Learning to prepare eel

From "Kyoto's Never-Changing Scene", Gourmet, May 2007, p. 225

It took him a good three years to learn to slice eel correctly, he said, but at least eight to learn how to properly insert the skewers. "I've only been in the kitchen for ten years, so I haven't mastered it yet. Every eel is different. I'm still benkyo [studying] every day," he said, smiling at Matsuno, who smiling back, had the last word: "It takes a lifetime, " she said.

Just to provide more context, this is the junior cook at an eel restaurant in Kyoto. They serve eel - not sushi, not tempura, not noodles - just eel.

Orchard Lounge vs. Kubrick

This would have been awesome in my more experimental days. Check out Orchard Lounge vs. Kubrick

BTW, their free mixed tapes are killer. Here is their podcast

Python Autotester (Leopard only)

I've been doing some Python development lately. Sadly, I could not find an equivalent to Ruby's ZenTest::Autotest. However, there is nose which will run anything test-like in its search path. Then there is Pyobjc pre-installed on Leopard, and Leopard has the new carbon FSEvents API. All I need to do is glue all of those together. Can't be that hard! Fortunately, those famous last words held up this time. Here's a pastie for it:

http://pastebin.com/f675e6b1

O'Reilly Arc Book

In honor of Arc being made available, I created an O'Reilly book cover here http://www.oreillymaker.com/link/8528/arc/

Update: fixed the misspelling of parentheses.
Here is the original (funnier?) "parenthesises" version

Amen, Brother

Dynamic Languages: Should the Tools Suck?

I'm tired of hearing "Ruby is the new Smalltalk" (even from Kent Beck!!) I prefer "Smalltalk, it's like Ruby with tools."

Here's something I was playing around with using these archaic tools from the 80's ;)

Autotester-a demo video

If Steve Yegge were really talking to a young programmer...

...then I hope he wouldn't recommend Javascript (or ES4)! It may suck less than Java, but come on.

To any young programmer daring for greatness, I have 3 recommendations.

1. Learn Lisp.


2. Learn Smalltalk.


3. Learn Prolog.

You'll be forced to deal with the other languages at some point. There is no sense in crushing your idealism right out of the gate.

This is in reference to: http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2007/12/codes-worst-enemy.html

OOPSLA '08 - Nashville!!

OOPSLA has long been on my conference todo list. Since it will come here next year, I won't have an excuse for not going.

New Seaside Tutorial

If you haven't tried Seaside out, you no longer have an excuse.
http://www.swa.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/seaside/tutorial

It's a good idea to get up to speed so that you can enjoy GLASS when it becomes available.

For general introduction to Squeak, try http://squeakbyexample.org/.

iPhone SDK, Ubuntu 7.10, Leopard Oct 26th, ...

It's like my newsreader is stuck in an infinite loop.

What I look for in a programming language

Through a series of posts, I stumbled upon this little gem by Ralph Johnson:

Some people like languages with a lot of features. I prefer simple languages. Smalltalk makes "constructor" be a convention. Arithmetic is in the library, not in the language. Control structures and exception handling are from the library, not in the language.

PLEASE READ, American jailed in Nicaragua

This is a childhood friend of one of my friends. This has received almost no U.S. press coverage, with the exception of the Wall Street Journal. Please help get the word out.



http://www.friendsofericvolz.com/

http://www.myspace.com/freeericvolz

Pzizz

From MacZOT:

MacZOT.com Fans want Pzizz because 'According to the National Sleep Foundation, sleep deprivation and its effect on work performance may be costing U.S. employers some $18 billion each year in lost productivity. Another study pushes this cost to over $100 billion.' - link to full article

Sophie - Squeak App

Sophie is an example of a nice looking Squeak app, a true rarity. It appears to be using Tweak and I think some custom widgets. It's been a while since I looked at Tweak so I'm not sure how much is the default versus custom L&F. Here are some some screencast. I definitely need to read up more about it.

Screenshot of Sophie Countdown widget.

Croquet 1.0 beta is here

From David Smith's blog.

Find out more at http://www.opencroquet.org.

You can view some movies from Mark McCahill's Croquet-Bento blog here.

Very cool.

Congratulations to DabbleDB

DabbleDB won Best of Show and Make It Easy categories at the Under the Radar conference.

This is well deserved recognition. DabbleDB is a fantastic product with a very clean interface and exceptional attention to detail. Writing this sort of dynamic data storage and manipulation is wonderful application of Smalltalk and Seaside.

To read more about it Rowan Bunning has a post here.

Metric time (Who needs sleep?)

Does anybody remember the SNL skit about converting to metric time, 100 hour days, 100 days in a month, 10 months a year. The solution was government subsidized speed during waking hours and Quaaludes to sleep. Apparently this may not be to far off.

I remember my dad telling me that in 60's they were saying that because we were becoming so much more efficient that we would have more free time. People would work 20 hours a week rather than 40. Too bad the exact opposite happened.

Neighborhood victory!

My neighborhood has been involved in very heated debate over a Conservation overlay for the past year. This is basically a light version of a Historic District. Our councilman took a survey last Spring and said that the neighborhood was in favor of the overlay. Those opposed did their own survey a few months later and said the neighborhood was against the overlay. After several months and many meetings that culminated with the longest meeting in Nashville City Council history, it may all be over. The city council decided to conduct its own survey. According to the local paper the results are in and the neighborhood voted 2-1 against the overlay. My hats off to some on both sides who attempted to present honestly the pros and cons on the issues, and to those who spent many hours of their own time championing their cause. With the exception of our councilman, who behaved like an arrogant teenager, the community treated each other with as much respect as one can hope for with such a hot button issue. It was nice to see democracy at work.

Quit posting Dvorak on /.

Exhibit ZZZZZ∞

I don't even think he believes this tripe. I wish I could make a living posting complete crap. Maybe Gartner is hiring?

Google Maps - Face in the Sand

Pretty cool satellite photo of Peru.

Excellent Post on Common XP Questions

Darren Hobbs has a great write up of answers to questions that inevitably come up when adopting XP. My favorite quote is the last line, "Code is clay, not marble. Or at least it should be." It is a worthwhile read if you are introducing or adopting XP. Go read it.