October 28th, 2007
Math, as related to Computer Science is highly intriguing to me. This article especially caught my eye, since I saw the challenge posted some five months ago. Well, in an untypically fast timeframe for math solutions, Alex Smith from Birmingham, UK has proved that this machine is indeed universal — the simplest (first?) 2,3 Turing Machine ever proven to be so.
Just two states and three colors. It is almost a puzzle in and of itself that such a simple machine can be universal. This is a nice rebuttal to the academics that state most innovative solutions in mathematics have already been done by our predecessors. Alex Smith has quite negated that statement through his proof.
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October 26th, 2007
I was asked about Open Source Billing solutions via email today. It had been a while since I had reviewed this space, but a few minutes in my deli.cio.us network revealed some interesting titles:
Al, Scott, I hope you find these products beneficial. Let us know which one you settle with and I’ll post your review here.
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October 25th, 2007
We’re hearing rumors that there might not ever be Java 6 on Mac. Say it isn’t so!
UPDATE: Well folks, it isn’t looking good. Leopard is Java 5 and the Java 6 preview has been ripped down from the Mac Developer site. What gives Steve? Some of your biggest fans are Java coders. If you can’t get a final Java 6 to them soon we’ll be the laughing stock and will have to resort back to any platform that does delivery Java 6.
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October 25th, 2007
I’m working on a project that is going to need extreme performance capabilities, as well as some unique libraries. Of course, any good Open Source practitioner should do some searching and check their deli.cio.us network’s bookmarks before writing their own library. I stumbled across the Google Collections library and an article that interviews the authors. This exactly fits the bill. The Google Collections library offers such nice-to-haves as Multimap with a sensible interface (e.g. calling multimap.put(bar, baz) rather than building up a list first). Here’s some code from another related Google Collections series of articles to show the before-and-after benefits:
Before:
Map<Salesperson, List<Sale>> map = new Hashmap<SalesPerson, List<Sale>>();
public void makeSale(Salesperson salesPerson, Sale sale) {
List<Sale> sales = map.get(salesPerson);
if (sales == null) {
sales = new ArrayList<Sale>();
map.put(salesPerson, sales);
}
sales.add(sale);
}
After:
Multimap<Salesperson, Sale> multimap = new ArrayListMultimap<Salesperson,Sale>();
public void makeSale(Salesperson salesPerson, Sale sale) {
multimap.put(salesperson, sale);
}
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October 24th, 2007
The momentum at the Denver Open Source Users Group is really growing. We have three new sponsor companies, including Atlassian and Robert Half Technology. 35 folks showed up at the last meeting and we’ve got 4 more presenters on board for the coming months. We even have new prizes: more books, shirts, and other graciously donated items such as an IntelliJ IDEA 7 license.
The talk about Grid Computing and Apache Commons Configuration were well received.
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October 24th, 2007
I’m on the side of thinking that believes companies spend way too much money unit testing GUIs when their business logic (their real value, most of the time) hasn’t even got great JUnit coverage. I’m not completely against testing GUIs, but let’s get our priorities straight — make sure the business logic is tested first, then we’ll talk about the UI. This developer has an article that shares some of the same sentiments and even mentions how Martin Fowler has frequent “Don’ts” but then leaves it to the user to track them down.
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October 24th, 2007
Here’s a quick video explaining to the uninitiated how Social Bookmarking works. For folks thinking that bookmarks in IE or Firefox are good enough, this is an excellent tool for convincing them otherwise.
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October 16th, 2007
Jordan over at Ambient Ideas Photography sent me a unique article that contrasts and compares Bill Gates’ and Steve Jobs’ presentation styles. One is brief, the other is wordy. One uses minimalistic slides, the other writes prolifically in slides. Whom would you rather listen to?
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October 15th, 2007
Lifehacker has an excellent but short point. Keep in touch with clients on a weekly basis to smooth the relationship and keep on top of what they need done and what they see as priorities.
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October 15th, 2007
Samuel makes the excellent point that we all need to be reminded of. Some “yes” answers in web design lead only to a bad experience for both developer and client. So it is best to consistently say no to these dangerous questions, such as “can I pay for all the work at the end of the project?”
Read 10 Absolute “No’s!” for Freelancers at the Wake Up Later blog.
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