Jonas Beckman

There is lots of snow in Stockholm today.

Jon Udell has started to think about why it’s difficult to implement Perl and Python for JVM and .NET .

Here is an article that claims the new Intel Pentium 4 chip is a real dog. Wouldn’t surprise me. Link via The Register

Python’s Profiler is talking to me. It says: we have a very slow XML DOM here. Well, that’s too bad… see you next year.

I’ll soon go over to Aila - looks like we’ll finish the year with an amazing dinner.

Went to Söderhallarna for some shopping: fresh Swedish lobsters and a few very special bottles of wine and champagne.

Only Systembolaget can sell wine and spirits in Sweden. And they close the day before New Year’s Eve, so hundreds of people were there at the last minute - a peculiar but very Swedish tradition. Systembolaget exists to keep alcohol consumption down… but since they are one of the largest buyers in the world, they have a truly excellent sortiment.

Today my Freestyle Pool Primer, from Total Immersion arrived. I went down to the pool and tried out a few drills at once. They are all about finding a balanced position and becoming slippery in the water… great fun!

Here is some severe criticism of RUP (the Rational Unified Process of software development). Use cases can be useful - but RUP is more about selling Rational’s CASE tools than anything else. Link via Cam

Personally, I like use cases. But of course, they are very easy to abuse - and they do work best in small projects with experienced developers. BTW, I recommend UML Distilled, by Martin Fowler - it has a refreshingly minimal, common-sense approach.

Imperfect and changing specifications is what makes software special, so optimizations that work for a traditional manufacturing process are rarely enough. I consider sane engineering practice a good thing - but find the factory metaphor of software development both repugnant and misleading.
Which is also why I never worked for Ivar Jakobsson - though he asked in the early Nineties.

Swimming today, swimming yesterday… feels good.

Had coffe with an old friend. She’s gearing up for a play she’s directing and is also getting into capoiera. Great conversation, doors opening… even though we known each other for ten years. She will be over for dinner at Aila’s place on New Years Eve.

I am still hacking Python, but the DOM stuff doesn’t feel quite right - I find myself impatiently scanning the Python CVS for fixes.
I should probably back off for a few days.

The Great Computer Language Shootout Serious and ambitious attempt to compare languages. Several tests are made on different kinds of programs, implemented by different programmers. Great ammunition for advocacy!

For all you sysadmins out there: Dealing with Users

Chris Bayes XML/XSL portal really is a portal - very useful!

IBM has a nice sample of how to Build an adaptable Web app front end with XML and XSL

The Living More Lightly Profile

Der Schockwellenreiter hopes for Closures in Python - so do I. Maybe next year? But right now I what I enjoy most about Python is how easy it is to apply it to real problems.

Well, OK… using pyGame to build my own Aliens may not solve any real problems. But it’s fun!

Chris Langreiter built something called Vanilla: it’s another version of the original WikiWikiWeb. He did the first prototype in Python, then re-implemented it as REBOL CGI-scripts - I had to see why, so I installed REBOL, Apache and Vanilla.

But I never really liked to mess with CGI on my workstation… I didn’t get his point until I switched to Vanillean, which runs locally, using itself as a webserver. WikiWay, WayCool!

On a related note, Martin Spernau and Chris have been talking about Ruby lately - I’m intrigued, since I am an old Smalltalk-fan (and enjoy Squeak). So many languages, so little time… I’ll take a look anyway.

VMware has a new product for people who use Linux: VMware Express is only 79$ and lets you run Windows 95 or 98 in a virtual machine.

I use W2K, but want Linux, too - so what I use is VMware Workstation. It’s very nice to have W2K and Linux running simultaneously. Nothing keeps me from trying the same thing in different environments - here is a typical screen dump.

Yesterday was simple and nice: family, food and lots of presents for the kids.

My nephew Martin got new fuel for his steam machine and everything he needs to be a street-hockey goalkeeper (pads, glove, pad, helmet and a really cool sweater) - we played for hours in his room, until his parents told us to stop!

I continue to receive nice mail and other responses from people who read this page. Thank you!

Today me and Aila are taking it very easy. She has a cold, but manages to do lots of cooking and baking anyway.

Meanwhile, I am playing with the various DOM-alternatives for Python. The built-in SAX support (Python 2.0 + the latest version of PyXML) is very easy to use and works just fine, but using DOM is a bit messy. DOM is of course messy in any environment. Here are some other who dislike it.

Paul Prescod’s MiniDOM is what I’d like to use - here are the latest docs. But something is wrong with cloneNode() and there are Unicode problems, too.

Aila says I should take a walk while there is still sun outside - so I will. I’ll continue this research and write a summary later.

Hal pointed at Garret’s a year of blog - the top 25 items he has learned. I recognize so much of this… Garret, thanks for this great summary of lessons learned!

Martin changed his mind: “You know, I really used to hate young newly made dads running around with pictures…”

Greg is musing about ghost games… games from way back in 1996. Remember when something called multimedia was hot? I fooled around with desktop video in the early Nineties, even taught Director for a while… but making software was always more fun.

A conversation with William Calvin

Opinionated neuro-scientist and popular writer. Link via abuddhas memes.

ZVON.org has many excellent tutorials and online references about Web and XML-standards. There are lots of examples that work in the browser.

Snowdeal.org is a very ambitious weblog. Having a clear, readable layout, it’s actually more like four weblogs rolled into a seamless whole. The sections are called conflux, {bio,medical}informatics, ex machina and parallax.

Fredrik Lundh explains the real meaning of variable/parameter/assignment in Python

Jon Udell asks: Can the Java Virtual Machine already deliver What .NET Promises?

NY Time summarizes The year in technology law

A last small business rush died down yesterday… did a brief code review, met an architect and discussed the new look for our office, tried to trace a delayed invoice… but all that can wait a few days.

I finished my Friday with a great massage, a new haircut and a solitary chinese dinner with shrimp omelette and lobster. I felt splendid.

Quiet.

Today it’s Saturday. Me and Aila went to Hellasgården for some sauna. It was really cold today:
taking a dip in the lake felt great afterwards.

I could have taken the day off today, but the new Python project we landed is too much fun. We have defined the business case for the first round - and we’re almost there already.

It’s really very pedestrian data-laundering. But I am having fun hacking Python and XML: our kick is to see just how readable and compact we can get it. Litterate programming for the real world… something like that.

Of course, my partner later asked me to explain what the new code was really doing… you can’t win them all

And later yet, after I had explained, he sent me some meta-code to make things more readable… so maybe it was a win after all?

Yesterday was my Manila Anniverary. I have now written continously here for a year.

This time last year, I was extremely owerworked, pushing myself far too hard at the end of a “death-march” project. I can’t really blame anyone else for being there - I had enough experience to see it coming. As my health started to fail, I finally took a hard look at the mixture of fear and pride that was the real cause.

So when I discovered Manila it came as a breath of fresh air, a chance to think my own thoughts in the middle of chaos. This is the way I have written all my life - but this time I wasn’t talking to myself, but to a small circle of fellow humans all over the world.

What started as something of an escape - participating in a virtual community with unknown people on the other side of the world - has turned into something else: another great way to see just how real life is everywhere.

I feel great respect and gratitude towards everyone who share of themselves here. Thank you!

Today I was well enough to have some great meetings - now I can take my holiday break and relax. All current projects are under control, I work with people I respect and who respect me. Things are certainly better than they were last year.

Very tired and feverish, unsuccessful when trying to work… this is boring!

But I do believe that better things will come.