Day: December 27, 2002

  • Blosxom 0+6i BETA 1

    Rael releases Blosxom 0+6i BETA 1.  Looks like static rendering is in this version.

  • PHP 4.3.0

    PHP 4.30 has been released:

    This release contains a multitude of changes, bug fixes and improvements over the previous one, PHP 4.2.3. It further elevates PHP’s standing as a serious contender in the general purpose scripting language arena.

  • Semantic a Go Go

    Mark Pilgrim is on the bleeding edge of the semantic web.  See what he can do with the cite tag.

  • Java Development With Processing Power

    Matt Raible:

    I took my home-built machine into work this morning – and all was peachy until I asked the help desk to add my computer to the domain. Politics came into play and I was told that the technicians have to build the machines, not some dev-head. No biggie, just get me a faster machine I said. I argued with the guy for a bit as I tried to explain that a 700 Mhz, 128 MB RAM machine was too slow for Java Development. When he said that was one of the fastest machines they had, I almost choked. Luckily, they found a 2 Ghz machine that I get to start using tomorrow – this’ll be the 3rd machine I’ve built since I started last week. Damn. Sure is nice working from home when you have everything setup already. Do you think that tele-commuting will be the wave of the future? The clients that’ve paid me to work from home are getting a heckuva better deal than the ones that require an on-site consultant.

    One of the fastest machines they had?  Ouch.  I think I need to build a new box in the near future.  The more I use Ant and JUnit and do builds more frequently, the more free time I seem to have while things build and test.  My current win-dev box is dual PIII-733, but the quick Athlon stuff is getting really inexpensive.  Hmm…

  • Parsing with Spark

    David Mertz at IBM developerWorks goes over Spark, a Python parser:

    Spark is a powerful and general parser/compiler framework written in Python. In some respects, Spark offers more than SimpleParse or other Python parsers. Being pure Python, however, it is also slower. In this article, David discusses the Spark module, with code samples, an explanation of its usage, and suggestions for its areas of application.

    [Via RootPrompt]

  • Bloggers as ‘Open Source coders’

    Chris Gulker nails it:

    Andrew Brown offers a good comment. My thoughts: the constraints on coders are relatively obvious and straightforward: not so for ‘bloggers – in a way, bloggers have to work harder, and think through more ‘fuzzy’ undefined stuff, to offer a step forward… Harder, IMHO, than writing code with a specific input/output… you put yourself out in ‘opinion space’ where anyone can shoot you down… no code expertise required…

    Weblogs are a creative outlet for some and a semi-professional news gathering/commentary exercise for others.  The great thing about weblogs is that even if you only have a handful of readers and say something intelligent enough to be picked up, your meme might travel a long way.  It is the modern equivalent of annonymity and freedom that bbses and the early internet offered.  If you’ve got interesting stuff to say, someone will be listening.

  • Creative Commons Weblog

    Jenny points out that there is a Creative Commons weblog and RSS feed.  Cool!

    If I wasn’t so lazybusy, I’d write a spider to crawl the web, seek out content with creative commons licenses, categorize and index.  Maybe if I get a chance today, my friends S, S, and H might let me get a little devtime in.

  • PEAR Primer

    PHP Builder goes over PEAR (PHP Extension and Application Repository) basics.

  • Something Up My Sleeve

    I’ve got something up my sleeve.  I’ve been fiddling around with the python I need (gotta love interactivity) in order to pull it off.  It should be pretty interesting.  It should be trivial but neat.  More info as I code it.

    Python’s ftplib seems really zippy, by the way.  At least over a full-duplex 100 megabit switched network anyway.