I'm full of ideas. Aren't we all? Eventually, when you reach a hairy old age like me, you realise that There Ain't No Way In The World you'll ever be able to do them all. This is what makes ideas cheap. Let me say it again.
Ideas Are Cheap. Implementation Is Everything!
Just occasionally, though, we have ideas that are so good that we really, really want to see them implemented. But we know, deep down inside our souls, deep down in our secret heart, that we're never, ever going to have the time, energy and stick-with-it-ness to pull the thing off.
Here are three of my ideas:
1. I want a ToDo manager that works like this: Keep my top five ToDo items only. Don't even allow me to put more in. I must be able to prioritize them. And they should display at all times as my computer's desktop image.
2. A decent word-processor. One that fails almost completely to concern itself with formatting. Perhaps bold, italic and lists -- that's all that's really needed. On the flipside, though, it should really understand document structure -- sentences, phrases, paragraphs and sections. And allow me to collapse them. If I move a heading, move all its subheadings and associated text, too. In other words, focus me purely on prose, editing prose, tightening up my phrasing, reordering my own words. Please don't make me fuck around with margins, fonts or colours. I know that Lyx does something pretty close to this, but its far from pretty, and, frankly, TeX is dead. Get over it.
3. A social-networky, Web2ish, Ajaxy, <insert-own-buzzword-here> website where people can list their ideas for systems they don't have time to write, and everybody else can vote on the ideas, comment, add/edit the spec (wiki style). Perhaps, just perhaps, some people might choose to pick up those projects and start implementing them. No bounties. Sorry, but I'm more broke than you!
Come to think of it, maybe I will implement that last one! After all, don't the VC pundits all say "Get the simplest thing that functions out the door, and then listen to your user-base." Here's a way of listening before you even get version 0.0 written!
29 November 2007
19 November 2007
Object-Relational Event
At long last EoD SQL 1.0 is out! Congrats to Lemnik on this achievement. But what is lurgy?
EoDSQL is an Object-Relational bridge -- an small library for getting (Java) objects in and out of relational databases. It is not an OR Mapper; that task is left to the developer. You get to specify how (Java) data elements correspond to which database columns handraulically, using annotations[1]. Not only that, but, as developer, you get to write all the SQL, too! Good! For me this is one of the best features of EoDSQL. EoDSQL will never mess with your highly tuned SQL, will never get between you and your database. I confess to finding myself far more comfortable with this sort of lightweight approach to the much-lamented "OR impedance mismatch" problem than other approaches I've seen to date.
The upshot of all this lightweight deliciousness is that it is screamingly fast! Way faster than any of the heavyweight OR tools I've seen. And Lemnik is talking about implementing a compile-time tool to make it faster yet.
I have to confess to some bias, though: I was so impressed with the thing that I ended-up writing the tutorial for EoDSQL, so I'd welcome feedback on it, either here, or on the project's mailing list.
EoDSQL is an Object-Relational bridge -- an small library for getting (Java) objects in and out of relational databases. It is not an OR Mapper; that task is left to the developer. You get to specify how (Java) data elements correspond to which database columns handraulically, using annotations[1]. Not only that, but, as developer, you get to write all the SQL, too! Good! For me this is one of the best features of EoDSQL. EoDSQL will never mess with your highly tuned SQL, will never get between you and your database. I confess to finding myself far more comfortable with this sort of lightweight approach to the much-lamented "OR impedance mismatch" problem than other approaches I've seen to date.
The upshot of all this lightweight deliciousness is that it is screamingly fast! Way faster than any of the heavyweight OR tools I've seen. And Lemnik is talking about implementing a compile-time tool to make it faster yet.
I have to confess to some bias, though: I was so impressed with the thing that I ended-up writing the tutorial for EoDSQL, so I'd welcome feedback on it, either here, or on the project's mailing list.
[1] So, yes, it is Java >=1.5 only. Anybody who is not already running 1.5 or better (production environments included!) has lost the plot (or has serious, perhaps fatal, legacy issues!)
06 November 2007
Scam, scam, scam, scam, scam!
You must have heard it before: "Is this Mike? You have won a Holiday In Florida!"
We've all had the emails. This evening was, I admit, The first time I got the Phone Call. Very American accented young lady. Fortunately my highly tuned sense of paranoia kicked in, perhaps aided by the fact that they quoted my using an email address not used in over ten years, and I simply put the young lady on hold for several minutes while pouring myself a small drop of a certain Scottish libation. After a couple of minutes I asked her to hold while I considered the situation.
How did these scammers get my phone number?
The thing is, my phone number is unlisted, and I am certain I have never, ever typed it into any web form. Ever. Trust me on this. I treat all forms with the abuse, hostility and contempt they deserve (thanks to a old boss I had, John Merry, who taught me The Fine Art of Form Contempt.)
A fairly obvious advance-fee fraud. But how many people would fall for it? A few weeks ago, an acquaintance called me, filled with jubilation: He had Won The Lottery! An email said so!
I sadly had to puncture his bubble, and enlightened him as to how these things work. This is a man who worked in the IT industry as a senior manager for many years. He is far from a fool; indeed he is a highly talented and intelligent individual. But he fell for the scam and was about to (snail-)mail them a cheque! I can only shudder at the thought of the outcome if they had called my Dear Old Dad with the same line of bullshit.
After about ten minutes of playing silly-buggers with the caller - mainly to cost them money - I asked the lady where they had obtained my phone number.
*click* (The sound of the phone being put down.)
A couple of minutes later, the phone goes again. This time a (very American accented) man, with the same line of bullshit. "You filled in a form on the computer. The Com-Pu-Ter!" (Like we Africans have never seen a computer before.) "Using the. You've won a Holiday In Florida."
I repeated my question: "Where did you get this phone numer?"
"Off the Web Form you filled in."
"No. Really, where did you get this unlisted phone number never before typed into a web form in any shape manner or form?"
*click*
The only company who have somehow managed to get my unlisted phone number into a database somewhere were Standard Chartered Bank, with their spam phone calls. Perhaps they're exacting a revenge now for all the pain I caused them over that.
The Unterste Schurrer (Non-Yiddish Readers: "The Bottom Line")
Who the fuck would want to holiday in Florida, anyway?
We've all had the emails. This evening was, I admit, The first time I got the Phone Call. Very American accented young lady. Fortunately my highly tuned sense of paranoia kicked in, perhaps aided by the fact that they quoted my using an email address not used in over ten years, and I simply put the young lady on hold for several minutes while pouring myself a small drop of a certain Scottish libation. After a couple of minutes I asked her to hold while I considered the situation.
How did these scammers get my phone number?
The thing is, my phone number is unlisted, and I am certain I have never, ever typed it into any web form. Ever. Trust me on this. I treat all forms with the abuse, hostility and contempt they deserve (thanks to a old boss I had, John Merry, who taught me The Fine Art of Form Contempt.)
A fairly obvious advance-fee fraud. But how many people would fall for it? A few weeks ago, an acquaintance called me, filled with jubilation: He had Won The Lottery! An email said so!
I sadly had to puncture his bubble, and enlightened him as to how these things work. This is a man who worked in the IT industry as a senior manager for many years. He is far from a fool; indeed he is a highly talented and intelligent individual. But he fell for the scam and was about to (snail-)mail them a cheque! I can only shudder at the thought of the outcome if they had called my Dear Old Dad with the same line of bullshit.
After about ten minutes of playing silly-buggers with the caller - mainly to cost them money - I asked the lady where they had obtained my phone number.
*click* (The sound of the phone being put down.)
A couple of minutes later, the phone goes again. This time a (very American accented) man, with the same line of bullshit. "You filled in a form on the computer. The Com-Pu-Ter!" (Like we Africans have never seen a computer before.) "Using the
I repeated my question: "Where did you get this phone numer?"
"Off the Web Form you filled in."
"No. Really, where did you get this unlisted phone number never before typed into a web form in any shape manner or form?"
*click*
The only company who have somehow managed to get my unlisted phone number into a database somewhere were Standard Chartered Bank, with their spam phone calls. Perhaps they're exacting a revenge now for all the pain I caused them over that.
The Unterste Schurrer (Non-Yiddish Readers: "The Bottom Line")
Who the fuck would want to holiday in Florida, anyway?
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