Another proof that a single well picked buzzword like "cross-functional" can win you the game any time. I must have lost contact with mainstream or this one just is picking up steam, though.
Re:Joel is way too self-assured
on
Joel On Software
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· Score: 1
Joel might be smart. But he fancies himself as a been-there-done-that kind of guy. It must be very hard for him to withhold judgement which is reinforced by his dark, journalistic side.
I stopped reading JoS because of this and his OSS stance. He is too alien.
Use something that grows with you
on
JOE Hits 3.0
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· Score: 2, Interesting
When switching to Un*x/Linux some years ago Joe was a life-saver for me, it was simple, a well known spot on an unfamiliar landscape:-). After a few years with most of the unfamiliarity gone I found myself wanting efficiency/performance in my daily programming, so I tried vim. For weeks, I was feeling very satisfied with my ability to do some basic editing (without using cursor keys, of course:-)), then I realized I didn't like it and I've been an emacs user since.
There is so much to learn, you have to choose wisely. However, if you're serious about programming you will invest much energy over the years in learning an HTML editor, a good C/C++ editor, a docbook editor and perhaps even write your own editors for specific purposes. This realization made me pick kitchen-sink-emacs. But I still do not touch cursor keys.
Generating code from database schemas and the like can be acceptable in my book. However, generating code just because it is repetitive and clunky is *not*.
In theory, good programmers never write repetitive code: they factor out functions, classes. Still, there are things that cannot be factored out easily, patterns of code that just do not map well into functions or cannot be abstracted away in whatever way the language provides.
Some languages are better at abstraction than others, but not many provides the ability to generate code (think of syntactic abstraction). This is where Lisp macros shine. They can hide ugliness I'm forced to do in the name of performance, define new control structures,...
Think of the number times you were forced to go out of your way to solve a problem because while it was more correct or efficient it was less easy on the eyes. True macros would have helped. Well, divide that number by 10, the rest was probably your fault:-).
A language needing a code generator for reasons above lacks power and for this lack a thousand small tools will appear all trying to plug some holes.
Skip Head, you have saved me from the Spelling Commando. Hereby, I promote you to be my friend. Hell, I would be your fan, if I could figure that one out:-).
> the strong typing, the formal structure, and > the incredible power that Java offers. In the > course of grappling with concepts completely > foreign to those languages, I have purchased > and read many books.
Incredible powers with ducktape on C(++)? I guess it depends on the direction one's coming from. I came from the direction of C++ and python and I would never describe java as powerful. IMHO, it's a blockish, rigid, boring language with many libraries.
Discovering Common Lisp didn't help me fall in love with java, either. I also lost a lot of respect for static typing recently, gets in the way, and my tests are better at catching errors.
[That said ML's approach to this (static type checking, but no explicit type declarations) is nice.]
Hex is indeed a beautiful game. It has very simple rules, yet it is a very deep game.
You can try yourself against the computer champion .
Yes, it's a windoze program but I am almost finished with a KDE one that's slightly stronger.
I want XML because it is pure content. It can be processed by applications to produce something else. And it can be searched more intelligently than most other formats. For instance I can say 'Gimme all the docs that reference this other doc.' or 'Gimme all docs that have a section with a title "Overview" in it and that section has a subsection called "Python".
Yes, it can be done and probably makes a lot of sense for performance reasons. But I would like to allow the users to retrieve old versions.
I have similar needs and have been thinking about this problem for quite some time. I even submitted it to 'Ask Slashdot' but it wasn't lucky enough to make it.
OK. I have no intranet shells yet, but here is my take on the overall infrastructure.
Version control
It can be either CVS or ClearCase or any other decent version control software. I prefer CVS due to its free nature.
Content
All our legacy documents are in M$Word format and switching to something new is out of question. That said, I would like to phase in a XML/XSL based solution. Take DocBook for example and store (almost) all new documents in XML/DocBook.
Presentation
A small CGI based (or a Zope) frontend can easily serve files from CVS through the web server. If the doc is in binary format (Word, Excel,...) there isn't much the CGI program can do. But if it's in XML it can be presented in HTML or served in PDF, etc.
Searching
The free indexing tools can help here, altough I am not aware of tools capable of indexing Word docs. But Word can be converted to HTML (search freshmeat for it) and while the output is quite ugly, it does not matter for indexing purposes.
Problems
On the server side we need a rock solid XSLT engine and a XSL formatter. The latter is a problem at the moment.
On the client side a nifty, preferably cross platform XML editor is needed for the users to create and edit XML docs. This editor should buzzword compatible, validating, maybe WYSIWYG.
These are the missing links. I decided to wait for a while with the implementation until XML and its friends (XSL, XSLT) mature a bit. But even now one can start coding the front end. I am thinking about creating a Zope product for this.
It was written in C++ 2 years ago has an adaptive network engine and a fuzzy system to adaptive network translator. Documentation is only available in hungarian, but I can give you pointers to the papers which served as a basis for the program.
Drop me a line if you're interested and I'll send the source or provide access to it. On the other hand I have seen many similar things at CMU archive, so you may have luck there.
Slashdot Mirror
Another proof that a single well picked buzzword like "cross-functional" can win you the game any time. I must have lost contact with mainstream or this one just is picking up steam, though.
Joel might be smart. But he fancies himself as a been-there-done-that kind of guy. It must be very hard for him to withhold judgement which is reinforced by his dark, journalistic side.
I stopped reading JoS because of this and his OSS stance. He is too alien.
When switching to Un*x/Linux some years ago Joe was a life-saver for me, it was simple, a well known spot on an unfamiliar landscape :-). After a few years with most of the unfamiliarity gone I found myself wanting efficiency/performance in my daily programming, so I tried vim. For weeks, I was feeling very satisfied with my ability to do some basic editing (without using cursor keys, of course :-)), then I realized I didn't like it and I've been an emacs user since.
There is so much to learn, you have to choose wisely. However, if you're serious about programming you will invest much energy over the years in learning an HTML editor, a good C/C++ editor, a docbook editor and perhaps even write your own editors for specific purposes. This realization made me pick kitchen-sink-emacs. But I still do not touch cursor keys.
Generating code from database schemas and the like can be acceptable in my book. However, generating code just because it is repetitive and clunky is *not*.
...
:-).
In theory, good programmers never write repetitive code: they factor out functions, classes. Still, there are things that cannot be factored out easily, patterns of code that just do not map well into functions or cannot be abstracted away in whatever way the language provides.
Some languages are better at abstraction than others, but not many provides the ability to generate code (think of syntactic abstraction). This is where Lisp macros shine. They can hide ugliness I'm forced to do in the name of performance, define new control structures,
Think of the number times you were forced to go out of your way to solve a problem because while it was more correct or efficient it was less easy on the eyes. True macros would have helped. Well, divide that number by 10, the rest was probably your fault
A language needing a code generator for reasons above lacks power and for this lack a thousand small tools will appear all trying to plug some holes.
Skip Head, you have saved me from the Spelling Commando. Hereby, I promote you to be my friend. Hell, I would be your fan, if I could figure that one out :-).
At least I escaped the wrath of Grammar Nazi.
> the strong typing, the formal structure, and
> the incredible power that Java offers. In the
> course of grappling with concepts completely
> foreign to those languages, I have purchased
> and read many books.
Incredible powers with ducktape on C(++)? I guess it depends on the direction one's coming from. I came from the direction of C++ and python and I would never describe java as powerful. IMHO, it's a blockish, rigid, boring language with many libraries.
Discovering Common Lisp didn't help me fall in love with java, either. I also lost a lot of respect for static typing recently, gets in the way, and my tests are better at catching errors.
[That said ML's approach to this (static type checking, but no explicit type declarations) is nice.]
Hex is indeed a beautiful game. It has very simple rules, yet it is a very deep game. You can try yourself against the computer champion . Yes, it's a windoze program but I am almost finished with a KDE one that's slightly stronger.
I mean if I upgrade to Progeny, and decide to go back to plain old potato can I do that? Or can I go back to testing(woody) from which it was created?
I'd really like to check it out, but I also want safe path back.
I want XML because it is pure content. It can be processed by applications to produce something else. And it can be searched more intelligently than most other formats. For instance I can say 'Gimme all the docs that reference this other doc.' or 'Gimme all docs that have a section with a title "Overview" in it and that section has a subsection called "Python".
Yes, it can be done and probably makes a lot of sense for performance reasons. But I would like to allow the users to retrieve old versions.
I have similar needs and have been thinking about this problem for quite some time. I even submitted it to 'Ask Slashdot' but it wasn't lucky enough to make it.
OK. I have no intranet shells yet, but here is my take on the overall infrastructure.
Version controlIt can be either CVS or ClearCase or any other decent version control software. I prefer CVS due to its free nature.
ContentAll our legacy documents are in M$Word format and switching to something new is out of question. That said, I would like to phase in a XML/XSL based solution. Take DocBook for example and store (almost) all new documents in XML/DocBook.
PresentationA small CGI based (or a Zope) frontend can easily serve files from CVS through the web server. If the doc is in binary format (Word, Excel, ...) there isn't much the CGI program can do. But if it's in XML it can be presented in HTML or served in PDF, etc.
SearchingThe free indexing tools can help here, altough I am not aware of tools capable of indexing Word docs. But Word can be converted to HTML (search freshmeat for it) and while the output is quite ugly, it does not matter for indexing purposes.
ProblemsOn the server side we need a rock solid XSLT engine and a XSL formatter. The latter is a problem at the moment.
On the client side a nifty, preferably cross platform XML editor is needed for the users to create and edit XML docs. This editor should buzzword compatible, validating, maybe WYSIWYG.
These are the missing links. I decided to wait for a while with the implementation until XML and its friends (XSL, XSLT) mature a bit. But even now one can start coding the front end. I am thinking about creating a Zope product for this.
It was written in C++ 2 years ago has an adaptive network engine and a fuzzy system to adaptive network translator. Documentation is only available in hungarian, but I can give you pointers to the papers which served as a basis for the program.
Drop me a line if you're interested and I'll send the source or provide access to it. On the other hand I have seen many similar things at CMU archive, so you may have luck there.