Journal
J.B. Rainsberger has started an interesting series of posts about integration tests for software (tests that excercise several parts of a system at once, as opposed to unit tests), and how useful they, well, aren't. It's a good read, particularly if you're a programmer doing test driven development. I have some thoughts about it, but I'm holding off on posting anything until the series is finished.
I did, however, want to comment on the fabulous irony of these two consecutive post titles:
Why I try to communicate in E-Prime
Integration Tests are a Scam
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(13)
10:48:30 PM,
Wednesday 8 April 2009
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Voted in the town election today. That was exciting. I felt like I got to have my say on one of the most important issues of the early twentieth century.
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(3)
05:17:11 PM,
Saturday 4 April 2009
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Speaking of PDFs, have I raved about Papers lately? It's like iTunes for research! It manages all those PDFs of academic papers you download, and keeps track of which ones you've read, what you thought of them, and other assorted metadata. It also has a surprisingly usable iPhone/iPod Touch version.
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(3)
08:27:41 PM,
Friday 3 April 2009
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Ten years ago, I could click on a link to a PDF and be pretty sure that it would open in my web browser. There was plenty to complain about, but it worked. Today, it's rare to find a browser with a working PDF plugin. It's weird. I don't expect technology to plunge downhill so unambiguously. (Or maybe it's just Firefox on the Mac. But still, that's a lot of people these days).
Anyway, the point of this story is to mention that, if you're using Firefox on a Mac, there is actually a plugin for viewing PDFs, and you can download it here.
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(19)
11:30:20 PM,
Thursday 2 April 2009
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Have questions for the President about the economy? Go ask them. (Or, more likely, vote up the versions of them that have already been asked).
Questions close tomorrow morning at 9:30 (eastern, I assume). I assume they'll do this again some time if it works well.
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11:22:33 PM,
Wednesday 25 March 2009
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Happy Ada Lovelace Day! When the topic of women's contributions to technology came up, I immediately thought of Barbara Liskov, because I was talking about her at work just last week. She's best known to me as the inventor of the Liskov substitution principle. The principle is a formal statement of what it means for one type of data to be a subtype of another, and is a key reference point for object-oriented programming, as it helps clarify when to use inheritance. However, this is only a small part of the work she's done. In 2008, she received the Turing Award, one of the highest honors in computer science. If you'd like to know more about her, the links above have some information, or you can listen to this recent interview on NPR's Science Friday. For other programmers reading this (or interested generalists), I'd suggest looking up PDFs of some of her papers. I'm currently reading Data Abstraction and Hierarchy (available free here). Although it's academic computer science writing, it's on a topic that's unusually relevant to the lives of working programmers, so I'd urge people not to be afraid to pick it up.
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(2)
10:49:04 PM,
Tuesday 24 March 2009
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Barbara Fisher's Hillbilly Fried Rice recipe is both versatile and delicious. (Tonight I made it with leftover Indian food. It worked. I have tried quite a few variations by now without being disappointed.)
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(3)
09:00:44 PM,
Thursday 19 March 2009
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Huh... maybe I'll blog more frequently if I stop linking exclusively to cute Javascript+Canvas tricks found on proggit.
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(1)
08:04:16 PM,
Sunday 15 March 2009
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Cursor Gravity is ridiculously fun.
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08:02:32 PM,
Sunday 15 March 2009
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As with so many technologies, JavaScript is at its best when used to make a duck.
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(1)
10:10:12 AM,
Sunday 1 March 2009
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Huh. Looks like the International Lisp Conference is happening right around here next month. Kind of tempting.
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(1)
12:23:57 AM,
Saturday 28 February 2009
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O.o.C.Q.o.t.D.: "But time doesn't exist any more, right?"
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(2)
08:23:53 PM,
Friday 27 February 2009
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Possibly the most concisely devastating thing I've ever read about technical interviews.
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(5)
10:06:46 PM,
Wednesday 25 February 2009
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Is it wrong that I think of J. Robert Oppenheimer as J-Ro?
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(2)
01:13:08 AM,
Saturday 21 February 2009
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If your shoes come untied all the time, it is possible that, like me, you have been tying them wrong your whole life. If so, this page will explain how to fix it.
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(15)
07:58:37 PM,
Tuesday 17 February 2009
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During one of the panels at Arisia, a remark was made about strong female protagonists, and someone asked "Do you mean real strong, or Whedon strong?"
This neatly encapsulates some of my doubts about Dollhouse.
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(6)
11:36:42 PM,
Tuesday 10 February 2009
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On the balance, are we better off with police than we would be without?
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(15)
11:00:44 PM,
Tuesday 10 February 2009
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Nothing to blog about. Time for bed. Need sleep.
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10:59:48 PM,
Thursday 5 February 2009
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Stack Overflow really is alarmingly good at answering programming questions. (Also, St. John's shout out on their podcast this week, albeit not by name.)
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12:01:31 AM,
Thursday 5 February 2009
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The real irony? The wine is from Sonoma.
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(1)
09:02:19 PM,
Thursday 29 January 2009
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If you see only one version of Forrest Gump this year...
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(2)
12:06:43 PM,
Friday 23 January 2009
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Also mulling over Erika's response to my post about new languages earlier. On some level the differences really are basically just about syntax, but on another level, there's something about the style of programming that different languages encourage. About what tools they give you to organize your ideas. Part of learning Java is learning what syntax it uses for else ifs, but another part is learning that a chain of else ifs is usually bad Java.
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(6)
12:01:42 AM,
Tuesday 20 January 2009
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This just in: sledding is totally fun. Also, snow is cold.
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(2)
11:55:30 PM,
Monday 19 January 2009
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A Spicy Yogurt Sauce
Chop up roughly equal parts garlic, ginger, and cilantro stems (maybe a little less ginger, and little more cilantro--adjust to taste), and mash them into a paste in a mortar and pestle, adding a dash of salt. Mix the garlic-ginger-cilantro paste into some Greek yogurt, a little at a time, until it tastes right. It should be distinct but not overpowering. Mix in some dijon mustard--three or four times as much as the garlic-ginger-cilantro paste, or whatever seems right to you. Add a few drops of lemon juice--just barely enough that you can taste the lemon in the full mixture. Add salt and pepper. Adjust till you think it's right. Optionally add some chopped up cilantro leaves. Eat with something.
I'm rushing through these and not including much detail because it's the only way I'll post them, and if I don't post them I won't remember them.
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(3)
02:15:24 PM,
Sunday 18 January 2009
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No Capes on the Escalator
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(1)
08:33:33 PM,
Saturday 17 January 2009
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Platform?
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(5)
05:53:48 PM,
Wednesday 14 January 2009
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Chop up a few leaves of chard. Also chop up the stems, seperately. Dice a shallot and sauté it in butter for a few minutes. Add the stems from the chard. And cook for a while. Add a few herbs, and a bit of salt. Throw in a splash of white wine and reduce it until it's thick and syrupy. Add the chard. When it's just starting to look cooked, throw in a bunch of dijon mustard (say a couple tablespoons?), and keep stirring till it's mixed in thoroughly. Grate some parmesan--okay, a bunch of parmesan--into it, mix it in thoroughly, and cook until it's starting to brown. Serve. Eat.
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(5)
11:57:11 PM,
Monday 12 January 2009
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Why, of Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby fame, has just released a new programming language, Potion. And he's not the only one: Ruby hacker Ola Bini has also been working on a language lately, called Ioke, which runs on the JVM. The two seem similar in spirit in a number of ways: both have lightweight, easy-to-parse syntax with a minimum of excess punction; in particular, both adopt the Smalltalkism of using a space, rather than a dot, to denote method calls; both are deeply object-oriented without using classes; both are extremely dynamic, like Ruby. I'm delighted with this development. These are the sorts of things I've been hoping for in a new language. Whether or not Potion and Ioke go anywhere in the long run, the fact that multiple people are going in this direction is a great sign. It also reminds me to pick up my own long-abandoned language hacking efforts. One of the best things about the Ruby community is the way it encourages this sort of fearless exploration of strange new territories, hacking on things for the love of it, regardless of whether it turns into anything practical.
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(3)
11:55:06 PM,
Friday 9 January 2009
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The Recently Deflowered Girl has been making the rounds lately, and has already hit MetaFilter, so there's hardly any point in blogging it. Nevertheless, what else can I do? It demands to be blogged.
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(11)
11:11:20 PM,
Friday 9 January 2009
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Found in Boston
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11:38:37 PM,
Thursday 8 January 2009
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Still, I guess the key thing is just to keep encouraging the habit.
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10:14:32 PM,
Wednesday 7 January 2009
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Well, that isn't going well so far, is it?
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10:13:31 PM,
Wednesday 7 January 2009
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Well, that isn't going well so far, is it?
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10:12:30 PM,
Wednesday 7 January 2009
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I'm pretty late to the party here, but Aaron Swartz's article "Who Writes Wikipedia?" is an interesting read. Condensed version: most new material comes from casual users who only make a few big contributions, while later editing and refinement is done by a small group of editors.
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(1)
10:39:19 AM,
Saturday 3 January 2009
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Oh, hey, complete with a new blog page.
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11:25:09 PM,
Friday 2 January 2009
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New year's resolution: I will post something every day in 2009. The best part is that I have already broken this resolution.
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11:25:02 PM,
Friday 2 January 2009
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