Blue Ball Machine - giant ball machine on a website. Beware, it has background music.
Archive 28. February 2006
BranchBasedDevelopment - interesting list of points on how to work with branches in Subversion in a meaningful way.
Divmod - a whole series of very interesting Python projects. Of course, also its own web framework and its own ORM, but also a few smaller, interesting things like, for example, a Bayesian Classifier.
MacMini with Core-Duo
Sir Steve announces the MacMini Intel Core Duo - and I think I want one. After all, it's definitely nice to have two processors on your work computer. Especially if the chipset also steps up a bit - the one in the MacMini PPC is not exactly the fastest.
However, my dream setup (Core Duo, 2 GB Ram, 120 GB hard drive, Apple Care) would easily cost me 1500 euros. Ouch.
More Pictures from the DMC-L1
More pictures of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-L1 - the one with the Leica 4/3 lens. This will definitely be one of the things I'll get my hands on at Photokina. Fortunately, it's still a long time until Photokina, so I can put all photo purchases on ice for now. Maybe I'll forget about it by then ... (yeah, and pigs can fly ...)
NASA World Wind - Software like Google Earth, but with NASA satellite images. Unfortunately only for Windows.
Screencast about Web Applications
Steve from JPL has provided a comparison of various web frameworks as a video. Quite nice, even if he of course simplifies some things quite a bit. Warning: the video is very large (300 MB) and J2EE comes off badly.
Regarding the Django comments (after all, I am a Django contributor): I18N has been in the standard for a long time, but since Django moves very quickly, you can't expect it to take everything into account. And with the templates, he is not dependent on the Django template language, he can also use ZPT (the same ones as in Plone).
But the central point comes across well: forget J2EE, learn something else. And in this case, the decision between Plone, Rails, TurboGears, or Django is probably completely irrelevant - the main thing is that you learn something that you also enjoy programming with.
SonyStyle USA - PRS-500
The Sony eReader PRS-500 - the one with the electronic paper as display - is now out in the USA. 350 US$. But the software for the transfer seems to be only for the PC and somehow I don't read anywhere that you can just normally copy files onto it to read them. I hope they will provide more details that the device can also be used with OS X or other systems - on the other hand, Sony is one of the main proponents of DRM and similar nonsense, so it wouldn't surprise me if the platform remains a closed platform. Then it's probably waiting for the competition ...
Tail Call Optimization in Python
At the beginning of the month, I was still annoyed that GvR doesn't want tail-call optimization in Python - because he thinks that this is a feature that cannot have a simple interface. On [Lambda the Ultimate] there is also a comment on this - because logically, this statement by GvR has led to some amusement in the Lisp community. Especially cute about this: there is a solution to optimize tail calls via decorator - where Python simply fiddles around in the stack (thanks to stack introspection, this works quite well). So much for the topic of Rube Goldberg Device - the decorator is extremely compact, there is really not much complexity contained. Of course, the optimization is not really optimal - it avoids stack overflow, but uses exception handling to avoid function calls, which then affects performance a bit. But for the simple transfer of recursive algorithms, this can still be quite useful.
And why is something like this not built directly into Python as a better, more efficient solution? Python 2.5 gets conditional expressions inherited from Perl (value if condition else othervalue), but not something like a simple decorator to optimize certain function calls?
What Company Founders Imagine
No sooner do SAP employees want to establish a works council, than the SAP founder questions the company's headquarters in Walldorf:
Two days before a works meeting is held at SAP on Thursday with the aim of electing a works council, company founder Dietmar Hopp intensifies his warnings: The installation of a works council is a "backdoor for IG Metall", said Hopp, who rejects the rigid ideas of the union officials regarding working hours: "If someone has to ask the union whether I can call California at eleven o'clock tonight, then good night beautiful SAP", Hopp illustrated his concerns to Handelsblatt.com – "in the worst case" Walldorf as the location of the corporate headquarters is in danger, said the longtime chairman of the supervisory board, who withdrew from the committee altogether almost a year ago.
Exactly. Companies with a works council are not allowed to call abroad. With such pitiful babbling from company bosses and managers, I really wonder what makes these flatheads so special that they have to rake in so much money? Competence - whether professional (because labor law belongs to the professional field of a manager for me) or human, the founder of SAP has quite simply dropped his pants here, and what comes to light is simply just an ass.
Also shocking is the incitement against the unions from the alleged employee representatives - if you read through their outpourings, you are not surprised that the employees at SAP now want a works council. At least they have a real chance that someone is sitting there who actually represents the employees and not just his supervisory board position ...
Addendum: how well FUD works can be seen in the result. And how the alleged business papers slap their thighs with joy. Too bad for the employees of SAP - because sooner or later they will probably learn the hard way how stupid the idea is to waive their co-determination rights. But the polemic that a works council would only be controlled by the union (which is ridiculous, because it still depends on the elected works council members what they do) and that a works council allegedly does not fit the corporate culture has probably worked better than common sense. It is, however, typical daydreaming of employees in the IT industry, it was the same 20 years ago in the computer center. They had to learn it later too ...