I have finished listening to the remaining OOPSLA 2007 Podcasts.
Unexpectedly, the Podcasts I wasn't expecting to learn from much for my purpose were very educational for me. "FindBugs" was interesting and I agree that it should be a part of continuous checking in - whenever a developer checks the code into the source control system, he/she runs FindBugs.
There seem to be lots to learn from ooPSLA this year.
I hope that it would be like what Linda Rising said in her Podcast about MiniPLoP - Don't criticize the author of the pattern by using the words such as "Your work is bad," instead, suggest what can be improved.
And I certainly don't expect a person in an important position to make a claim that some attendee is an idiot without even knowing the person or even talking to him/her even once. The comment should be scientific - based on the fact and evidence, not on personal emotion or cultural bias.
ooPSLA is a conference that we can demand such an integrity as a common sense.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Saturday, October 20, 2007
OOPSLA 2007 Podcast
I have listened to some of OOPSLA 2007 Podcasts.
I enjoyed them very much.
Particularly, I enjoyed, "The Scala Experience", "Ruby", and "Unit Testing Patterns". I wish I would have a time to listen to "Domain-Specific Modeling" and "Aggressive Learning", too, which sound interesting.
I enjoyed them very much.
Particularly, I enjoyed, "The Scala Experience", "Ruby", and "Unit Testing Patterns". I wish I would have a time to listen to "Domain-Specific Modeling" and "Aggressive Learning", too, which sound interesting.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Green Recruiting
Many people seem to want to work for a company that is environmentally responsible. I'm glad to know that.
"What’s Your Green Recruiting Strategy?"
"Green is the Color of Successful Recruiting"
In the past, I was discriminated because I was trying to recycle materials. I hope that it will become a thing of the past.
By the way, sometimes in the past, I was socially discriminated by religious workers, even though it is a basic human rights violation. But they don't care or maybe they don't understand the concept of human rights. I hope the society becomes the one where nobody is discriminated when he/she acts based on the fact.
"What’s Your Green Recruiting Strategy?"
"Green is the Color of Successful Recruiting"
In the past, I was discriminated because I was trying to recycle materials. I hope that it will become a thing of the past.
By the way, sometimes in the past, I was socially discriminated by religious workers, even though it is a basic human rights violation. But they don't care or maybe they don't understand the concept of human rights. I hope the society becomes the one where nobody is discriminated when he/she acts based on the fact.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Improved Ruby Gems
Ruby Gems: new release and plans for inclusion in Ruby 1.9
RubyGems Beta 0.9.4.5
I have update to Ruby Gems 0.9.4.5 right after I've read the InfoQ article above.
$ sudo gem update --system --source http://segment7.net/
(sudo is for Mac OS X)
I'm getting back the mode to live on the Edge as I used to with Eclipse. I used to download every milestone as soon as it was released - this was influenced by my former colleague.
RubyGems Beta 0.9.4.5
I have update to Ruby Gems 0.9.4.5 right after I've read the InfoQ article above.
$ sudo gem update --system --source http://segment7.net/
(sudo is for Mac OS X)
I'm getting back the mode to live on the Edge as I used to with Eclipse. I used to download every milestone as soon as it was released - this was influenced by my former colleague.
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Seats in buses and trains in South America are more comfortable
Seats in buses in South America are very comfortable. Especially, "Cama". Even "Semi-cama", which is not as good as "Cama", is very comfortable. Even the buses in less developed countries like Peru have comfortable seats. And the seat in a train in Chile was comfortable as well.
After I came back to North America, I found that the seats in buses and trains were very poor and uncomfortable. I can't believe that I had thought that they were comfortable before going to South America.
By the way, unrelated but I saw people making a call from cell phone in a running subway in Chile and I think Argentina, too. But in North America, there is no signal in subway.
After I came back to North America, I found that the seats in buses and trains were very poor and uncomfortable. I can't believe that I had thought that they were comfortable before going to South America.
By the way, unrelated but I saw people making a call from cell phone in a running subway in Chile and I think Argentina, too. But in North America, there is no signal in subway.
Ruby on Rails - ActiveScaffold
It's good to generate repeatedly used codes.
But ActiveScaffold is using configuration to set particular parameters or conditions. That reminded me of Java + XML, where XML configures the auto generated Java code. It seems to be "configuration over convention" instead of "convention over configuration". Going back to the bad approach. Only the good thing about ActiveScaffold's way is that it's done in Ruby language itself not external stuff like XML.
Isn't there a way to generate codes for controller and views in "Convention over Configuration"? I wonder.
--------------------
P.S.
I have wanted to mention this. So decided to add now.
ActiveScaffold is tying View and Controller together by generating them dynamically. Then, what's the point of Model-View-Controller separating View and Controller? The purpose of Model-View-Controller separating View from Controller is that View can be created/changed independently from Controller.
But ActiveScaffold is using configuration to set particular parameters or conditions. That reminded me of Java + XML, where XML configures the auto generated Java code. It seems to be "configuration over convention" instead of "convention over configuration". Going back to the bad approach. Only the good thing about ActiveScaffold's way is that it's done in Ruby language itself not external stuff like XML.
Isn't there a way to generate codes for controller and views in "Convention over Configuration"? I wonder.
--------------------
P.S.
I have wanted to mention this. So decided to add now.
ActiveScaffold is tying View and Controller together by generating them dynamically. Then, what's the point of Model-View-Controller separating View and Controller? The purpose of Model-View-Controller separating View from Controller is that View can be created/changed independently from Controller.
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Rails: How to test
I came across Jay Fields' blog entry, "Rails: How we test".
I'm glad that I happened to find this article because it contains the ways to use mock object and to make rails unit test not to access database. I like the way of writing unit tests without accessing database by mocking database access. But I didn't know how to do that with Rails. And I wanted to follow the Rails convention because that's one of the strength of Rails. But now I can do whole a lot of better way of writing tests.
I'm glad that I happened to find this article because it contains the ways to use mock object and to make rails unit test not to access database. I like the way of writing unit tests without accessing database by mocking database access. But I didn't know how to do that with Rails. And I wanted to follow the Rails convention because that's one of the strength of Rails. But now I can do whole a lot of better way of writing tests.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Buy a Laptop for a Child, Get Another Laptop Free
Through ACM TechNews, I found this article. The full story is here.
And the name of the project is "One Laptop Per Child".
I wonder if Millennium Village project the non profit project I was contributing to is for will be utilizing this. If not, they may be able to get one to access the web site.
And the name of the project is "One Laptop Per Child".
I wonder if Millennium Village project the non profit project I was contributing to is for will be utilizing this. If not, they may be able to get one to access the web site.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Walk the walk - it's different
Deborah Hartmann is using Ron Jeffries' quote at the foot of her e-mail.
"My advice is to do it by the book,
get good at the practices,
then do as you will.
Many people want to skip to step three.
How do they know? " -- Ron Jeffries
I like it.
I don't like people who make a judgment of something they never practiced only by reading about it or even just by hearing about it. For example, I don't like people who criticize Agile software development practices simply because those practices sound unfamiliar to them.
"My advice is to do it by the book,
get good at the practices,
then do as you will.
Many people want to skip to step three.
How do they know? " -- Ron Jeffries
I like it.
I don't like people who make a judgment of something they never practiced only by reading about it or even just by hearing about it. For example, I don't like people who criticize Agile software development practices simply because those practices sound unfamiliar to them.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Back from South America
I've just posted a new blog.
It's good to have Internet access at hand with wide-range wifi, etc. That's a good thing about being back in North America.
South America was good.
I may write a summary of what was good there later on.
But I just write a few of them.
People in South America were very nice while some of the English speaking people from other parts of the world are just so full of themselves.
I found that people in Brazil, especially around Sao Paulo, were more open to different kind of people. - Before the trip, I thought that North America was the most diversified place in the world (in fact, that's why I decided to live in Canada). But it was not true. It was good to know that. Especially, religious people in English speaking countries are very closed minded to different kind of people.
It's good to have Internet access at hand with wide-range wifi, etc. That's a good thing about being back in North America.
South America was good.
I may write a summary of what was good there later on.
But I just write a few of them.
People in South America were very nice while some of the English speaking people from other parts of the world are just so full of themselves.
I found that people in Brazil, especially around Sao Paulo, were more open to different kind of people. - Before the trip, I thought that North America was the most diversified place in the world (in fact, that's why I decided to live in Canada). But it was not true. It was good to know that. Especially, religious people in English speaking countries are very closed minded to different kind of people.
Homer's Odyssey as an Agile Consultant
I've just watched the video of Jean Tabaka's presentation at Agile 2006 ("Homer's Odyssey or My Life as an Agile Consultant").
In one of the companies I worked for, I encountered many of the monsters she described. For example, Laestrygonian (Technical Lead Saboteur), The Siren (person who tells what Agile is and teaches wrong practices), and the control guy who says that it's not Agile unless everybody follows what he says.
My emotional feeling was that I felt relieved that somebody identified those problems. What this presentation means to me in practice is that I learned what to watch out and how to deal with them.
In one of the companies I worked for, I encountered many of the monsters she described. For example, Laestrygonian (Technical Lead Saboteur), The Siren (person who tells what Agile is and teaches wrong practices), and the control guy who says that it's not Agile unless everybody follows what he says.
My emotional feeling was that I felt relieved that somebody identified those problems. What this presentation means to me in practice is that I learned what to watch out and how to deal with them.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Christopher Alexander's keynote speech at OOPSLA 1996
One of my acquaintances sent me this link to OOPSLA 1996 keynote speech - "The Origins of Pattern Theory - the Future of the Theory, And The Generation of a Living World by Christopher Alexander".
I'm on road so I just write my impression of reading it briefly. It is ironical that his good intension was misunderstood and misused. When did referring to his work start to prevent software developers from reacting to what's happening to the code at hand and from building software generatively, like in Agile way?
In the next last section of this blog, I just paste excerpts from his speech, which I found interesting.
--------
I don't know hardly anything about what all of you do.
I didn't really understand what had been going on, and that my work had somehow been useful to computer science.
When I faced the question of addressing you, I wondered what on earth I should talk about.
That local adaptation can happen successfully only if people (who are locally knowledgeable) do it for themselves.
one of the efforts of the pattern language was not merely to try and identify structural features which would make the environment positive or nurturing, but also to do it in a fashion which could be in everybody's hands, so that the whole thing would effectively then generate itself.
(Bear in mind, as you hear my comments, that they need to be taken with a grain of salt; I'm ignorant; I'm not in your field.)
We were able to judge patterns, and tried to judge them, according to the extent that when present in the environment we were confident that they really do make people more whole in themselves. Of course you may ask, How in the hell did you test for that? But that is too long a story which I cannot cover in this speech. The important point is that such testing was going on continuously.
We were looking for the extent to which, as a whole, a pattern language would produce a coherent entity.
(1) the moral capacity to produce a living structure and (2) the generativity of the thing,
It seemed to me that we had fallen far short of the mark that I had intended.
At about the same time I began to notice a deeper level of structure and a small number (fifteen) of geometric properties that appeared to exist recursively in space whenever buildings had life.
The comparable view, in software design, would tell you that a program which is objectively profound (elegant, efficient, effective and good as a program) would be the one which generates the most profound feeling of wholeness in an observer who looks at the code.
The important thing is that -- in architecture -- this is not merely a hunch but a testable empirical result. It means that the objects that are most profound functionally (when I say objects, I mean buildings, streets, door knobs, shelf, room, dome, bridge) the objects that are most profound functionally are the ones which also promote the greatest feeling in us.
If there really is a way of looking at structures which both deals with real functional structure in the ordinary technical and practical sense, and simultaneously has its roots in human feeling, there will be a very huge and positive step.
recursively
That is what happens in all the living structures we think of as nature. When you analyze carefully just what's going on and how things are happening in the natural world, this sort of structure preserving transformation tends to be what's going on most of the time. That is why, when nature is left alone, most of the time living structure is produced.
I have, for many years, thought that this could only be solved by a genetic approach -- an approach where deep structure, spread through society, creates and generates the right sort of structure, very much as genetic code creates and generates organisms and ecological systems -- indirectly, by letting loose life creating process.
If these software packages are life creating, and accepted, and widely enough spread throughout the world, there is a chance we might get a grip on this problem: provided that the software is freeing, liberating, allows each person individual control and decision making power to do the right thing, and to create living structure, locally, wherever they are.
the process by which one discusses these kind of things, shares ideas about them, gradually influences the way people are thinking so that gradually larger and larger percentages of bits of the environment might turn into living structure.
When I had the pleasure of beginning to meet some of the various folks who introduced themselves to me over the last year and a half from the software community, I began to be fascinated by the number of them that were closet architects. Greg Bryant who worked on the 486 chip, is really interested in ecology and is an editor of Rain, an ecological magazine. Bill Joy is writing about workstations in the concrete physical sense that is familiar as an architect. John Gage, chief scientific officer of Sun, is interested in neighborhood schools, and in the process by which people can repair their own physical neighborhoods by working together. Jim Coplien is dealing with social structures in human organizations. Mark Sewell from IBM wants to build houses. Dick Gabriel has as his deepest passion, the writing of poetry: another kind of art. I don't have a long enough list.
The new generative languages are dynamic and, like software, interact with context, to allow people to generate an infinite variety of possible results but, in this case, with a built-in guarantee of well-formed results.
When a paradigm change occurs, in a discipline, it is not always the members of the old profession, who take it to the next stage.
I want you to help me. I want you to realize that that problem of generating living structure is not being handled well by architectural planners or developers or construction people now, and the Earth is suffering because of it. I believe there may be no way that they are ever going to actually be able to do it, because the methods they use are not capable of it. For you it is different. The idea of generative process is natural to you. It forms the core of the computer science field. The methods that you have at your fingertips and deal with everyday in the normal course of software design are perfectly designed to do this. So, if only you have the interest, you do have the capacity and you do have the means.
What I am proposing here is something a little bit different from that. It is a view of programming as the natural genetic infrastructure of a living world which you/we are capable of creating, managing, making available, and which could then have the result that a living structure in our towns, houses, work places, cities, becomes an attainable thing.
I'm on road so I just write my impression of reading it briefly. It is ironical that his good intension was misunderstood and misused. When did referring to his work start to prevent software developers from reacting to what's happening to the code at hand and from building software generatively, like in Agile way?
In the next last section of this blog, I just paste excerpts from his speech, which I found interesting.
--------
I don't know hardly anything about what all of you do.
I didn't really understand what had been going on, and that my work had somehow been useful to computer science.
When I faced the question of addressing you, I wondered what on earth I should talk about.
That local adaptation can happen successfully only if people (who are locally knowledgeable) do it for themselves.
one of the efforts of the pattern language was not merely to try and identify structural features which would make the environment positive or nurturing, but also to do it in a fashion which could be in everybody's hands, so that the whole thing would effectively then generate itself.
(Bear in mind, as you hear my comments, that they need to be taken with a grain of salt; I'm ignorant; I'm not in your field.)
We were able to judge patterns, and tried to judge them, according to the extent that when present in the environment we were confident that they really do make people more whole in themselves. Of course you may ask, How in the hell did you test for that? But that is too long a story which I cannot cover in this speech. The important point is that such testing was going on continuously.
We were looking for the extent to which, as a whole, a pattern language would produce a coherent entity.
(1) the moral capacity to produce a living structure and (2) the generativity of the thing,
It seemed to me that we had fallen far short of the mark that I had intended.
At about the same time I began to notice a deeper level of structure and a small number (fifteen) of geometric properties that appeared to exist recursively in space whenever buildings had life.
The comparable view, in software design, would tell you that a program which is objectively profound (elegant, efficient, effective and good as a program) would be the one which generates the most profound feeling of wholeness in an observer who looks at the code.
The important thing is that -- in architecture -- this is not merely a hunch but a testable empirical result. It means that the objects that are most profound functionally (when I say objects, I mean buildings, streets, door knobs, shelf, room, dome, bridge) the objects that are most profound functionally are the ones which also promote the greatest feeling in us.
If there really is a way of looking at structures which both deals with real functional structure in the ordinary technical and practical sense, and simultaneously has its roots in human feeling, there will be a very huge and positive step.
recursively
That is what happens in all the living structures we think of as nature. When you analyze carefully just what's going on and how things are happening in the natural world, this sort of structure preserving transformation tends to be what's going on most of the time. That is why, when nature is left alone, most of the time living structure is produced.
I have, for many years, thought that this could only be solved by a genetic approach -- an approach where deep structure, spread through society, creates and generates the right sort of structure, very much as genetic code creates and generates organisms and ecological systems -- indirectly, by letting loose life creating process.
If these software packages are life creating, and accepted, and widely enough spread throughout the world, there is a chance we might get a grip on this problem: provided that the software is freeing, liberating, allows each person individual control and decision making power to do the right thing, and to create living structure, locally, wherever they are.
the process by which one discusses these kind of things, shares ideas about them, gradually influences the way people are thinking so that gradually larger and larger percentages of bits of the environment might turn into living structure.
When I had the pleasure of beginning to meet some of the various folks who introduced themselves to me over the last year and a half from the software community, I began to be fascinated by the number of them that were closet architects. Greg Bryant who worked on the 486 chip, is really interested in ecology and is an editor of Rain, an ecological magazine. Bill Joy is writing about workstations in the concrete physical sense that is familiar as an architect. John Gage, chief scientific officer of Sun, is interested in neighborhood schools, and in the process by which people can repair their own physical neighborhoods by working together. Jim Coplien is dealing with social structures in human organizations. Mark Sewell from IBM wants to build houses. Dick Gabriel has as his deepest passion, the writing of poetry: another kind of art. I don't have a long enough list.
The new generative languages are dynamic and, like software, interact with context, to allow people to generate an infinite variety of possible results but, in this case, with a built-in guarantee of well-formed results.
When a paradigm change occurs, in a discipline, it is not always the members of the old profession, who take it to the next stage.
I want you to help me. I want you to realize that that problem of generating living structure is not being handled well by architectural planners or developers or construction people now, and the Earth is suffering because of it. I believe there may be no way that they are ever going to actually be able to do it, because the methods they use are not capable of it. For you it is different. The idea of generative process is natural to you. It forms the core of the computer science field. The methods that you have at your fingertips and deal with everyday in the normal course of software design are perfectly designed to do this. So, if only you have the interest, you do have the capacity and you do have the means.
What I am proposing here is something a little bit different from that. It is a view of programming as the natural genetic infrastructure of a living world which you/we are capable of creating, managing, making available, and which could then have the result that a living structure in our towns, houses, work places, cities, becomes an attainable thing.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
¨The End of Poverty¨
I have just finished reading ¨The End of Poverty¨.
I think I need perseverance.
Often times, people prevent me from acting on good cause because of discrimination, etc. Sometimes that´s because I don´t believe in a religion some people believe in and they think that I should be punished.
But I need perseverance to keep on going.
I think I need perseverance.
Often times, people prevent me from acting on good cause because of discrimination, etc. Sometimes that´s because I don´t believe in a religion some people believe in and they think that I should be punished.
But I need perseverance to keep on going.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Recycling in South America
I thought of this idea more than a month ago. But didn´t have a chance to write it.
While traveling in South America, you notice that there is no recycle bin and all the plastic bottles and metals are thrown away into garbage can.
I think that those materials can become resource for them. Instead of mining from the earth, they can collect those materials and reuse them. If you consider them as a resource, South America is abundant with free resources.
While traveling in South America, you notice that there is no recycle bin and all the plastic bottles and metals are thrown away into garbage can.
I think that those materials can become resource for them. Instead of mining from the earth, they can collect those materials and reuse them. If you consider them as a resource, South America is abundant with free resources.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
View of Glaciar Perito Moreno from sky
I flew from Puerto Montt to Punta Arenas today and the plane flew over Glaciar Perito Moreno. It was magnificent. The Glaciar was huge. The very first time to see a glaciar in full scale.
I would recommend everybody to fly to Punta Arenas to enjoy the view of Glaciar from the sky.
P.S. It turned out that the glaciar on the photo was Glaciar Ipsala. I have photos of Glaciar Perito Moreno, too, and I will put it here when I have a time.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Chilian people are very kind
I have found that people in Chile are very kind.
When I am traveling around, they are very helpful and always respect me.
I am enjoying meeting people here.
When I am traveling around, they are very helpful and always respect me.
I am enjoying meeting people here.
Saturday, April 07, 2007
Valparaiso and Vina del Mar in Chile
Yesterday, I visited Valparaiso and Vina del Mar from Santiago in Chile.
On the bus, a local lady from Valparaiso kindly gave me information about Valparaiso.
I asked for a good seafood restaurant. And she recommended me Bar La Playa. It was a very good and unique place. People there were very nice. The waitress was very kind. She even let me go behind the counter and took a picture for me. It is not listed in South American Handbook - the guidebook I'm using. The price range is the middle range in that book, i.e. $6-11. Good food. It's located just west of Plaza Sotomayor. There is an entrance both on Cochrane and Serrano.
Speaking of what's new from the information on the guidebook, the train between Valparaiso and Vina del Mar is actually a modern Metro. You have to purchase a card for 500 pesos. Then you have to add money for the fair on the top of it.
Valparaiso
Entrance of Bar La Playa on Cochrane (Avenue?) in Valparaiso
Vina del Mar
On the bus, a local lady from Valparaiso kindly gave me information about Valparaiso.
I asked for a good seafood restaurant. And she recommended me Bar La Playa. It was a very good and unique place. People there were very nice. The waitress was very kind. She even let me go behind the counter and took a picture for me. It is not listed in South American Handbook - the guidebook I'm using. The price range is the middle range in that book, i.e. $6-11. Good food. It's located just west of Plaza Sotomayor. There is an entrance both on Cochrane and Serrano.
Speaking of what's new from the information on the guidebook, the train between Valparaiso and Vina del Mar is actually a modern Metro. You have to purchase a card for 500 pesos. Then you have to add money for the fair on the top of it.
Valparaiso
Entrance of Bar La Playa on Cochrane (Avenue?) in Valparaiso
Vina del Mar
Thursday, April 05, 2007
First Time South America
I have just arrived at Santiago in Chile yesterday morning.
This is my first time to South America.
So far, things are going smoothly.
I´m writing this blog at an Internet Cafe in downtown Santiago.
When I can connect my digital camera to a computer, I will try to post some photos here.
This is my first time to South America.
So far, things are going smoothly.
I´m writing this blog at an Internet Cafe in downtown Santiago.
When I can connect my digital camera to a computer, I will try to post some photos here.
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