Monday December 16, 2002

When Andys Attack!!

Or would that be "Andies"? No, that's a mountain range, right? Andy says that if I attack him I'll get triple digit hits! Will it work even if I'm not on FreeRoller? You be the judge (and thanks for the hit ;-) ). Andy, you've got a big nose and bad breath (well, I wouldn't know since I've never seen you nor encountered you in person, I just wanted to spread some FUD of my own).

A small bit later: Wait, I see I already hit triple-digits today. I think that is a first, and without attacking Andy. Heh heh, can't wait to see how many hits I get now. -- insert wicked grin smiley here -- ( Dec 16 2002, 10:38:22 PM ) Entertainment Permalink Comments [5]
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JavaServer Faces

I started reading the JSF article by David Geary on the bus this morning. It looks interesting, but ugh, what a mess of code. And everything is specified in web.xml?! And the destinations are hardcoded into each Handler?! I'm sure this could be done differently, and Mr. Geary had to create a simplified example, but ugh (again).
Now I just have to go off and see what the Struts integration looks like. So far I'm not seeing anything that adds to Struts, but I'm only 3/4 thru the article. ( Dec 16 2002, 08:12:29 PM ) Technology Permalink
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Open Source This!

In the latest installment of The FuzzyBlog Scott says I haven't ever seen "open source medicine". What a great idea! Quite impractical (who here has the resources available to develop medicines?), but I wonder if any medicinal's have ever passed into Public Domain? Aspirin? ( Dec 16 2002, 08:12:29 PM ) Technology Permalink Comments [5]
Trackback: http://www.brainopolis.com/roller/trackback/lance/Weblog/open_source_this

Microsoft Acquisitions

With the recent "news" that Microsoft may acquire Borland, this was a frightening read from Robert X. Cringely:

One of my spies reports hearing quite a lot about Macromedia being acquired. And the alleged acquirer is none other than Microsoft. She also said that Microsoft has been very jumpy as of late because of all the innovation on Macromedia's part. So much so, in fact, that the larger M just wants to buy them, perchance to avoid any competition in the desktop and developer frays where Microsoft plays.

If Microsoft were to acquire all the Java tool vendors, how would this affect their "we are not a monopoly" argument? ( Dec 16 2002, 03:16:36 PM ) Technology Permalink [Link]
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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;
    }