have a hard time getting things done ;) This lead to a "yet another reason why I'm such a Lisp Weenie as, to me anyway, everything is a list." (not an exact quote, but I don't remember the exact quote, and this is pretty close)
This would then lead to a comment that pointed out that I've even moved all of my HTML development (see this post from last February for more details) (In reality, XHTML... I don't actually develop using the HTML "DTD" anymore, but by habit I say HTML development) to unordered lists and list items (ul and li) for all document structure, and inline [2] elements such as p, strong, em, h1-h6, etc... (note: all of you CSS weenies who are about to leave a "p and h1-h6 elements are block level elements!" please read footnote two :) for the text of a document. In fact (DISCLAIMER: please see the bottom of this post as to why this site is a bad example of what a production page should look like underneath) if you take a look at the front page of this site [3] you'll see exactly what I'm talking about. Lists are the most powerful programming paradigm we have at our disposal. While you may believe that HTML/XHTML and programming have nothing in common, when brought into proper context you might be amazed at what the reality happens to be.
Using unordered lists and list items for the structure of any given site brings SO MUCH CAPABILITY along for the ride, that going back to even using div's causes me to shudder, much less tables! Even something as structurally "complex" (in terms of the number of columns and rows) as a calendar can easily use list items with pixel perfect precision as made example by the calendar on the left hand side of the the front page. Add to this the fact that you can then use that same markup as a source of data for other portions of your web page, and/or, (even better) use a simple atom feed as the data source to then generate the calendar using browser-based XSLT and CSS, and you may begin to see what I mean. In reality, the list items become the data source, but in terms of programming, I've never made a distinction between code and data... to me its all the same, its simply context that determines which is what, when.
BTW... For a much simpler example of this method (in regards to the amount of content, and therefore markup) as well as a better example (although not perfect... as usual I was in a rush :) of how a proper production page should implement CSS, see the nuxle.us project front page.
This is all I have time for at the moment, but I will try to post more content in the near future on this topic, and if all else fails, you can buy a copy of the Browser-based XML title when it releases (or pre-order it [note: oops, put the link to the other title Kurt and I are working on. Its fixed now :)] on Amazon now) as a significant amount of code and textual explanations has been devoted to using this method for your XHTML development.
Enjoy your List Processing-enhanced day! :)
[UPDATE: I wanted to use the following quote from the post, but when I chose the title I wanted to be able to tie it into the post, and the quote I chose (the first paragraph of the linked post) did a nice job of this... None-the-less, it occured to me I could still add it in, so here it is :
Paul Graham says in 'On Lisp' "The question is not whether Lisp..but rather 'when'". He also talks about Python and how Lisp features have made their way into Python. This brings forth an interesting question - will the next Lisp be Lisp itself? Or some other language? If you take a look at the programming language landscape, Python seems to be the frontrunner now in terms of bringing Lisp features to mainstream programming.
---
[1] : While email can be an effective tool, there are times when actually speaking with folks "live" is necessary to gain a greater understanding of something (in this case a better understanding of SAML from Russ and my side, and LLUP, (and, in part, nuxle.us and ChannelXML) from Eve's) as well as to bring a sense of reality to a world in which virtual reality is the norm.[2] : although, technically speaking, a paragraph (<p>content</p>) and h1-h6 are block-level elements (speaking in terms of CSS), I tend to lump them with other inline element (an inline element is, technically speaking, any element that doesn't break the text of any given document (<strong/>, <em/> (<b/> and <i/>) in HTML terms), etc...) as I tend to think of any element that is designed for marking up text as inline elements, even though, as pointed out, this is technically incorrect.
[3] : The page you are looking at (if reading this on the web, instead of a feed reader [4]) isn't completely converted to list items as I never got around to finishing the conversion of the MT template for the archive pages, and never will... I'm only using MT at the moment as I haven't finished off my own "built from the ground-up" blogging engine, and any extra time I have at this stage is not going to be spent on something I don't plan to use in the long term.
[4] : For those unaware, the Atom feeds for this site always have, and always will, provide the full-text of each and every post.
Posted by m.david at 02:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 17, 2006
[xsl] [ANN] oXygen XSLT Editor/Debugger/Profiler new major version 7
It's always a bitter sweet sorrow for me when I tear the last leg off of the "countdown spider". Over the course of his short but important life, I tend to develop a relationship/bond with...
wait a second...
I wonder if he feels the same relationship/bond I feel? You think the fact that I'm tearing off his legs one day at a time, to then proclaim "Only [days left 'til X] more left!" after the aforementioned process is complete might cause him to think there ain't nothing but PURE AND EVIL HATE inside these veins of mine?
How sad :( If it wasn't for this announcement from George to cheer me up, I think I would start to cry... [DISCLAIMER: No tears have been shed, and no spiders, living, paper, or imaginary, were harmed during the recording of this series of posts. It was a joke people, A JOKE! In other news, you think that maybe Kurt's point regarding meds wasn't such a bad idea afterall? I'll look into that right away.. ;)]
In the mean time, recently, George Christian Bina posted the following announcement to XSL-List:
Hi everybody,
A new version of oXygen is available and it comes with major XSLT and XPath improvements. Starting with version 7 oXygen is a true XSLT IDE with powerful content completion not only on XSLT but also on XPath values and with refactoring (rename, extract as template, extract as stylesheet) and search (references, definitions, occurrences) support. More details about these and pointers to short video demonstrations are below:
http://www.oxygenxml.com/#XPath
http://www.oxygenxml.com/demo/XslEditing/XSLEditing.html
http://www.oxygenxml.com/#XSLT
http://www.oxygenxml.com/demo/XslRefactoring/XSLRefactoring.htmlVersion 7 adds more than 50 new important features, like for instance continuous validation and XQuery debugger and profiler.
The full list of new features and detailed description is available at
http://www.oxygenxml.com/index.html#new-versionBest Regards,
George
---------------------------------------------------------------------
George Cristian Bina
XML Editor, Schema Editor and XSLT Editor/Debugger
http://www.oxygenxml.comPosted by m.david at 11:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 15, 2006
I Knew I Was Forgetting Something!
Kurt: Mark, just finished your last Oxygen post. Have you been skipping your meds lately?
:D
So here's my philosophy... if you can't laugh at yourself, your friends, the times they make fun of you, or they when you make fun of them then:
a) you may end up actually NEEDING those meds.
b) you're friends probably do too.Here's to laughter and its medicinal value in life! :D
Posted by m.david at 11:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
eXplorations, Episode #3: Digital Rights Management (DRM) and the Future Digital Economy
[via my recent post to my ChannelXML blog]
[UPDATE: I've "REMASTERED" the original, cleaning things up a bit more as well as removing one minute and twenty-two (1:22) worth of the music filler which I wasn't completely satisified with. The result is much cleaner (in terms of the sound quality) and A TON easier on the ears, something I discovered to be a bit of a problem with the final mp3 and wav files I originally posted. While still an amateur I'm slowly beginning to understand how to use the editing equipment a bit better. I think you will enjoy the result quite a bit more. I've added .v2 to the last part of the file name before the .mp3 or .wma file and left the other files in place for anybody who has linked to them. However, I have updated the links below to the new file names.]
Fighting to maintain control of its desktop dominance, has Microsoft subsequently been mentally pigeon-holed by the various Internet communities to continually be cast in the desktop role? This question may seem silly , but what happens when the desktop is no longer viewed as 'sexy' and as a result continues to find itself with fewer and fewer lines, ultimately being written off in season fifteen of 'How The WorldWide Web Turns' due to lack of interest from the viewers?
In this episode of eXplorations, Kurt and I take a closer look at Digital Rights Management and the recent root kit debacle with Sony. Could this one event be the downfall of Sony, Microsoft, and any others who choose to continue forward with plans to control that in which we read, listen, or watch by invoking strict requirements that suggest in no uncertain terms when and what we can read, listen to, or watch, with further requirement that we purchase both hardware and software for the content to be readable, listen-able, and watchable in the first place?
Could this last suggested scenario prove to be the real reason behind the season #15 write-off for Microsoft? After all, its not always lack of fan interest and instead the actors themselves who believe they've reached a level of untouchable status and therefore make demands that cause the shows producers to find reason themselves to expose the career-devastating photos they have locked away in the safe for just such a situation. With this suggested scenario, where does this leave companies like Amazon and Google who have been focused on building a grass roots fan following by giving them a cut of their contract each month in thanks for helping to 'spread the word'?
And what about DRM and censorship? Are those in whom invoke DRM control over artistic content censoring these same artists by binding them to stay within the confines of a DRM-based economy? Can the notion of a DRM-based economy survive long enough to even matter? Take a musical journey with me through the course of this podcast and make a decision for yourself whether you agree with the suggestions I attempt to make using the sounds of Rage Against The Machine, A Perfect Circle, and Pink Floyd as my 'voice'. This is probably the most fun I've personally had with audio gear I barely know how to use, and the discussion between Kurt and I has turned out to be a lot more than I think either of realized it to be.
Whether you agree with any of what is presented in this show, 17 minutes and 40 seconds of fun times for all awaits your click. Both Kurt and I are having a blast with this show and we're quite excited to see that others seem to enjoy what we have to say. Thanks for both your time and interest! It is much appreciated :)
[Podcast Data Feed] : [Episode #3 : MP3 Format : WMA Format]
Posted by m.david at 06:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
<oXygen /> XML 7.0 Available On Monday, January 16th
XML editor - XML Editor & XSLT Debugger What is new in <oXygen/> XML Editor 7.0
Version 7.0 of the <oXygen/> XML Editor adds more than 50 important new features like continuous validation and on screen marking of the errors, XQuery debugging, XPath content completion and XSLT refactoring actions.
Just a quick reminder (or announcement for those of you unaware that the release of version 7.0 of <oXygen /> XML is on the horizon) that this Monday marks the release of version 7.0 of <oXygen /> XML. For those unfamiliar with <oXygen /> XML all together, let me summarize my feelings for you and then let you act upon these feelings however you see fit:
<oXygen /> XML ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If you don't already own a copy, I'd encourage you to change that disaster in the making As Soon As Possible, as:
<oXygen /> XML ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)
Q:Does anybody else have a paper spider on your wall in which you've been pulling off the legs at the end of each day as a way of visualizing the number of days left before the release of <oXygen /> XML 7.0, or am I the only one? ;)
Hmmm, not one of ya, huh?
LIARS, ALL OF YOU!!! ;)
No matter, I still love ya. I might be mad atcha', but the love's still here, THUMP-THUMP, THUMP-THUMP. ;)
As such...
Enjoy your <oXygen /> XML 7.0-enhanced Day on Monday! :D
Oh, and as always, Thanks George!
Posted by m.david at 12:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 13, 2006
Yeah, What Uche Said.
Learn how to invent XML languages, then do so ✏Copia
If people would just use decent schema technology, this point would be very much weakened. Schema designers rarely see beyond plain W3C XML Schema or RELAX NG. Too bad. RELAX NG plus Schematron (with XPath 1.0/XSLT 1.0 drivers) covers a huge number of constraints. Add in EXSLT 1.0 drivers for Schematron and you can cover probably 95 % of Atom's constraints (probably more, actually). Throw in user-defined extensions and you have a very powerful and mostly declarative validation engine. We should do a better job of rendering such goodness to XML developers, rather than scaring them away with duct-tape-validator bogeymen.
I could have picked from any number of paragraphs to pull out and highlight, and I urge you to read his entire post, top-to-bottom, instead of reading just this and assuming you now have the general take away. You don't. You couldn't, as there's simply too much good stuff to try and summarize myself, or pull a paragraph out and suggest that in and of itself, this is where the meat exists.
While meaty, yes indeedy (sometimes even I wish I wouldn't say stupid a$$ things like this, so no, you're not alone ;) theres SO MUCH MORE!
Hurry! Fast!!! Go!!!! Read It!!!!!!!
Thanks. Please enjoy your day :)
Posted by m.david at 10:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Reason #1 : People are lazy. Reason #2 : People are lazy. Reason #3 : People are lazy. Reason #4 : ?
Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed: Structured Blogging Will Flop
The intelligence belongs in the network and in the algorithms. The same way that Gmail is increasingly successful at parsing addresses and UPS data from my email, and the same way that Flickr users are fond of tagging one another’s photos, is the only effective way to make blog data become more coherent. Relying on users to do the heavy lifting — however intellectually appealing — is not going to work in the real world of lazy users who see little in it for them.
Found this link on today's front page of Elliotte Rusty Harold's Cafe con Leche and, based on the title, obviously couldn't resist the urge to click-through.
After reading the post, I must say, I could not agree more.
Reason #4 : ? [NOTE: see the original post linked above to the make sense of this post's title.]
Well, beyond the fact that people are lazy, getting them to agree that the exact same thing they are referencing means this, or that, or something else all together is simply impossible. That's not because people are bullheaded and tend not to agree on something just for the sake of not agreeing (allthough that's true to an extent as well) but that ones perspective of something tends to be different than someone else.
In fact, as I recently learned, it's easy to feel two different ways about the exact same thing by simply changing your perspective a bit. Our perspectives change as often as our calendars, and our opinions tend to change at a rate thats not too far behind this.
How to solve the problem?
Well, GMail is a good example of one way. And DonXML is working on the categorization/semantics piece of LLUP that will hopefully bring a certain level of capability without any expectation for the user to do anything more than what they're already doing.
Beyond this? I'm sure others are working on these problems as well, and with the semantic web becoming more and more a part of our lives, no doubt we will begin to see some pretty cool ideas and products resulting from these ideas. Of course these products will hopefully help make our lives a little easier, and a little nicer. But whether they do or do not, one thing they will DEFINITELY do is make us all just a little bit lazier.
But that's our basic human nature. Unless we ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO (or there's something to gain, like 'pleasure'), generally speaking WE DON'T.
Can you change human nature? Of course!
If your name happens to be Evolution or Adaptation then go for it! You have my blessing (even if you don't want it or could care less if you got it.) :)
Of course, you would also need to wait for a good 2-3 million years as well. But your name isn't Evolution or Adaptation, now is it.
Not to worry though... there another term for 'Lazy' that tends to bring about a much more desirable human sense:
It's called 'Efficient'. ;)
Of course, some will agree, and others will not. But most of you don't even care enough to put much thought into it in the first place.
See. ;)
Posted by m.david at 03:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
It Takes A Lot For Me To Feel Justified In Suggesting To Someone "Dude. BREATH!"
[UPDATE: If you can afford the time to "laugh til' ya cry", please visit Tim Bray's follow-up comments explaining that apparently he has had to put the commas that normally serve 'pause, now continue' duty for his blog entries into a timeout to think about their recent misbehaviors.
Hmmm... I hope Tim didn't take my comments to mean I was suggesting HE was the "Dude" who needed to "BREATH!"! Hey Tim, just in case you read the title earlier and assumed it referred to your lack of commas... to be honest I didn't even notice, and instead was pointing out the hyper-enthusiastic DJ bit at the end as a reason I could feel justfied to tell another human being "Dude. BREATH!" From my standpoint, if you don't feel like breathing, you've certainly earned that right and you'll never hear me complaining about it :D ;)
Either way, thanks for the comment and the laugh! You're time is MUCH appreciated! :D]
[Original Post]ongoing ? Rain and Silence and Reggaetón
today I was driving up 101 heading for SFO and didn’t like what KFOG was playing and hit Seek and listened to half an hour of La Kalle which plays Reggaetón and the DJs veer back and forth between Spanish and English three times in the average hyperenthusiastic sentence.
but oh do I know exactly what Tim is refering to (: I think we all probably do to some extent :) with "the DJs veer back and forth between Spanish and English three times in the average hyperenthusiastic sentence."
"Dude. BREATH!"
Of course,
... as the title suggests, for those of you who know me from an "in person" (although my blog entries should provide plenty of evidence to the notion that hyper-enthusiastic personality can be seen in both writing and speech) level know quite well I have very little wiggle room to feel in the least bit justified in suggesting to someone else that maybe, just maybe it wouldn't hurt to slow things down just a tad...
Then again, as a card carrying member of 'Hyper-enthusiastic Creative Types (Not-So) Anonymous', by nature I find that life is WAY TOO short not to find reason [2] to be
excitedhyper-enthusiastic about it. [Please see: DISCLAIMER (footnote one) below.]Whichever side of the "Life's too short not to find reason to be Hyper-enthusiastic about it!' fence you happen to find yourself...
Enjoy your day while it's still today, cuz' tomorrow might suck! :)
Oh, and don't forget to smile and laugh a lot too.
[NOTE: If necessary, please apply the general notion of 'opinion' found in footnote one to this sentence. By-the-way, if you do feel need to apply the general notion of footnote one to this sentence, do you think maybe, just maybe, you're taking life a little too seriously at the moment? Of course, with that said... If necessary, please apply the general notion of 'opinion' found in footnote one to this sentence. [NOTE: anybody who has a hard time understanding what recursion is... this 'paragraph' would be a good example to apply to the general understanding of both what it is, and why it's an important part of both programming, and life. [NOTE: If necessary, please apply the general notion of 'opinion' found in footnote one to this sentence.] << see << [EXTENDED NOTE: Much like writing code, this should also showcase quite well the notion that the implicit/declarative way of describing life -- in this case writing about it -- is a much cleaner, more user-friendly, clutter-free, and less-confusing way of handling the description of life than would be if we chose instead a more explicit/procedural approach. It should also showcase quite well why hackers and lawyers, generally speaking, don't get along with each other all that well. [3]
[EXTENSION-TO-THE-EXTENDED-NOTE: For those who are now suggesting that I need to take my own 'advice' and apply a more implicit/declarative writing style to my blog entries, please keep in mind that it is my opinion that a blog isn't the end result -- the so-called masterpiece that results as the course of life comes to an end and is revealed as a collection of moments that took place within the 'life' (living) that preceded it -- and instead they are the journals, the notebooks, the art-pads, the napkins, and all of the ripped-out pages (or napkins) from all of these that have been wadded-up and thrown-away after realizing we didn't like the result of that particular moment.[NOTE: If necessary, please apply the general notion of 'opinion' found in footnote one to this sentence.] and so on... ;)
Bye for now :)
---
[1] DISCLAIMER: The refering paragraph leans quite heavily towards the opinion side of 'fact'. As such, there's a need to leave ample room for the notion that opinions can only be seen as fact when referred to from an ownership perspective:
"It's a fact that M.'s opinion suggests he believes life is too short not to be hyper-enthusiastic about it. But that's his opinion, and others have opinions that suggest they feel otherwise."
[2] : If necessary, ANY reason is often reason enough. Of course this might require applying ones creative channels to the definition of 'reason' to fulfill the requirement of 'having a good and justifiable reason to feel this way about something' that comes as part of life if you expect people to find their own justification in suggesting "You knows, s/he's got a point. I hadn't thought of it like that."[3] : I think my favorite quote regarding this generalized notion comes from Paul Grahams essay entitled "Great Hackers":
I didn't want to waste people's time telling them things they already knew. It's more efficient just to give them the diffs.
Posted by m.david at 11:55 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
January 12, 2006
Keep the promise to fight AIDS and poverty in FY2007
Keep the promise to fight AIDS and poverty in FY2007 In the next three weeks, the President will make crucial decisions about next year’s budget, including how America will best use our resources to help educate, feed and treat those most in need. As ONE, we’re asking that the U.S. give an additional 1% of our budget over the next five years so we can keep our life-saving promises to fight AIDS and poverty. What could just one more penny of every dollar do? By giving an additional 1%, the U.S. would be able to help prevent 10 million children from becoming AIDS orphans and send 100 million children to grade school.
Each and every time the One Campaign sends me an email, asking me to virtually sign a petition to help continue forward in their efforts to bring relief to those who need it most, I plan to first sign and send my addition to this petition, and then make a post asking you to do the same. For some of you -- scratch that... For hopefully what amounts to all of you reading this at the moment, this will be a repetitive request that you've already seen come through your own email system, and as such have promptly responded. If this is the case, then I highly doubt you have much of a problem seeing this information again. If this isn't the case, and furthermore this bothers you when you see these posts, please understand one thing:
I don't give a shit.
If this bothers you, while I'm willing to listen, I have my doubts I will be able find empathy for your position.
The United States, Canada, Great Britain/Europe, many parts of Asia (particularly Japan), Australia, and a handful of other countries in this world continue to live in insane luxuries while others struggle just to be able to survive (literally) from one day to the next, hoping, but not expecting, to make it much past their teenage years, and in many cases not even much past the age of five.
I don't mean to suggest we are bad people because we live in good conditions. What I do mean to suggest is that in a major majority of the cases, there is no excuse why you can't sign a petition once or twice a month, there's no reason why you can't afford to donate time, or money, or clothing, or anything else for that matter to the Red Cross and other organizations who have made it the focus of everything they do to help bring relief to those people who need it most.
Again, I apologize in advance if these posts become somewhat repetitive, but they're not going to stop. But I know a lot of the folks that subscribe to my blog feed or come to the site every so often to read a post or two here and there, and there's not a single one of you that I don't hold in the highest regard. In many cases, my own attitude about such things is a direct reflection of the things I have learned from many of you, and as such I thank you for this.
There's only one way we have any hope of making a positive difference in a world in desperate need of that difference.
Never stop trying. Never stop giving. Never give up.
Thanks for helping me understand this for myself everyone!
To reemphasize one last point from the above quote
By giving an additional 1%, the U.S. would be able to help prevent 10 million children from becoming AIDS orphans and send 100 million children to grade school.
1 Penny more per dollar.
10 million children grow up with parents who otherwise would not.
100 million children will attend grade school who otherwise would not.What will 100 million children, now with an education, bring back into this world in response to letting go of one more penny of our hard earned money?
Time will tell. But time is something we have, as is an extra penny on every dollar we earn. Time and money is not something they have at the moment.
But they could eventually, and we can help bring this to them.
We need to do this.
NOTE: I have one more thing to add to this, hopefully in the next hour or two if I can get it done. If not, then tomorrow. But its important, and near completion, so one way or another it will be ready to go quite soon. More on this in a bit.
Posted by m.david at 02:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 11, 2006
Hell Ya It Made Me Angry!
Main Page - FreeMind - free mind mapping software
So you want to write a completely new metaphysics? Why don't you use FreeMind? You have a tool at hand that remarkably resembles the tray slips of Robert Pirsig, described in his sequel to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance called Lila. Do you want to refactor your essays in a similar way you would refactor software? Or do you want to keep personal knowledge base, which is easy to manage? Why don't you try FreeMind? Do you want to prioritize, know where you are, where you've been and where you are heading, as Stephen Covey would advise you? Have you tried FreeMind to keep track of all the things that are needed for that?
What about this makes me angry?
Read on...
FreeMind is a premier free mind-mapping (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map) software written in Java. The recent development has hopefully turned it into high productivity tool. We are proud that the operation and navigation of FreeMind is faster than that of MindManager because of one-click "fold / unfold" and "follow link" operations.
In the above linked Wiki entry, the above paragraph precedes the paragraph I quoted to start this entry. The next paragraph that follows these in ordered sequence asks:
Did FreeMind make you angry? Write us (http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=320014), anonymously if you want.
Yes! Well, let me rephrase... Yes, I'm angry, but not at the FreeMind project and instead whoever it is that hasn't told me about this until now!
Do you realize how much time you've cost me because of your complete lack of consideration for my well being?
[COMMENT IN CHORUS FROM THE BLOGOSPHERE ETHER:
Wah.
Someone give the kid a lolipop before he has a meltdown, K?
Thanks.]
Oohhh... Lolipop... Yumm! :)
[The point of this post, if any?
Ya might wanna look into this project... seems pretty slick! :)]
Thanks to Russ for the pointer!
---
That last part was real, btw...Above that?
No ones quite sure, really. Maybe this mind mapping tool will help?! :)
Then again, so would another lolipop. :P
Hmmm... decisions, decisions, decisions...
Posted by m.david at 11:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
No Matter The Language Or Whether The Result Is Faster Than Native Code, In the Hands of A True Master of Code Such As Dr. Michael Kay, The Result Is Always Going To Be Better
---
UPDATE: Dimitre Novatchev has taken a few moments to provide several valuable links, including an additional title that I am currently on hold with one of the eight(8) Barnes & Nobles that I consider within a reasonable distance of my apartment in downtown SLC in hopes that one of them might have it in stock. If not, its either have them order it and wait a week, or order it from Amazon.com and have them send it priority as when someone like Dimitre makes a recommendation for a book (or any recommendation for that matter), you can hedge your bets that it will be on my bookshelf as soon as reasonably possible.Want to be a great programmer? Then seek out great programmers like Dr. Kay and Dimitre and read, listen, and learn as much as you possibly can. When Hackers of this calibur are willing to share with you the things in which helped make them who they are, theres only one thing you can possibly do. Pay attention to EVERY detail!
Please see Dimitre's comments below for more info and access to his provided links and recommendations. Thanks again Dimitre!
---[Original Post]
Native code no longer any faster than Java?
This is an excellent blog post by Michael Smith, which starts off with:
I think he might probably have chosen a bit of a better example to illustrate his point. What he actually compared was a XSLT 2.0 test case, and the implementations he tested were XML Spy (C or C code, I assume) and Mike Kay's Saxon 8.
Can you blame him? If I was a hard-core Java advocate and I wanted to showcase just how capable the Java language was, there is one person on this planet I would turn my attention to...
What?
Oh please tell me I don't actually have to point out who it is I'm refering to?
OK, for those of you unaware (seriously, you really ought to be ashamed of yourself if you don't already know who I'm refering to... Go ->> Oh, > and while >> you're going >> , think about what you've done and come back when you can say you're sorry.
That's right, you better be hanging your head down...
> Keep going ->>
> Little Further...
Ok, I think you've learned your lesson, you can come back now. :D )
["Screw you! I'm going to hang out at Saxonica.com and learn how to write code from a true master of code like Dr. Michael Kay!"]
Wow!
Minus a slight need for an attitude ajdustment[Scratch that... minus nothing, you should be proud of that attitude! :)], you gotta commend the kid for knowing whats up, eh?!I guess we can just leave at that. :)
Well, that and one added question:
What do each of these folks have in common?
---
Geoffrey ChaucerWilliam Shakespeare
Lord Byron
Charles Dickens
William Wordsworth
TS Eliot
Dr. Michael Kay
---Answer [1]:
While masters in their own style, it was with text in which each of these men have placed their mark on their own generation in which time continues to prove one dominant attribute...
While others will follow, each of these folks work have passed the tests of time to be proven to be great not only in the generation in which they lived, but in each and every generation since. You may have to trust me when I suggest that theres no doubt Dr. Kay's code will pass the test of time. Something tells me I don't need to tell this to anybody reading this post, however... more than likely, you feel the same way. :)
---
At the base of the WordPress HomePage exists the following image:
Yup.
What's interesting to me, is while Paul Graham's "Hackers and Painters" title can help bring great insite into understanding what this phrase truly means, it's his ANSI Common Lisp title that I consider to be his greatest work.
The same can be said of all three version's Dr. Micheal Kay's XSLT titles as well as his XPath 2.0 title.
In fact, detailed study of the enlarged version of the following pic (click the image for the enlarged version) will showcase quite well how often I reference the following two titles written by two of the greatest artists of our modern time:
If you don't already own both of the above titles, as well as Dr. Kays XPath 2.0 title and Paul Grahams Hackers and Painters, then why are you still reading this post?
GO!!! HURRY!!!! RUN!!!!!! FASTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nice work.
[note: This links to the source code viewer of the Trac interface for the Saxon.NET project, but 99.most of the remaining 1% of the original Java code is still intact. The Java generics branch is quite a bit different but as made obvious in my SVN comments, this branch is EXTREMELY expiremental, and should not be considered something even close to ready for production. So don't worry about that code and instead this code, as this is where you will learn more about how to write truly great code from the example set forth by one of the truly great Hacker's of our time.]
Why you still here? Go!
---For those who can't help but read every last ridiculous word I write (I have no proof that anybody actually does, by the way, and plenty that suggests they in fact read very little... Such is the lesson's of blogging... If you are writing for anybody but yourself, then you're bound to end up disappointed. Thats not to suggest that I don't want anyone to read this, or feel ashamed or embarrassed by what I write... but in all honesty, so much of blogging for me is simply getting my current thougths out of my head, using this medium as a form of self expression that I just as quickly forget I ever wrote in the first place, yet at the time was weighing heavily on my mind and needed air to breathe. If ever you find yourself wondering why I keep rambling, and rambling, and rambling... its just me getting things out of my mind such that I can allow room for...
well, in all seriousness... more thinking. Then coding. And thinking about coding, then coding some more. Then reading from the work of folks like Dr. Michael Kay, Dimitre Novatchev, Paul Graham, and Kurt Cagle, and other truly great writers and hackers I find inspiration from.
It's fun. I highly recommend it to anyone who find such a lifestyle even at all interesting.
Hmmm... Two of you... actually, thats more than I expected.
Well, you now know the sources I believe to be the best... Maybe you have some you want to share with me?
Would love to hear about them if you do. :)
Enjoy your day!
---
[1] : I have no idea why this is, but if you look back at the list of writers, and poets, hackers, and painters, does anybody else walk away with the feeling that God REALLY seems to like Great Britain, as for whatever reason he keeps sending GB His best talent...Just an obversation.
Posted by m.david at 04:05 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
January 09, 2006
Disappointing Decision By Local Salt Lake Cinema
CNN.com - Utah megaplex balks at 'Brokeback' - Jan 8, 2006
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (AP) -- A movie theater owned by Utah Jazz owner Larry Miller abruptly changed its screening plans and decided not to show the film "Brokeback Mountain."
Quick Insert: While I disapprove of the decision, I personally don't believe that it had anything to do with Larry Miller and everything to do with theatre management.
Listing of all published theatres in SLC showing Brokeback Mountain.
---
Commentary: When you look at the above picture, notice the "We will I.D." portion above the sign. I can attest to the fact that they do I.D. if you look at all borderline 18. I've never been I.D.'d but I don't look borderline 18. I have, however, seen many other kids who do look borderline 18 (or is it 17 for an R-rated film in the U.S.?) who have been asked for I.D. and been denied access because they were underage.
With this in mind...
Not showing the film does two things:
* Increase awareness of the films existence
* Make the theatre management look like idiotsI'm not sure if this is the only place in the U.S. that has done something as stupid as agreeing to show the film, and then making a last second decision not to show it. But it wouldn't surprise me if it was. As much as I enjoy living in the SLC area, there is definitely a sense of ignorance that tends to permeate throughout the local mentality. The belief that "If we hide the world from them, they won't have the temptations that come from being shown the world." is ridiculous. I've spent my life being exposed to the world the way it is, and while I've definitely made my share of bad choices, I've also become a wiser, more compassionate person because of these mistakes.
If the law's state "No one under 18 (17?) is admitted without a parent" and these laws are strictly enforced, then let the parents make those decisions. I've been exposed to homosexuality my entire life and yet I still very much prefer the opposite sex to my own. That's not going to change. However, having several close friends who are gay I can tell you that it wasn't a film like 'Brokeback Mountain' that was the cause of their homosexual tendencies. It was their homosexual tendencies that were the cause of their homosexual tendencies.
Hiding the fact that there are gay people in this world doesn't reduce the chance of someone discovering that they are gay. What it does do, however, is increase ignorance and breed hate.
Are you sure that ignorance and hate are a desirable replacement for...
Oh wait...
They wouldn't be a replacement for anything. They are just in addition to what's already naturally set in place.
Like homosexuality.
Posted by m.david at 05:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Week of 1/1 : atom.xml = 3,134; index.xml = 2,318
The above titled numbers represent the number of requests this past week for the Atom feed and RSS 2.0 feed for this blog. An interesting trend worth pointing out:
---
Week of October 8th, 2005:atom.xml = 2,189
index.xml = 2,385
---In a 3 month period of time, the atom.xml (Atom 1.0) feed has seen an increase of just under 1000 requests per week where as the index.xml (RSS "2.0") has consistently gone up or down between 50-100 requests each week, ending this last week down 67 requests from that of the week of October 8th.
It seems pretty obvious to me:
If given a choice, folks prefer Atom 1.0 over RSS 2.0.
Is anyone else not in the least bit surprised? :D
Posted by m.david at 04:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 08, 2006
You Have Our Undivided Attention, Eve! :)
Pushing String ? The universal solvent of identity information
As promised in November, I’m finally making available my new “SAML basics” slides and paper. The explorations of M. David Peterson and Russ Miles with their nuxle.us/ChannelXML project made me do it!
If I were to try to describe the change in mindset that took place between my twenties and my thirties it would be both the realization and implementation of the fact that it's impossible to know everything (so don't pretend that you do) and furthermore it's OK if you don't.
Fast-forwarding through a bunch of gibber-jabber, unnecessary to the point of this post...
The way to solve this supposed problem is to surround yourself with either people, books, (in modern day publishing terms) web sites/pages, and/or other media/mediums in which we can either learn from or rely upon (trust) to provide the necessary pieces of the project we are trying to build or puzzle we are currently trying to solve.
I'm pretty fortunate in my life... I've been able to interact with and learn from some pretty amazing folks such as Eve Maler and Russ Miles. Of course this is not a complete list, a list in which is, AMAZINGLY, too long to try and put into print as part of this post. At some point I need to compile that list, and when I do I will make just such a post.
In the mean time, Eve, Russ... You've got my undivided attention :)
To quote from one of the folks/shows in which I would probably turn the TV back on each week if it was still part of the NBC lineup (Frasier):
I'm Listening.
Dr. Frasier Crane (Frasier)Posted by m.david at 10:13 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 07, 2006
Top Five(5) Reason's Why Opera 9.0 Kick's Browser A$$
Reason #5 - Themes update in real time. Change your theme, no restart required.
Reason #4 - Integrated advanced data feed reader (similar to a typical email client) with support for all major data feed formats (unfortunately that list includes RSS "2.0" but with good comes evil... been like that since the beginning, probably won't change anytime soon. Too bad, huh?! ;).
Reason #3 - Feed reader allows quick ability to respond to an entry using the author's provided email address.
Reason #2 - Integrated communications such as email with full support of all major email standards, chat via IRC, and a News reader (similar to the Mozilla browser project (for those unaware, before Firefox, Mozilla was (and still is, but Firefox is now the official Mozilla foundation browser project) its own browser.)
and the #1 Reason Opera 9.0 Kick's Browser A$$
Client-side XSLT :D (surprised? ;)
---
I should point out that coupled with XPath 1.0 and XSLT 1.0 support theres also SVG 1.1, SVG Tiny, WebForms 2.0 (no XForms support... :( yet. :), all of CSS (including most, if not all, of CSS 3.0, need to check to make sure), and MUCH, MUCH, more.
As mentioned in the client-side XML processing post from a week or two back, with the final release of version 9.0 I believe Opera can easily be considered the uncontested King of ALL browsers.
Yep, even better than Firefox. Sorry.
That's not to say I don't LOVE Firefox, and with Firefox comes the Mozilla platform, and with the Mozilla platform comes XPCOM. But XPCOM is its own thing. You don't HAVE to have Fx installed so you can develop with XPCOM. It's easier, but you can install the Mozilla browser, or better yet, Sea Monkey and get XPCOM. If your really adventurous you don't even have to install any of these. You could just compile the various pieces you want/need by themselves. But there's not a whole lot of benefit in going to all that effort if you can gain access to XPCOM with one of the above projects.
The point. Opera and Firefox are browsers. As a browser, Opera kicks ALL browser's a$$. But Opera (at least beyond Javascript access to the DOM and the various standards already mentioned) isn't a platform. At least not yet. Don't know if they plan to take things to the next level or not, but that's beyond the point of this post.
If you're confused by any of this... Nevermind. Just use what browser makes you happy, K?
OK.
Posted by m.david at 07:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Its A Fine Art, and Difficult To Master, But As Tim Bray Once Said:
A blogosphere without arguments would be a poor, thin, boring place.
XSLT:Blog/Quote-of-the-Day[date = 'May 20, 2005'] [1]With this in mind I am happy to see Dare has crossed off item #4 from his New Years Reslution list:
Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life - New Year Resolutions
Piss of Less People with my Writing: Whatever. I've already gotten two angry emails from different folks at work about stuff I've written online and it isn't even the first week of the year. Maybe next year. ;)'Blogging' has brought about an amazing way for us to communicate and as such, argue our viewpoints with anyone who care's to 'listen' and/or join-in. Before Tim Berners-Lee gave us both his vision and his code, labeling the combined result the 'WorldWide Web', none-of-this would have been possible. While he may not not have 'invented' blogging per se, as he recently pointed out:
In 1989 one of the main objectives of the WWW was to be a space for sharing information. It seemed evident that it should be a space in which anyone could be creative, to which anyone could contribute. The first browser was actually a browser/editor, which allowed one to edit any page, and save it back to the web if one had access rights.
To any half-way informed geek [2] its obvious there is no technical difference between posting an entry to a personal blog and publishing an article on a personal web-site. The tools are different (kinda') and the fact that the term 'Weblog' and its general definition [3] have helped promote the idea that publishing on the web requires little more than access to a computer and the ability to grasp the general concept of typing text into a box and pushing a button to make that text automagically be converted to ('HTML' || 'XHTML' || 'Other Markup'), posted to a ('blog' || 'web site' || 'web page'), and added to an XML data feed such that others can 'subscribe' to your data feed, pinging it from time-to-time to see if anything new is available.
The semantics and delivery mechanisms are a bit different. But I'm trying to think....
How does ('read/write web' || 'web 2.0' || 'other similar cliche marketing term hackers tend to hate but can't do much about it as we need the marketing-types money for our own survival (physical and career)') differ from that in which Tim Berners-Lee envisioned since day one?
Hmmm... Guess Tim was write(sic) after all. ;)
With this in mind, I can't help but ask the question:
* Semantics, maketing terms, and evangelism efforts aside, are you sure Tim Berners-Lee didn't invent blogging back in 1989?
The more we think things change... the more we realize they haven't. [4]
---
[1] : while technically inaccurate, this XPath-influenced link style is something I've had working for a while now and will eventually find its way into both this site as well as other projects. See my comments to a ChannelXML blog entry from Sylvain from a few days ago for more specific details.[2] : When I say geek, I don't mean hacker/coder/developer/mort, and instead anyone who works in the tech industry and/or LOVES technology to the point of being kinda 'geeky' about it. Lots of geeks work in marketing and other non-technical areas of both the tech and non-tech world.
[3] : My defintion of a weblog is : A place to publish things of personal interest in real-time' Not sure how Websters defines it, but I doubt they differ all that much... will need to check sometime to verify :)
[4] : Needed a new twist, although I doubt much I am the first who twisted 'The more things change, the more they stay the same' into something similar to 'The more we think things change... the more we realize they haven't.'
I'd Google for it, but I already know the answer. They have. ;)
Posted by m.david at 04:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Importance Of Browser Caching Mechanisms and Its Relationship To XML Data and Transformations
One of the single most overlooked benefits that comes along with using Browser-based XSLT for client-side rendering of XML data is the fact once a transformation file and/or non-changing XML data file has been cached by the client browser, if upon subsequent requests, a finely-tuned and/or modern-day browser (of which any modern version of IE, Mozilla-based, Safari/Konqueror, and Opera -- not a complete list, but this covers the MAJOR majority market owners -- qualify) which conforms to the HTTP specification discovers that a local cached copy of the file exists and is unchanged (using various ways to determine this, usually a conditional HTTP GET request will look for a return response code of 304 which means 'Not Modified'. The same general idea can be accomplished using the HTTP HEAD request. For details of HTTP Status Code definitions see: http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.html) this will result in the browser using the local cached copy instead of the packet-based data stream from a new, non-conditional GET request.
With this simple knowledge some amazing things can be achieved in the browser-based applications domain. It also nicely showcases just how important client-side XSLT processing plays in increasing overall application performance while decreasing overall application cost (in terms of server processing and bandwidth costs.)
Can it get any better?
Yep!
In fact, you can find some advanced methods of taking advantage of browser-based caching mechanisms in the Browser-based application development title form O'Reilly that Kurt and I are presently working to finish up. :D
Worth noting is the fact that the same is true with CSS, a fundamental piece of advanced browser-based application development in terms of user-interface presentation and (in browsers that support the latest versions of CSS) light XML display processing (ordering, positioning, show/hide XML content, etc...) While its more than likely taken for granted, the simple difference that comes by importing a CSS file, and including the CSS inline can mean the difference of a high-perfomance browser-based application and a slllooooowwwww as molasses browser-based performance sucking blackhole from Hell.
Enjoy your Browser-based XSLT-enhanced Day!
---
Please note: This site is a BAAAAAAAAAADDDDDDDDDDDDD example of this in terms of CSS as it has been my playground over the last year+ for client-side XSLT and CSS experimentations and is in desperate need of being properly cleaned-up. In-line and included CSS is fine for hacking as is can be easier to update the code from within the same file. But in terms of production is a BIG PHAT NO-NO! :) (note: various CSS hacks require the use of inline CSS to overcome browser limitations. More on this topic is found in the O'Reilly title as well :)Posted by m.david at 02:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 06, 2006
eXplorations, Episode #2: Ajax
ChannelXML Community Blogs | M. David Peterson : eXplorations, Episode #2: Ajax
eXplorations, Episode #2: Ajax
In this show Kurt and I discuss Ajax, the difference between the "brand" and the actual unerlying technologies, and whether or not the underlying foundation which Ajax attempts to define is here to stay or will soon go away. This time around is less of a debate and more of a discussion, but is interesting none-the-less ;) Please note, it is now available in both MP3 and WMA formats. The WMA file weighs in at about 1/2 the size but not quite the sound quality of the MP3, but close.
Speaking in terms of quality, this time around is 10 times better than the last, so we're definitely getting there. I've also created a WMA and MP3 file, the WMA weighs in at half the size, the MP3 sounds a bit better.Posted by m.david at 12:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 05, 2006
Its Time To Take That Brilliance And Do Something Truly Spectacular With It
[UPDATE: In response to a recent IM conversation I had with Kurt Cagle I have added a few additional details to the bottom of this post.]
This is a direct call out to Dare Obasanjo, Miguel de Icaza, and David Megginson. But not the kind of call out that points out anything bad, and instead the fact that an opportunity exists for each of you to take that gift of brilliance you've been given and do something truly spectacular with it that could change the lives of millions both here in the United States, Iraq, and elsewhere in the World.
Guys, if you would, please lend me your ear for five minutes.
In a recent follow-up to my previous post regarding the events of September 11th, 2001, David Megginson writes:
---- terrorists who hate intellectual freedom and democracy attack a free and democratic country;
- victim country starts abandoning some of its principles of freedom and democracy.
How can that be anything but a victory for the terrorists? It makes the U.S. less tempting as a model for other countries to emulate, thus helping dangerous, authoritarian regimes hold onto power and fund more terrorists.
Up here in Canada, it's even worse. We weren't attacked on September 11 (though many Canadians did die in the U.S.), but our government has also happily been making Canada more like the country the terrorists would like to see, by sending innocent, brown-skinned Canadian citizens to countries where they will be tortured, etc.
After World War II, the U.S. showed the world the right way to win hearts and minds, by rebuilding both their allies and enemies (the Marshall plan and the Japanese reconstruction), and responding to a military threat with a brilliant, non-violent response (the Berlin airlift). A lot of the world decided to embrace freedom and democracy at that time, after seeing the U.S. model. And as far as security goes, notice the lack of threats from Germany and Japan today.
After September 11, I was hoping that President Bush would respond the same way that Truman did after WW II, initiating a modern equivalent of the Marshall plan (a Powell plan?) to improve the quality of life in the Middle East and show the Muslim world that democracy can do a lot more for them than a few fanatical terrorists. That may be one of the greatest lost opportunities in U.S. (and world) history.
David, this is brilliant! Is it too late? Can we still do this?
Dare, Miguel,
Few would argue the fact that you are two of the most brilliant minds in the field of modern Computer Science. The same can be said about David. In recent efforts by folks like Bono, Brad Pitt, Melinda and Bill Gates, and others with similar brilliance and similar star power (for those unaware please visit http://one.org and http://www.gatesfoundation.org/ for more information), a model has been presented that has showcased to the world that its possible to use that brilliance and to use that star power to make a difference that others whom preceded them, even with the best intentions at hand, failed at making the difference they both wanted and could have made.
In the computer world you guys are the Bono's, and the Brad Pitt's, and the other folks with similar star power. Obviously Melinda Gate's was and Bill Gate's still is a part of the computer world, but should still be included in this list none-the-less. Just like these folks, you have brilliant minds and have used these minds to think through and solve some of the biggest technical problems we've been faced with in our small, yet important field of Computer Science. Now its time to take that brilliance and do something truly spectacular that goes beyond this field.
I believe your intentions of bringing to surface the problems we have here in the U.S. are and were based on good things. However, thus far, they have not made the positive difference I believe they could make.
David has presented some points that I believe are nothing less than simple brilliance. What probably comes across as a bit ironic is that it took a brilliant mind to point out something simple, something obvious, or at least something that should have been obvious but for whatever reason was not. The one point of his that I would argue against is found in the last sentence:
That may be one of the greatest lost opportunities in U.S. (and world) history
I don't believe it's lost. I don't believe it's too late.
I do believe it's possible to take these simple points and simple ideas and do something simply spectacular.
So I am asking very pointedly, and very directly:
Will you please do that?
One of the most wonderful things about living in countries such as the United States of America that have built their systems around freedom is that we have the ability to not only voice our opinions, but to then do something with those opinions to help bring necessary change to the systems of our government.
How do we do that?
I don't know all the answers to that question. But I bet somebody reading this does. Maybe that person is one of you. Or maybe that person is someone else. But whomever it is, you know of the way to take these simple points and simple ideas and put them into simple motion.
Are there more than these simple points and simple ideas that need to brought to the surface? I don't know. I don't have David Megginson's mind. I don't have Dare Obasanjo's brain. I don't have Miguel de Icaza's brilliance.
I believe that Miguel has already showcased he is willing to go to great length's in both work and in travel to help make the world a better place. Dare, David, I believe you folks have showcased your willingness to do the same.
I am willing to do whatever it takes to help you in this effort. But I don't have your star power and I don't have your mind, your brain, or your brilliance.
What I do have is a really loud voice and absolutely no fear of using it.
Even with the best intentions, sometimes that proves to be for the worse.
This time, I don't believe that will prove to be the case.
As such, I ask you again:
Will you please do that? Will you please take that brilliance and that star power and put into the motion these simple points and simple ideas?
There are others out there who might read this who have this same level of brilliance, this same level of star power, this same ability to take something simple and do something truly spectacular.
The United States, Iraq, and the World needs your help.
Will you please do this?
Thanks for taking the time to think about it.
[UPDATE: In an IM conversation with Kurt Cagle, a man in whom I have a great deal of respect for as a person and as an industry professional and figure head with brilliance and star power equal to those above, he proposed the following question to me:
Kurt: So what would you do?
I immediatelly saw his point which went beyond the simple question. I ask you all to take action, but didnt necessarily suggest what that action was or should or could be. Here's my response, and as such a possible solution as to what could be done.
M: I would pull together a plan of reconstruction. The Powell Plan as David suggested. I would get the smartest minds I could find and get them to work on this plan. I would get the necessary signatures to get this plan on the ballot. And then petition like hell to educate people regarding what it was about.
One of the (many!) reasons I have as much respect for Kurt is that he too has a tendency to speak his mind, but he does so with a lot more education and understanding than I presently have. Furthermore, he suggests a solution. While Kurt Cagle I am not, I am fortunate enough to have him as a close and personal friend. I have and continue to learn a lot from him. I think we all can.
One point he brought out in addition to the above was the fact that these things are and can be extremely complicated. I agree. Maybe my approach was naive. Maybe what I am suggesting won't work. But what I am hoping might happen if this proves to be the case is that people like David and Kurt who have an understanding of things that have worked in the past, might put their heads together and come up with a plan. I wish I had the experience and background to do this myself. I don't. But I will certainly do what I can, whatever that might be.
Thanks for helping me understand things a bit better as well as helping to point out where I needed to be more specific Kurt! You're a good man, and someone we all can learn a great deal from if we're willing to pay attention. I know I am and I believe others are too.]
Posted by m.david at 08:34 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Rule #1: Don't Censor Your Bloggers
Lesson for Murdoch: Keep the Bloggers Happy - New York Times
but then again, I don't think Rupert Murdoch believes in rules... At least not rules that go against his own interests.Proof for many of those people came earlier this month, when MySpace users began to notice that any references to YouTube, a video-sharing site and a competitor, were erased or blocked from appearing on My-Space. Some MySpace users also reported that when they tried to download videos from YouTube, a patch of white space appeared instead.
Posted by m.david at 12:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
A Lot Of People's Live's Changed For The Worse Because Of The September 11th Attacks
Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life - Wednesday, January 04, 2006
When I read blog posts like Shelley Powers They're Back or Robert Scoble's Microsoft takes down Chinese blogger (my opinions on that), I wonder why I tend to see American bloggers writing angry missives about perceived injustices in faraway lands but never about the oppression by government in their own countries. I guess it's all a case of Luke 6:41 in action.
One of the unfortunate side effects of hate-based crimes such as those that took place on 9/11 is that it tends to fuel an increase in other crimes based on a response to these crimes. Have Americans wrongfully committed crimes against natives of the Middle East in response to the events of 9/11?
Yep.
But lets not replace the true and real victims of the events of the 9/11 attacks by pointing out the crimes that have happened since these original crimes took place. I'm not suggesting we disregard what has happened since. What I am suggesting is we keep it framed to within the context of understanding why these crimes have taken place in the first place. Did crimes such as these happen before 9/11? Probably to some extent, but no where near what has taken place since. I agree... having your freedoms wrongfully taken away from you sucks! Just ask these folks, they'll tell you.
Posted by m.david at 10:52 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
UnderstandingUML and the nuxle.us project, ChannelXML.com is alive and well
UnderstandingUML���Single Sign-On and Nuxle.us
Nuxle.us is a set of technologies that are working towards enabling XML-based smart message passing. You might have heard me talk about LLUP in the past, but the point is that LLUP is a central concept in this mix, and at the heart of LLUP is the need for you to safely interact with the system such that it can learn about you and work with you to ensure that your XML-based messaging experience is as good as it can be; in a nutshell, this is about SAML and single sign-on.
The above linked quote comes from a "SAML integration discovery" series that Russ has started on his UnderstandingUML.com blog. Through the good graces of Eve Maler's guidance we are working on trying to gain a full and complete understanding of how to go about merging all that is ChannelXML and the nuxle.us project into all that is that is SAML. XMPP (Jabber) is next. But before we try to do too much with what little spare time we all have it seems important to take things one step/technology at a time.
Speaking of "what little spare time we all have"...
While working full time for General Dynamics UK and finishing his MSc in Software Engineering at Oxford University Russ is continuing in his quest to remove all possiblities of 'free' and 'time' ever being used together and preceded with "In his" and followed with "Russ enjoys underwater basket weaving and increasing his collection of rare stuffed animals via ebay collectibles" [1]. Just so we can be quite clear, Russ doesn't do underwater basket weaving in his free time.
What he does do however is write books. His first on AOP, his second on UML, and his... Ummm.... Well, we'll leave it at that for now. Please rest, assured Russ has no spare time for any false allegations of underwater basket weaving. Anyone who claims that he does is a LIAR! ;)
What I am confident I can move forward with is Russ has started blogging about UML on UnderstandingUML.com. This same link will also gain you access to the UnderstandingUML Wiki such that if you have interest in creating content that relates to UML but don't have the time (interest?) to start your own web site, blog, or etc... but would like to help promote the proper usage and understanding of UML, you can.
Cool. :)
Also, by fault of a strange and unfortunate phenomenom, I seemed to have forgotten to make various updates to my GoDaddy hosted servers account and as such there was a bit of confusion by the GoDaddy DNS system as to where to send requests for ChannelXML.com. Thats now fixed and the site is now accessible again. Totally my own fault... please don't see this as something bad against GoDaddy's hosting services. GoDaddy ROCKS! 'nuff said.
Enjoy your day!
---
[1] : They get no link, BTW, until they give proper respect to J.K. Rowling and her prodding to fix the problem with folks selling faked autographed Harry Potter memorabilia. see: front page of J.K. Rowlings official site (Requires Flash) and access "The Daily News/Latest ebay" for more details.Posted by m.david at 06:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 04, 2006
"Windows Live!, as..."?
Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life - 2006 Conference Plans
MIX: This is a Microsoft conference that will focus on our hip, Web-based offerings like IE7, Windows Media, Windows Live!, as well as "Atlas", Microsoft’s new AJAX framework.
I just checked again to make sure and as I suspected the Windows Live logo has no '!' at the end of it. While I'm not one who can really be pointing out grammatical errors and expect for anybody to pay me the least bit of attention, there's just something about putting a '!' before a ',' to then continue on for another 8 words before closing things off (again? ;) with a period.
Hmmmm... what could this mean?
--- Hypothetical Situation:
So here I am in sitting in a business meeting and my job is to come up with a way to "merge" the Windows Live and Yahoo! brand names. After much effort the only thing that I can come up with is 'Winhoo!' which I'm pretty sure BillG and SteveB ain't gone go for... 30 seconds after the press release hits the wire the first 'WinWho?' headlines would hit the wire right back.
"Lets see", I think to myself, "what makes Yahoo!, Yahoo! in the first place?" while pulling out a paper and pencil to write down a list of possibilities.
* Is is the yodeler dude they have to pay 6 billion dollars everytime they play that stupid ass yodel at the end of one of their commercials?
Actually, come to think of, I don't remember the last time I heard that yodel dude. Hmmm... So probably not. (note-to-self: remember to thank God for that one!)
"Well," as I rise from my knees after realizing "I'd better thank Him now just in case there's a chance He decides to punish me for not being grateful enough!"
* Is it the intensity of the word "Yahoo!" that causes a rush of adrenalin by those who see, read (not the same thing, by the way), or hear someone say the word Yahoo? Actually, do people actually say Yahoo when they get excited? And if anyone did, would people feel inspired or run the other direction in fear for their lives.
Other direction. Much fear. Not a good thing.
As I continue my thought process I realize "While not mandatory, what we need is something similar to blue skys and wisps of clouds that people see often enough and/or when they do see them feel happy and inspired, or at very least a jolt of happiness. But what else is there?
* "Wait"! <- Thats itWelcome to Windows Live! What would you like to watch or listen to today?
"Yaaa"
"What the... ah hell no! Come here you little yodeladian shit! I promise to give up sex if I never had to hear that damn voi.. er wait, that would null and void the contract wouldn't it... :)
"Nevermind. Please, continue..."
"Whooooooo?"
Posted by m.david at 12:08 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
January 03, 2006
No One Plans A Revolution
There is one more vicious side of frameworks. Developers loose their creativity because they learn to do what the framework can do. If a framework cannot achieve something a developer has to do, you just end up with a scared and sweaty little muppet in front of his computer failed by his lack of imagination.
Beyond the fact that Sylvain's comment is absolutely FANTASTIC (and has me in tears from the laughter that preceded them) are we beginning to see the early stages of a new revolution, the middle stages of an ongoing revolution, or possibly even the late stages in which change is imminent, we're just not sure what that change is going to be exactly, or better said, whether the results of this revolution are what the revolutionists had hoped for in the first place?
Can't say for sure... No one plans a revolution:
You cannot plan them, they just happen, and you become wiser after the event.
Posted by m.david at 10:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
It's Funny How Perspective Can Completely Change The Way You See, Think, and Feel
To help bring light to the fact that I recently came to realize I was being EXTYREMELY hypocritical in my last post without realizing it, I am reprinting my recent comments left on Bill's original post.
Kurt followed-up both Bill's original comments as well as Sylvains follow-up comments with what became the trigger to my realization of my hypocrisy. Please see the reprint of my attempt at repentance ;) below:
Originally posted as follow-up to Bill de hÓra's post entitled "Learn more stuff" from January 2nd, 2006:
After reading Kurt's post just now I've realized that in fact I have the same complaints, and in particular blame these complexities in many ways on the fact that the software companies are not just in the business of creating software, but also to make money. Obviously this is not a sudden and overwhelming revelation nor is it a suggestion thats theres a whole lot we can do about it and/or complain because of it. Theres not an industry nor company on this planet who is not concerned with both making a profit and, if possible, a significant profit.
Fast forwarding through a lot of useless mumbo-jumbo we are all already aware of, the downside to the development world is that the drive to both make and increase profit means a push to not only create better software that is alluring to the consumer base, but to increase that consumer base if at all possible. To increase the consumer base of the devtool/platform market is easy... build tools and platforms that will attract more interest, increasing the base of "developers" willing to purchase more products.
As Kurt has already pointed out, this is cyclical downward spiral that brings the words of Trent Reznor's March of the Pigs into a whole new light:
---
maybe afraid of it let's discredit it let's pick away at it
I want to watch it come down
now doesn't that make you feel better?
the pigs have won tonight
now they can all sleep soundly
and everything is all right
---Please don't take the above to mean a directed comment at MS in regards to the "Pigs". Obviously this is an industry wide problem, and I doubt much there's a whole lot that can be done about it. While there are a handful of companies out there that are content with developing products that attract only the select (elite?) few, and they're fine with serving the needs of these folks without taking it to the bloatware extremes. Unfortunately, theres not enough of those companies/people to change the rest of the industry's tendency to be "Pigs" even if they don't realize that this is actually what they are/what they are doing.
The funny thing about this... [NOTE: The portion of this paragraph after "I" was clipped off in my original comment as I improperly used a < as a way to 'point' at the URL I placed inline. The link is now wrapped in an anchor tag around the words 'I wrote' that follow] I wrote not more than two or three days about this exact problem, but from a different perspective. I hadn't made the connection until now. But now that I have I realize even more so than before.
Bill (and Sylvain, and Kurt), you're absolutely right.
But is there a way to fix this? How do you fix a problem thats only seen as a the problem it is by a small minority of the developer population.
Come to think of it... it seems there's another group of folks that have a similar tendency to see the problems and fallacies that come when the business men and women realize there's a market and as such, profit to be had:
Artist's
Yet again, Paul Graham is proven correct.
Thanks for opening my eyes Bill (and Sylvain, then Kurt ;)
Posted by m.david at 09:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 02, 2006
Not Everbody's Needs Are The Same. There's No Requirement To Use Something Just Cuz' Its There.
[UPDATE: Two excellent follow-up comments from Sylvain and then Bill can be found below. Thanks to the both of you for taking the time to comment!]
I think the question here for .NET practitioners and architects has to be - is all this stuff actually needed to the point where specialists are required to make projects succeed? I also wonder whether .NET isn't in the same boat in 2006 as J2EE was in 2002, whereby the technology on offer is overkill for what's needed
Assuming that Bill is suggesting that "No, we don't need all this stuff" then this would be one of the few times I disagree with his point. In most cases (I can't say for sure about all cases, but I can for most) the need for a specific area of the .NET Framework Class Library stems from two things:
* Common Sense
* Customer DemandHis point stems from a quote in which is suggested that effective use of the .NET platform requires specialists. However, my assumption again is that Bill views this as a bad thing.
I disagree.
In fact I will go as far as suggesting that instead, this is a really, really good thing. It means there's more variety, more choice, and more ability to get the same job done WITHOUT requiring a specialist in a particular area to get it done.
Regarding specialists: The medical profession easily showcases the fact that the more knowledge we obtain, the more advanced we become, the more specialists are required to implement, build upon, and extend the prior two points (more knowledge, more advanced.)
Are you sure thats a bad thing?
[UPDATE: Extending this a bit. When comparing J2EE from any year thus far to the current state (or any state for that matter) of the .NET FCL, the primary difference that seems to be overlooked is that .NET is focused on any language where as Java -- while others have gone to the extent of building bytecode compilers for their language of choice, the practice is still in its infancy and is FAR from what the .NET communities have in regards to language options. This difference in platform philosophy showcases the fact that with .NET one can build from existing knowledge to gain the advantanges of more advanced technologies. I see this as both a productive as well as an appealing point in regards to not forcing a requirement that I become an overnight specialist just to be proficient on the .NET platform.]
Posted by m.david at 10:28 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Browser-Based XML : Creating Applications with Ajax, CSS, XHTML, XML, and XSLT (Paperback)
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
This book covers everything you need to know to build browser-based applications. The emphasis is on using XML, Document Object Model (DOM) and XSLT for processing, and a variety of presentation methods including XMLHTTP (Ajax), XHTML, XForms, CSS, RSS, and Atom. Following the core of REST (representational state transfer) model of web services, advanced material in the book focuses on server side programming and the various ways of processing and serving requests for XML data. There are also helpful hints for which server-side applications best support client-side processing approaches.Now that sounds like a good book! ;)
---
While I've been writing this book for what feels like six(6) years [1] this is actually the first time I've seen this. Kurt linked to it the end of his predictions post [2] which I linked to in my last post. Which of course, based on the content surrounding this link means that thanks to both Kurt and Amazon (thats not a sarcastic comment... I really mean that!), I don't have to make any official announcements of my own and run risk of saying things to soon (or better said, before I'm allowed to, contractually speaking), as if not already obvious...Kurt has agreed to work on this title with me, made obvious by the fact that he is listed as one of the authors on the above linked title :D
Obviously I've already made mention of the Firefox title I am working on with him. And now you know there are actually two books we are working on together.[3] Pretty cool, huh?!!! :D
I'm definitely excited for TONS of reasons because of this, primarily based on the fact that it definitely brings an element of interesting contrast between two very different approaches to writing coupled with the tendency Kurt and I have to come at things with two very different viewpoints as to which tech companies and the various technologies they are focused on matter, and why.
What's most interesting about this is that when all is said and done, we have a somewhat eerie tendency to end up drawing the same technical conclusions, which in the case of this titles content, Browser-based/Client-side XML technologies are of MAJOR significance in the here and now AND even more so, in the future. Its companies that realize this and develop applications built upon solid foundations of time-tested, proven technologies and/or development models/methodologies, which will have the biggest impact in the current and future technology markets.
Want to learn how to write the fastest, most efficient, most feature rich, cross-browser/platform XML-based applications using XSLT and other Ajax-styled technologies, as well as CSS, etc... as well as their server side counterpart? Buy this book! :D
---
Setting aside shameless self-plugs (for now ;) whats most interesting about the above anomaly is that in and of itself it showcases why XML REALLY MATTERS... Interop in both processors and tools, regardless of OS, platform, and browser combination.No matter how you slice it, the same XML data/files can be used on any OS, platform, and browser combination using any number of supporting tools, parsers, processors, etc... So the fact that one of us might feel one company is better/worse than another, we both agree that in the end, its the XML that matters and in particular XML in the browser or on the client that matters most. Server-side XML processing is all fine and dandy, and an important piece of server side development none-the-less. But forcing the server to both access the data from the database, convert this into an XML format, to then process that data on the same server? Ummmm... whats so great and wonderful about that?
Well except, of course, if your passing XML messages from one process to the next, then yeah, thats both exciting and important. But using this model on the server then opens the door to an agnostic approach to processing data as that same XML can be used locally or on a client half way around the world, and it doesnt matter. The result will be the same, just spread out across a greater surface area (similar to the end of the article from last week regarding the importance of processing XML on the client and how it opens the door for the server to be OH SO MUCH MORE efficient.) and as such our systems become MUCH MORE efficient overall.
Anyway, more on this and quite a bit more will be found on these blogs [Kurt, me], in these books [O'Reilly, Apress], and well as on our O'Reilly blogs [Kurt, me]
Until next time... Actually, guess what? I'm actually taking my a$$ of this desk chair and putting it instead into one of the lift chairs at Brighton. I need a day off and what better way to spend a day off than snowboarding in the mountains and snow of Utah state, particularly the mountains and snow of the Wasatch range?
Ain't life grand... :D
Bye for now :)
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[1] : Six months in reality, but I've already mentioned the fact that the plus side of Opera's XSLT support meant a downside in the completion of this title in a timely manner. I doubt I will ever admit to anyone how much of the title I have ended up re-writing from scratch, but again... I'm not complaining as this title is now significantly more appropriate as a development methodology foundation for cross-browser/platform weblication development.[2] : Which, if you haven't read yet... WOW! There's a few things inside that he mentioned he agreed with me on, which is cool (if not obvious from our last "Open Office" Podcast, while Kurt and I are EXTREMELY good friends, we don't always see eye-to-eye with each other on our view-points. But I think thats part of the reason we are such good friends... Our conversations are NEVER dull! :D) but the level of detail and, to me at least, precision detail as to what could very easily be the case with most, if not all of this... WOW! Thats all I can say as this post is REALLY good.
[3] : Not sure if this will become somewhat of a tradition or not (honestly, I have no clue either way... at this point I think its safe to say that both of us haven't thought about any future titles beyond these two... if you ever decide to write a book, you'll quickly know what I mean when I suggest that once you become absorbed into the content of any given title, thrying to think of what else you can write about is not exactly an easything to do.
Posted by m.david at 10:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Hey VS.NET Team : Nevermind...
Understanding XML: A (Liquid) Crystal Ball Workout
Microsoft will buy Opera.
OK, we've all heard the rumors, and the denial of the rumors from Opera. The denial seemed pretty matter of fact, so theres no reason to believe it was a smoke screen of some sort.
But Microsoft....
Scratch the OSS VS.NET request. Make this work somehow and I WILL give you the foot rubs and back massages!
Oh, but don't actually absorb them, let them continue as is... No need for it to replace IE either. Let IE be IE and Opera be Opera. But instead of stressing over the making the Trident engine do web standards that were never designed as part of the base architecture, instead let IE be the focus of the .NET/XAML world and let Opera take over as the Web Standards focused browsers.
Actually, better yet...
Maybe just an investment/distribution agreement would be better than buying them outright (if that would even be possible). I would bet an outright purchase would send chills through the Opera community and send current corporate customers looking elsewhere for embedded browser technologies etc... (although thats pure speculation) where as an investment/distribution agreement for the Windows-platform only would allow the possibility of an exclusive agreement for just the Windows-platform and not put you into a position where you're either forced to distribute/develop/support the Linux version, or kill it and cause even more industry fall-out in regards to trust issues.
[UPDATE: Even if you did by them, as long as you don't kill the Linux-browser, then nothing bad could become of this. Then again... how many Linux users use the Opera browser? So maybe you could kill it and it wouldn't be a problem as my best guess suggests that the Linux communities care most about Mozilla-based browsers anyway and wouldn't be all that concerned if they suddenly lost Opera because of a buy-out.]
In all seriousness, I can't see why this would be a bad thing for ANYBODY and a REALLY GOOD thing for Windows users. Opera already provides all the support that you more than likely will never provide (SVG, XHTML, future CSS standards) and with a few simple tweaks (like integrated support for MSXML :D:D:D) coupled with direct MS support, suddenly your users have a fast-as-hell, complete web standards compliant browser and you can now focus the IE team on keeping in sync with the Vista-focused technologies, providing support for XP (like you are already doing) and because of it IE becomes a better, faster, and more reliable browser for Avalon/Indigo technologies. Hell, you could even get really creative and integrate the engines into one tabbed-enhanced browser interface that would switch automatically depending the type of document that was being rendered.
Again, it easy for me... I have nothing to lose. But oh my dear goodness would this be a Kick-A$$ way to solve a whole helluva lot of problems...
Just promise me you'll think about it K.
Gracias Amigo(s) :D
Posted by m.david at 08:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The nuxle.us Project Community Server Now Live
While theirs still a TON left to do, I just finished off the rough draft of the intro at the root of the community section of the nuxle.us project which explains in greater detail what this project is all about, and what its not about, as well as other projects such as ChannelXML that are connected.
You can access this now via http://nuxle.us/community/.
Items still on todays to-do list include:
* Create forum topics
* Create blogs for the existing community members (myself, Kurt, Uche, Russ, Sylvain, and DonXML) [*]
* Integrate the new UI including skinning the Community Server interface to match the new UI
* Create the SVN repository
* Finish off the installation and implementation of the Trac interface
* Pull together the various existing code pieces and check them into source control
* Smile knowing I met my personal Jan:One deadlineI also need to:
* Get in contact with Uche to discuss extended details of SAML as well as other project elements
* Discuss further details with Eve and gain her insite into various topicsBut these are less critical as far as meeting my Jan:One self-imposed deadline. Important, yes. But I'm pretty sure neither Uche or Eve or sitting by their computers waiting for my correspondence ;) :D
Regarding the first list, I think I can do that in the three hours I have left before the midnight MST deadline. If I don't...
Please keep in mind that this is still all very much side work for me as I have two eager (as they should be!) publishers to please first, filling in my spare time with extra-curricular activities such as the nuxle.us project (and others... LOTS of others :D) I have my doubts that anyone else on this planet except me cares all that much, so I'm not all that stressed over it. But theres a certain satisfaction that comes in meeting deadlines, so if anything, thats whats driving me in this particular instance. :)
More to come soon. :)
[*] - Please let me know if you have interest in blogging on this system (note: these are not personal blogs, and will only contain entries that have something in particular to do with this project. Not that I don't care about your dog Fluffy's new christmas sweater, just that I would rather read about it on your MSN Spaces (or similar) blog where things like that are more appropriate. :)
Posted by m.david at 03:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 01, 2006
John Cowan On Lisp Compiler Technology : "You Want Fast? Let Me Show You Just How Fast "Fast" Truly Is"
In a recent follow-up comment to my post from a while back entitled "Drive-By Dining w/ Anders Hejlsberg" in which I took exploited an opportunity to expand upon DonXML's follow-up [the above linked post is about an experience Don had with Anders The Great One at TechEd this past year] "Is Object Oriented Programming The Problem" to further extend with comments regarding why Lisp kicks software development a$$ John Cowan [blog, index] (yes, that John Cowan ;) writes:
Lisp isn’t just wicked cool, it’s wicked fast, too. Lisp has had compiler technology for decades now that outpulls all but the very best C compilers (and I don’t mean gcc).
NOTE: I may have taken a bit of liberty in my interpretations of John's comments in the title. To my defense: Are you really all that surprised? [<- "Thats your defense?" Yep. ;)] Also, For those of you suggesting that I am further exploiting John's comments as an opportunity to promote the fact that he left comments in the first place my simple response would be:
You think this THIS is exploitation?
You should see the Vegas-styled flashing billboard I just installed outside my apartment complex! ;)
---
All joking aside, I think John's comments are VERY appropriate and no matter who said them they would have been brought to the surface. The fact that they come from John should act as further reenhancement to the fact that Lisp Kicks SERIOUS A$$ and if you're not doing anything and everything you can to learn about Lisp (no matter if its Common Lisp, Scheme, Arc, or any of the plethora of available Lisp derivatives) you REALLY need to.You want a high paying job in ten(10) years?
If you haven't already, learn:
* All you can about Concurrency/Parallel Programming
* COBOL, and
* Lisp (or a Lisp derivative like Scheme)And yes, when I say learn COBOL... I really mean it.
Happy New Year Everyone!
Thanks for taking the time to add your comments John! Your time is REALLY appreciated :)
Posted by m.david at 10:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Well If That Doesn't Speak Volumes...
An interesting trend in requests by browser for ChannelXML.com for the month of December, 2005. I'll let you guess which browser family the purple bar represents (hint: It's not Internet Explorer ;)
Too many unknowns to analyse these numbers much past the "Damn!" factor. I think we can safely assume that the only non-geeks represented in the above image arrived at the site by total and complete accident, more than likely never to return. Geeks prefer Mozilla-based browsers. Oh shoot... I didn't mean to say that... Please disregard. Let me rephrase:
Geeks prefer ANYTHING that isn't Internet Explorer.
There, that should put that mystery back in to things :D
It will be interesting to see if these numbers change with the release of IE7. My guess is they will a bit, but to what extent? Hmmm... well, time will tell :)
Posted by m.david at 03:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
IronPython Beta 1 Now Available
As per the Dec. 30th Announcement:
We've just released the first beta of IronPython 1.0 and are entering the home stretch to a 1.0 final build. This build includes many bug fixes for issues reported to us by the community as well as many changes to get better compatibility with CPython 2.4. With this build we've addressed the majority of major design issues for a 1.0 final. We're not sure that you'll agree with all of our answers, so pick it up and let us know what you think.
Also worth noting:
The fact that we've released a beta isn't going to change this project's frequent release schedule. You should expect to continue to see releases every 3 weeks for the near future. We're not going to commit to any fixed number of beta releases, but I can tell you that I'm a huge fan of single digit numbers and a beta 10 release would be unbelievably ugly to have to make.
[Download] [GotDotNET Workspace Home]
IMPORTANT: As noted on the IronPython Beta 1 download page:
You must install the Microsoft .NET Framework Version 2.0 Redistributable Package prior to installing IronPython.
Also worthy of mention: The complete list of bug fixes, changes, improvements, CPython compatibilities/incompatibilities, etc... is MASSIVE. Its worth a read.
Posted by m.david at 12:34 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Phalanger (((PHP 5.1.1 + Zend Optimizer) * 1.7) = PHP < = 5.1.1 compiled to CIL(PHP.NET)) RC3 Now Available
Phalanger - the PHP Language Compiler for .NET Framework
23 December 2005: Phalanger version 1.0 RC3 has been released and is available for download. It introduces new Phalanger specific features (scalar type hints among others), PHP4 backward compatibility option as well as new features of the latest PHP stable version (i.e. PHP 5.1.1). See change log for details.
Little late on this one. But In reading the above as well as the Release Notes, I'm pretty pumped. Oh, and yes, I'm aware of the fact that my attempt at using the combination of project names, PHP version numbers, and the speed comparison of the resulting CIL when measured against the Zend Optimizer is completely wacked as an equation.
Can you find it your heart to forgive me? :D
Posted by m.david at 11:09 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Don't Ever Underestimate The Power Of Simplicity
[UPDATE: I've recently added a new server to the system to accomodate for additional traffic for the nuxle.us project. In doing so there will be a potential period where you will be directed to a GoDaddy default page while zone file updates are transitioned. It shouldn't last very long at all, but if you do have problems I've added a 'temp' sub-domain which should help bypass any issue temporarily. You should be able to access that now (if necessary) at http://temp.nuxle.us. My apologies in advance for any confusion.]
A recent Tim Bray post brings the year into perspective using a retrospective summary. Setting aside the fact that I think this is a fantastic idea (and if Kurt's up for it would be GREAT subject material for eXplorations[feed]) there was this entry for September:
September: Those who know what curl is are probably snickering now
A few days ago I made mention of the nuxle.us project. The nuxle.us project is about two things: One that's obvious (XML Messaging) the other not-so-obvious (Identity/Security). While after speaking with Eve Maler on the topic, I came to the conclusion that "Wow! SAML is REALLY cool!" and "This fits PERFECT into what the nuxle.us project is all about" which is:
Secured End-to-End XML Messaging [UPDATE: from an "Atomic" standpoint, defining Atomic in this case to mean a single node/unit on the internet whether that be your own personal machine, a server, etc...]
The simplified algorithm looks something like:
* Recieve an XML Message.
* Determine how to properly handle
* either pass it to a system process registered to handle this message type,
* return either an error code or result from this system process to then return to the message to the original sender/requestor
* return a message suggesting that more things need to be known before the message can be accepted.
* sever all ties. for now ;)
So what does this have to do with curl?Good question. The September link from the above quote contains the following text:
The only server on the air was from Dave Johnson. We got two different clients to talk to it; one was a Big Secret Project from a Big Famous Company based on all sorts of slick infrastructure. Mine was curl. I managed to introspect the server, list the entries, create a new entry, update it, and delete it. I screwed up the messaging a few times, and Dave’s server only blew chunks about half of them. Those who know what curl is are probably snickering now. But I think the fact that you can debug a nontrivial application with curl -X -i -d -H is a significant weapon in the quiver of RESTafarians. Let’s see ya do that with your SOAP + WSDL + WS-Policy + WS-Addressing + WS-MetadataExchange + WS-ReliableMessaging app. Actually, the big take-away isn’t that, it’s that the Atom protocol is simple and easy to implement and robust.
Right after this is the following statement:
The world needs something like this.
While I can't say for sure if with 'this' Tim was refering to the Atom Publishing Protocol or the creation of a utility that is APP-aware, suffice it to say, nuxle.us is (based on and older version of APP) and will be (based on the final release of the APP specification) compliant in every way, shape, and form with the APP specification, exposing this functionality via a simple interface that, because of curl/libcurl [1], will be easily accessible to your language of choice.
The only unknown at this stage is how well SAML fits into all of this. Eve has been good enough to supply me with a TON of fantastic information of which I have been pouring through as time permits. I've been holding off a bit from this as I have wanted to gain Uche's insight on things as I know his experience in this area (Security/Identity via SAML) is quite a bit greater than mine (actually, thats an assumption, but I think a safe one when you realize that what I know (or more accurately, knew. I know more now, but still have LOTS of learning to do) about SAML is basically nothing and as such want to chat with both Uche and Eve a bit and see where they feel 'curl' and SAML can compliment each other and where they can not (if that happens to be the case).
I have noticed that Uche is back up and running on IM, but given the fact that he recently returned (yesterday if I'm not mistaken) from a trip to Nigeria with his family, coupled with the fact that its New Years Eve, my guess is that holding things off for a day before pestering him for advice is a pretty good idea. While I do plan to send him an email on the subject later this evening, I also plan to make sure it is labeled [FOR WHEN YOU HAVE TIME] at the top. While there will be plenty of information available regarding this, and other projects, at some point tommorrow (Jan:One based on US Mountain Standard Time) I'm more concerned with doing this right the first time than I am concerned with pushing this out the door before its ready.
With that said, what you will find tommorrow will be forums, a Trac-based Project Management Interface/Wiki/SVN Repository viewer, a general FAQ, and a call-for-participation with a very detailed time-line as to when each phase of this project will be closed-for-comments, implemented, and then reopened for further testing, comments, and community participation. While I'm not opposed to making changes to the schedule, the reasons for wanting to make these changes need to be pretty strong, as I have no desire, plan, nor intention to let the pace of this project be dictated by anything other than good, solid, well argued reasons as to why the need to hold things back exists.
One other thing worth noting:
I made mention in the above linked post of a connection to Jabber. Jabber is a FANTASTIC real time XML messaging protocol with TONS and TONS and TONS of supporting server and client projects. nuxle.us will have the ability to both plug into an existing Jabber server implementation such as Jive Software's Wildfire (formerly Jive Messenger) as well as implement its own server via the various available code libraries. How this will all be implemented is part of what I plan to ask for community participation with. I have my own ideas, but I come from a Windows heavy world, and Jabber/XMPP comes from a Linux/Unix heavy support infrastructure. As such, I will be asking for and listening to what these communities, as well as the Windows/.NET/Mono communities have to say on the matter. This project isn't about living in a bubble. It's about secured XML messaging and XML is all about interop. Well, interop, and the ability to build upon a reliable data format in which we can build tools and processors against and expect that we can use these same XML-based data files on any platform, no matter what, using any spec-compliant XML parser and processor we want, no matter what. But then again, that pretty much defines interop [UPDATE: or at very least encapsulates the general ideas behind interop].
Bubbles and interop don't mesh well. ;)
OK, keep your eyes peeled and your ear to the ground and have a Happy New Year everyone! Enjoy your night, cuz tomorrow?
Tomorrow's the beginning of a whole new year era. ;) :D
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[1] : for those unaware, curl is a much beloved and heavily used utility that covers the gamut of internet-based protocols such HTTP*, FTP*, GOPHER, TELNET, DICT, FILE and LDAP, and does so with grace, and ease, and simplicity. The fact that its accessible via more language wrappers than you probably realized even existed (speaking to the number of languages that expose curl functionality through libcurl, the API library for invoking curl-based functions from within the application domain. see: left-hand side of libcurl front page) coupled with the fact that its an open source project maintained by (I'm guessing) thousands of active and enthusiastic loyalists suggests this is a project that if you don't already, you really need to learn about and start using.
Posted by m.david at 12:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
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