Weblog by month (January 2003)
The cookies are back
So far, so good. Still testing though. I've also added a blogroll to the side of the page; I have a links section on the site already, but it's nice to have them "in yo face" too.
Want some more Lotusphere? I can heartily recommend Bill Buchan's blog in that case. His Lotusphere tales are great fun!
What OS are you?
Via Mike, this silly test:
Which OS are You? So I wasn't OS X. Oh well. Better than being Windoze v1.0 I suppose!
Via Ned: our biological clock
Ned Batchelder passes on this fascinating news from one of my old universities, Purdue. Read Ned's blog entry for some additional facts and links. I find stuff like this pretty awe-inspiring.
Pricing
Henning Heinz makes an excellent point re the awkwardly named WSAD, to wit its cost. It's shaping up to be an excellent IDE, but wow, is it expensive. And you need a lot of memory to run it properly too.
Enough ranting
I shall leave you with this: How to be a programmer (via Erik).
Lotusphere and the cynics
I say "cynics" as opposed to the far more palatable "sceptics" (I used to get called cynical at work... I prefer the term "healthy scepticism"!)
In the Domino "blogsphere" there have been some summary articles about Lotusphere. They've been pretty cynical. Like the people who've written these blog entries / articles, I can only go on what I've seen. As someone who — and I should emphasise this — hasn't been at this Lotusphere, I am encouraged. I am far happier about Notes and Domino than I was a year ago. Out of 180-odd sessions, having around 30 that focus on Websphere is hardly over the top. What the hell is wrong with Websphere anyway? OK, so it's a J2EE system that isn't nearly as "quick to react" as Domino, and it costs, but insofar as one can address perceived shortcomings, for once I think IBM have done a good job. Websphere is based on "open standards." It embraces Domino. You get a cut down version with Domino 6. Websphere Studio for Application Developers (WSAD) is shaping up to be a cool IDE, as it should, given its Eclipse underpinnings. And I'm all for playing to Domino's strengths.
But please. Some of the "editorial" I've read is so negative it's just stupid. Take in the presentations. Read what has been said once you get the chance. Then strut. When it comes to Notes and Domino, there's still nothing out there that even nearly competes. Of course IBM need to market Notes and Domino better. There we go. But to liken it to OS/2 (pretty cool too, sadly!) or to continuously bang on about its failings (of which there are many) does a great disservice to the product and the great minds behind it. I should be so lucky to be involved with something as perennially cool as Notes...
Update: That said, I can't help but agree with Mike in his summary. There are indeed some mixed messages coming from IBM, and I don't see how senior management is going to necessarily understand where all this is going. My only issue is that this is a long-term thing, and not just confined to Lotusphere.
All told there are a lot of mixed messages frm [sic] IBM at the moment, it's very confusing for us who closely follow Lotus let alone Mr Manager who only dips his toe in the water from time to time. Our beloved product is being eroded, we have already accepted that, but IBM, can we please have some real direction?
Other reading: jonvon: lotusphere day 2
Java
After all that Java is cack crap, how about saying Java is Doomed? (via Jason Bell)
Note: Java is "cack" and Java is "doomed" are jokes. I like Java. And if you want to get into some pseudo-intellectual argument about programming languages, you've come to the wrong place.
Server probs
If you've been getting errors when trying to submit comments etc., I apologise —there's something up with the server replica of the database, and I think it's now fixed!
I've lost my nice cookie-fied comments though. They should be back later...
New article today
Just a quickie, about testing for empty variants — some code I was doing today prompted me to write it. The RSS one is coming soon!
Opera & the Mac
Opera Mac development likely to cease. Hmmm. Let's think about this:
- Apple haven't made Safari to piss 3rd parties off. They've made it because no-one was providing a full, rounded and fast browser experience for OS X... people expect a decent browser for a platform in this day and age!
- Compare Opera's reaction with that of the creators of OmniWeb (I blogged about that a couple of weeks ago).
- If Opera for the Mac didn't suck (especially in contrast to the decent Windoze version), they wouldn't be in this mess.
Gah! Another worm!
Per Dave Barry's blog, Urgent Security Advisory — concerned readers should check out the subsequent blog entries also...
Phoenix to = Surfzilla
As they say over the water, the new name "sucks!" Dreadful. Oh well.
Added some cookie code to the comments form on this site. My meagre testing has revealed that it works so far, but don't hold your breath, you know me! It's just a simple "Remember me" tweak courtesy of Tomer Shiran at doc javascript, a mainstay of most blog comment systems.
48KB?!?
More computing nostalgia with a contemporary twist. This time it's from Jason Chambers, a Java blogger, who posts about how he started programming with a ZX Spectrum. He goes on to discuss how modern programmers have never had it so good! Food for thought indeed.
Anyway, continuing the Java thread, good old Julian has published his Java sample code database which he promised just the other day.
Lotusphere, standards, etc.
I'm still taking it in, and it's only day two anyway. Justin has a good post with initial thoughts.
Meanwhile, Laurent chips in re web standards and makes a good point. Kudos to anyone who has a standards-based site (something I still don't have; I break my RSS compliance about three times a week!), but as Charles says avoid standardsism (albeit not in direct reference to web standards), and remember that accessibility counts for more than validating HTML, although naturally the two are oft-times linked.
Charles: Swing sucks!
Charles Miller: Swing sucks! (Bandwagon-jumping post). Well yeah, it certainly does!
