Jeremey's Weblog

Ah, Language Wars...

...makes me pine for the heady days of emacs vs. vi.

Anyway, I've been tasked with trying to prove that development environment X is a better choice than development environment Y. Along the way, there will also be discussion about whether database system A is better than database system B, so forth, and so on. In the ensuing discussion, we will have to visit the topic of whether "XML databases" (whatever that means) and XSLT are good ideas.

In researching other people's opinions about XSLT, we came across some old blog posts here and here. The first makes the claim that XSLT is the spawn of Satan, with which I wholeheartedly agree. But more amusing to me are the comments, especially from XSLT proponents.

Why is it that XSLT proponents claim that one must "get the functional programming mindset" before one can get XSLT? I think this is a tool they use to postpone the inevitable. The inevitable being a realization that XSLT is actually just a PhD student's wet dream, and not a programming language. But it is used to deflect discussion until, presumably, the anti-XSLT party has come up to the intellectual level of the pro-XSLT party. Since so few programmers are prepared to discuss functional programming, the odds are that the real discussion is averted.

So I would like to say this: why would "getting the functional programming mindset" convince anyone that it's a good idea to write hundreds of lines of syntactically excruciating code to accomplish what one or two lines of Lisp or Haskell would accomplish?

The claim seems to be that in some parallel universe of which most programmers are unaware, this actually makes sense. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that no such universe exists. Could be just me.

Technorati Tags:
programming, languages, xslt

iPhone Humor

In the process of generating a lot of buzz, the iPhone and Jobs' keynote announcement have comedians coming out of the woodwork. This excerpt from SNL and this one from The Late Late Show are two of my favorites.

Technorati Tags: apple, humor, iphone

You Might Live In Texas If...

...a concerned local legislator introduces a new bill to legalize hunting for blind people. Err... hunting by blind people. As Jay Leno remarked, "what could possibly go wrong?" :)

OK, actually hunting by the blind is already legal (with a sighted aid), and this new bill would legalize the use of laser sights because it's pretty hard to gauge a rifle shot looking over someone's shoulder. But it's much funnier to spin it as legalizing blind hunting. Sorta like pin the tail on Bambi.

Great Release Notes

Seen in the release notes for the latest TextMate I just downloaded:

"[REMOVED] TextMate no longer pays tribute to human sacrifices, rape, nor does it show a picture of the God of the deaths in your dock -- ticket 945BEB5D"

Tee-hee.

Technorati Tags: macosx, programming, textmate

News of the Astonishingly Bad

Oh my. Well I've now finally seen at least the first half or so of the Star Wars Holiday Special. You really can't imagine quite how bad it is. There just aren't words. But this will give you a taste... the setting for most of it is in Chewbacca's house where you meet his wife, Malla, his dad, Itchy, and his son, Lumpy. Yes. ITCHY and LUMPY. It's downhill from there.

But the Holiday Special is actually only the 2nd worst thing I've heard or seen this week.

Not to be outdone, Twisted Sister is releasing a Christmas Album. Yes, the 80s metal band. Yes, the drag queen makeup. Yes, the tattered clothing, leather, and metal studs. Yes, the 3-power-chord riffs. But there is at least one thing new: Dee Snider can't hit the broad side of a barn in terms of pitch. How can you resist?

Excel Passwords... Ha!

I'm sure the world will be shocked to learn that Microsoft's implementation of protecting Excel worksheets and workbooks may be... uhh... lacking in security. I needed to make a modification to a protected workbook (for extremely practical and entirely wholesome reasons), so I figured that I would see what it would take to figure out or find the password. Well not much, it turns out. I viewed the document using "less" in a terminal and near the end (always look there first) there's a section of code-like string fragments having to do with protecting and unprotecting, and nestled nearby was a short string that didn't make sense as code, didn't make sense as any kind of Excel keyword, and was not contained in the visible Excel workbook text.

So I tried unprotecting the workbook with that string as the password. Yep, that did it. Now I'm sure it was implemented that way so that the average human who forgets a password ten minutes after thinking it up wouldn't be completely stuck. But those kinds of "failsafes" are usually just wide open back doors. Definitely the case here.

No doubt thousands of other people figured this out long ago, but it was amusing to me.

Cabbie Becomes Tech Industry Pundit

This is classic. A cab driver that was waiting for a fare gets whisked into the studio and interviewed as a tech expert (Guy Kewney) about the Apple vs. Apple case. Watch the video, it's priceless.

Winter Is Hot!

Everything I need to know I learned from emails prepared especially for me by my dear friends in the email direct marketing industry. For example, this morning I learned that winter is not cold, no, in fact, it's hot! I did not know that. But right there in my email it says:

"Winter is no longer a cold season cause there are hot offers on quality ink products."

Shocking.

The Life of Yaks

Aaaahh, to be a yak again... The Life of Yaks.