Month: December 2011

More on pattern mismatches (MVC etc.)

ActiveRecord (and Rails) Considered Harmful – Literate Programming:

If you’ll notice, I basically have said that models are a problem. Controllers are a problem. Views are a problem. MVC has served the web well, even if it isn’t the GUI style MVC that named the pattern. But I think we’re reaching its limits; the impedance mismatch between HTTP and MVC, for example, is pretty huge. There are other ways to build web applications; I’m particularly excited about WebMachine. I don’t have a constructive alternative to offer here, I just know there’s a problem. I’m still mulling this one over.

[Some interesting thinking here. It feels like it makes certain things easier but is not fleshed out. Maybe because it’s new, but maybe it just doesn’t feel quite right. I’m fairly convinced that part of the problem is the amount of functionality we often cram into one application.]

Overend in Switchback Issue 01, Rusch in 02

Switchback interviews Ned Overend:

Next it starts to rain forty-five minutes into it, it turns to freezing rain, the mud is splashing up into my face, I’m still trying to stick with these guys that are chasing all the while my body temperature is dropping. Then I’m miserable, I start to get hypothermic and then I’m not thinking about racing anymore— I’m just trying to get to the finish line. It becomes survival. After two and half hours of riding in the rain, I hate mountain biking. Then the sun comes out and I start to feel better, I finished totally shattered. It’s just the whole thing—the suffering, the exhilaration.

[Everyone who does this writes about it the same way. Beautiful.]

Rusch:

The way I’ve always treated sponsorship is as a personal relationship. With Red Bull it was, ‘We’ll give you water bottles and a couple of cases of Red Bull.’ Great! That’s awesome and I was happy with that. Same with Specialized, we got a pro deal and that’s it. And they have grown into my main sponsors and it’s all been really slow. Giving them feedback, giving them photos, saying thank you. I mean all the stuff your grandmother teaches you! Write a thank you note. It’s really simple. I didn’t ask for money initially, and I felt like I gave them a good return on their investment and each year it slowly grew and now I’ve been with Red Bull now 10 years and Specialized eight. It’s just an honest working relationship, there is no magic to
it. You over deliver and then it usually works out in the end.

[It’s all about relationships.]

Your Rails Application is Missing a Domain Controller

Your Rails Application is Missing a Domain Controller:

When an application has multiple Domain Controllers I place them in a dedicated directory under app called services to keep them separate from the Model entities in app/models. This helps communicate that Rails Action Controllers should delegate to the Domain Controllers, not directly to Model Entities. The Domain Controllers and Model Entities together, represent the domain layer of the system. I have also discussed extracting the entire domain layer from the Rails framework, but that’s another discussion. Let’s keep this blog post civil for now!

[I’ve also refactored in this direction a bit lately. I’m beginning to wonder of MVC needs to be replaced in these cases with “MDCV” to begin with…]

Redis in the NoSQL ecosystem – Blog : Siyelo

Redis in the NoSQL ecosystem – Blog : Siyelo:

All these different options place Redis in the NoSQL ecosystem somewhere between simple caching systems like memcache and feature-heavy document databases like MongoDB and CouchDB. The question is: when do you pick Redis over other NoSQL systems?

[I wouldn’t limit my thinking to the use cases listed here, but th post does give a quick, if limited, overview. It does not mention all the datatypes or the scripting for example, so make sure you explore Redis from the documentation on outward.]

Mallory Myths – Gear Timezone

Mallory Myths – Gear Timezone:

Their layers of wool, silk and cotton was lighter than modern clothing and extremely comfortable to wear
Mallory’s boot was the lightest ever used on Everest.

The 1924 Everesters were lightweight specialists who understood their clothing better than most modern climbers
The complete set of garments was field tested on Everest, by Graham Hoyland, the great nephew of Howard Somervell, in April 2006. He confirmed that the replicated garments indeed formed a sophisticated, effective and comfortable clothing system which ‘was perfectly adequate for a summit bid’. Graham Hoyland, Everest, April 2006

[Unsurprising considering that we’ve all “rediscovered” wool and silk in the last few years, and who doesn’t love cotton? You just have to be more careful about getting them wet. Cotton, because it takes a long time to dry, wool because it absorbs so much water that it weighs a ton until it dries, and loses it’s shape along the way. etc. But still, awesome.]

Bill Strickland’s Year-End Top 1 List

Bill Strickland’s Year-End Top 1 List:

The only thing that really, truly matters in cycling is that I’ll be out there, and that I got out there today, and yesterday, too, and however many days I made it on a bike in 2011. Maybe some of you haven’t been out riding in a week. Maybe some of you doubled up today. You might be in a big training block right now, or plummeting down a holiday-season spiral. The jackets we own might not be one of the ten best according to some blogger. Our socks might not be the Pantone color of the year (it’s 17-1463, tangerine tango, for 2012).

That stuff? It all ranks somewhere between number two and infinity. Get out on your bike. I’m thinking I’ll take Shimerville.

[I’ll be out tomorrow at some point. 12 miles to hit my goal. Less than an hour.]

inrng : tinker, tailor, cyclist, spy

inrng : tinker, tailor, cyclist, spy:

The “Russian global cycling project” wording on the jersey, team bus and website is not a slogan, it is a statement of fact. These billionaire oligarchs, with vast wealth and power, curiously run a cycling team. Just as the Soviet Union once sought sporting success, Moscow is today aiming for similar glory. Cycling is a chosen sport but there are others, the 2014 Winter Olympics are another part of this impressive spend and Katusha even sponsors a sailing team, making it surely the first cycling team to be a sponsor, rather than sponsored. And note the overlap between the state and sport, for example the Russian intelligence services knew a week in advance of the announcement that Russia would host soccer’s 2018 FIFA World Cup.

The pro team is just one part of Russia’s spending on cycling, there is the Rusvelo development team (previously Itera-Katusha). With a man in the UCI it can only be a matter of time until Moscow gets a World Tour race and if the Putin kommanda retains power for long enough, we can probably expect the World Championships there before 2020.

Some teams sell flooring, banking or satellite television. Katusha sells Russia. This is a team like no other.

[Sheesh.]