Friday December 13, 2002

Russell offers up his observations on returning to the USA, if only for a brief time.

Have I mentioned how big those damn SUVs are?

Yup, a couple times ;-) ( Dec 13 2002, 09:47:25 PM ) Entertainment Permalink
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Minor Overreaction?

It's a shame when you cannot express your opinion without it being construed as a death threat. Granted, there is the occasional psycho, but was this really necessary? And who gets praise? The lackey stool pigeons who probably couldn't have an opinion if it wasn't fed to them with a spoon.

Disgusting.

( Dec 13 2002, 08:12:29 PM ) News Permalink Comments [1]
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Re: Name Your Children Well

Once again, just to demonstrate how I differ from others: my wife and I specifically picked names that were not popular. In fact, for our first daughter we had a name all picked out. Then about a month before she was born we started seeing more and more TV characters with that name (Caitlin), so we came up with another.

My first two children are named after famous actors (not really, that is just what we tell people): My first daughter is "named after" Morgan Freeman (really, one of our favorite actors. So what if she is a white girl and he is a black man) and my son is "named after" Liam Neeson (before Episode One). Besides which they are good Irish names and my wife is 100% Irish by descent. Our youngest (Keara) isn't really named after anyone, except perhaps one of the characters on Star Trek:Deep Space Nine. ( Dec 13 2002, 08:12:29 PM ) Entertainment Permalink Comments [6]
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Thursday December 12, 2002

Re: Code Readability

I've just got to chime in on this one, because I'm usually the odd-one-out on preferences: I agree with this form being most readable - in some cases. The primary reason I like this format is that it makes it easier to see the variable names amongst the other code. Now do I always do it this way? No. I lay out my code that way *when it makes it easier for me to read* and never elsewise. To me these are personal preferences, again, just like the old "where do curly-braces belong."

For the record I'll stand up and say I like curly braces on their own line. I know, this violates all sorts of rules and social conformity, but dammit, that's how I like it. To explain myself, this makes it easier to visualize a block of code (for me) than having the opening curly on the same line as the for/if/which/whathaveyou. I don't know which is worse for me to read: the Standard way, or my former co-worker's way. He put the curly-braces on their own line, but indented with the code (I guess this is another standard spelled out somewhere, I just never saw it anywhere else). Example?

if ( this == that )
    {
    code;
    more code;
    }

Tuesday December 10, 2002

Too good to not repeat

James Duncan Davidson:. As forwarded onto me from an unknown source...

Please accept with no obligation, either express or implied, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of a holiday on or near the date of the winter solstice, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious and/or secular persuasions of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, inclusive of the choice not to engage in the practice of any religious or secular traditions.

May you have a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted Western calendar year 2003, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose diverse contributions to society have helped make America great. (This statement made without implication that America is of relatively greater value than any other nation, country, kingdom, realm, emirate, sultanate, principality, or geopolitical state of any kind, whether or not officially recognized by any other nation, country, kingdom, realm, emirate, sultanate, principality, or geopolitical state, or that the United States of America is the only "America" in the western hemisphere, and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, gender, physical ability, religious faith, or choice of computer platform of the wishee.)

By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms. This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others. This greeting is void where prohibited by law, subject to all Federal, state, and local taxes, and further is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year, or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.

( Dec 10 2002, 09:48:05 PM ) Entertainment Permalink
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Temporal Decoupling

I just cannot seem to stop myself from misreading other's blog titles. Femoral Decoupling is actually my second mis-read of this title, the first being thermal decoupling. ( Dec 10 2002, 10:34:52 AM ) Humor? Permalink Comments [2] [Link]
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My Community, Your Community

Ben Hyde's post on community is interesting, but I think basically flawed. With the exception of the title of this post, I've never labelled myself a member of the java.blogs community (discounting my use of the java.blogs "button" on the right side of this page), yet I feel very much so a member.

I think that several of my posts demonstrate membership of my community without ever using that phrase. I know, Ben is trying to make a point, and a valid one. But his use of statistics generated by a google search create false results. Being a former (attempted) developer of "online community", I think it is primarily those trying to create the community, not the members, who like to use the word community. Looked at this way, I think the google numbers correlate to the books in an expected manner. ( Dec 10 2002, 09:05:36 AM ) News Permalink [Link]
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Monday December 09, 2002

On Configuration

To comment on Jeff's continuing configuration quest, I would add my vote to trying out Betwixt/Digester as the engine. I used this to build the RollerConfig object (for Roller, duh) and it was stupid-simple. I spent a couple hours futzing around trying to get it "perfect" (Betwixt has some inclusion/exclusion rules that I was unable to get to do what I want) but it was unnecessary work. So Jeff, if you want an example, check out the Roller cvs for RollerConfig. The roller-config.xml is here if you want an example of that as well. ( Dec 09 2002, 12:19:33 PM ) Technology Permalink Comments [1]
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