Miscellaneous and Useless Information
James Lin’s infrequently updated blog
A constant theme in HCI and computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) is how hard it is to get a group of people to adopt and support new technology — being technically superior is not nearly enough. One good example, interestingly enough, is in the area of web application frameworks. For example, in my favorite language Python, …
Continue reading “Web development: Ruby on Rails and Django”
Two nights ago, my buddy Jonathan and I met up for dinner. We were in an adventurous mood, so we went to Vicky’s Restaurant [map | Mercury News review], which specializes in cuisine from El Salvador, in the Burbank neighborhood of San Jose. Jon couldn’t resist the 2 Tacos for $2 deal, but we also …
Continue reading “Salvadorean food and Willow Glen ice cream”
Normally I program in Java, but recently I needed to write a quick program, and I turned to my favorite language for such tasks, Python. I hadn’t used Python for a while, so I’d forgotten how much I like the language — terse, clean syntax, and an elegant design. But I’m still looking for a …
Earlier I wrote about Microsoft and IBM making their nomenclature more sane. Looks like Sun is getting also into the act. The current version of Java is “Java 2 Platform Standard Edition, version 5.0” (or J2SE 5.0), which has an internal version number of 1.5. That’s three version numbers for one product. Thankfully, the next …
Lately there’s been a bunch of initiatives aimed at making software development easier and more robust, by having programmers create and program in domain-specific languages, instead of general-purpose ones like C or Java. Examples include Intentional Software which was spun off from Microsoft Research, the Meta Programming System by JetBrains, and Software Factories by Microsoft. …
Miracle: Ahnold and the legislature leadership have finally reached a deal on the Bay Bridge replacement. Now maybe this bridge will be built before I turn 40. Sheesh.
The Great Mall of America is nothing compared to what’s getting built in China these days. We’re talking malls over 130 acres, or 1/5 of a square mile.
Two of my biggest pet peeves were recently addressed. Microsoft announced that in Longhorn, it is dropping “My” from My Documents, My Computer, My Network Places, etc. Woohoo! I’ve always thought it sounded pretty lame. I used to rename these folders myself, starting in Windows 95, but eventually I gave up. The other one is …
Today I went to a Borland presentation on its Java development tool, JBuilder 2005. I hadn’t played around with it for more than five years, so obviously what I saw tonight was dramatically different. It has some slick support for developing and refactoring J2EE programs. For example, if you rename a class via refactoring, JBuilder …
After being stuck in the sand for almost 6 weeks, the NASA Mars rover Opportunity finally escaped. Kudos to the JPL engineers who got it out. It’s amazing that 14 months after NASA thought the rovers would be dead, they are both still going strong.