DSL book Work In Progress: Updated web site: Over the last few months (actually many months),
I’ve been working on a book on Domain Specific Languages. I’m
now at the point where I think it’s worth pushing out my work in
progress. This page will keep you informed on where things are
(and there’s an atom feed too). Rather than drop it all out in
one huge dollop, I shall release what I have so far in bits over the
next few weeks. Once I’m caught up I’ll release material as I’m
writing it. [Cool.]
Source: Martin Fowler
Archive for November 15th, 2007
Ruby stuffs
Two things worth noting:
def something(x = 0) ... end
doesn’t ensure that x is set to a value of zero, because the method could be called with nil [something(nil)] so to ensure a default value of zero even in the face a call with nil
def something(x = 0) x ||= 0 ... end
would do the trick.
The second is that when adding text and an object’s property
x = 'some string' y = x + something.description
that if something.description is nil, the addition will fail, but if you interpolate ala
x = 'some string'
y = x + "#{something.description}"
something.description evaluates to empty string and therefore won’t fail.
Two subtle regressions our tests caught today when refactoring, but were not easy to see in the code.
Onward!
ZFS and The Holy Grail of Storage
ZFS and The Holy Grail of Storage:
I’ve wanted that for years, but I’ve largely dismissed it as a pipe dream, because it doesn’t fit cleanly into the drive/RAID/LVM/filesystem model that everything uses. The only thing that I’ve seen that even comes close is Drobo, and it’s supposedly fairly slow and really just too “magic” for me to trust.
[Even this isn't what I really want... although the Drobo seems nice. I want the same sort of thing, but I want to two pools... one for the time machine backups and one for the "live boot image" type backup. I admit that in some cases that might be overkill, but not for business related stuff. I admit that it wouldn't take long because of the "virtual nature" of so many apps to go from blank machine or disk to up and running (all my code is in repositories, schedule, mail and stuff is on the web etc., but still) but I keep a fairly up to date back up anyway, because if the failure occurs near a deadline (and doesn't it always? Praise Murphy!) I don't really want to be mucking about with that, I just want to get things done. Anyway, having two per machine would make it easy to have both, and having one hardware device that could do that or more would make it easier to manage. In the meantime the individual hard drives are piling up... I should add that a pair of Drobo's per machine seems costly to me... Other suggestions?]
Source: *scottstuff*
Flare: A site-specific browser for Windows/Campfire customers
Flare: A site-specific browser for Windows/Campfire customers: You can now download Flare 0.4, the first self-updating, stable release of Flare, the site-specific browser for Campfire. Flare lets you stay logged into a room in your Campfire account and notifies you of any new messages.[Someone recently asked me if there was a Campfire windows client...]
Source: 37signals Product Blog
Source: 37signals Product Blog
scripteka
Prototype UI: Prototype UI is a javascript library based on Prototype 1.6 and Script.aculo.us. It's an extensive and fast growing library of UI components which can be used in complex web applications. Currently, Prototype UI provides such modules as Carousel, Modal window, Shadow and Context menu which can be used as one package or independently.”[Scripteka is collection of prototype.j extensions and libs. Excellent.]
Source: Scripteka
Source: Scripteka
The $8 billion story/scam or Gift cards are for chumps
The $8 billion story/scam: Last year, more than $8,000,000,000 was wasted on these cards. Not in the value spent, but in fees and breakage. When you give a card, if it doesn’t get used, someone ends up keeping your money, and it’s not the recipient. People spent more than eight billion dollars for nothing… buying a product that isn’t as good as cash.
If I were a creative non-profit, I’d start marketing alternative gift cards. They would consist of PDF files you could print out and hand over to people when you give them cash. It could say,
“Merry Christmas. Here’s your present, go spend it on what you really want. AND, just to make sure we’re in the right holiday spirit, I made a donation in your name to Aworthycause.”
Stories come and go. It’s up to marketers to spread the good ones.
[Right on! Spread the meme: Gift cards are for chumps!]
Source: Seth’s Blog
Ajax, Browsers, Running Out of Time
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[I'm no so heavy a user of my browser under most conditions. I find apps that connect to the web either as services or as app specific browsers are a more compelling experience, and so many of the "web apps" I use run locally on my desktop while I have my home environment. But I can see the problem and work hard as coder to minimize the problem, would be nice if the lower level stuff made this easier and less leak prone.]
Source: Ajaxian
Written by Daniel
November 15, 2007 at 9:47 pm
Posted in advocacy, commentary, tech