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Domain Specific Languages & Turing Completeness
Published on 2012-01-09 06:34:01
I don’t know if it’s been said before1, so in case it hasn’t, I’ll say it: Every domain specific language converges towards Turing completeness over it’s lifetime. The reason for this observation is that I’ve recently come in contact with a number of new DSLs2, which exhibit the same problem I’ve seen with other DLSs [...]
Best Tool for the Job
Published on 2012-01-01 15:52:47
I thought I’d start the new year not with a boring (or not so boring) retrospective. I’d also like to avoid a post conveying my best wishes, but of course, I do wish you all a happy new year. Instead I’d like to write a short post about an old adage and it’s (mis-)use in [...]
ContentProvider Wasted Potential
Published on 2011-12-01 11:49:36
This is only a short post in the series, and the aim is to let off some steam on the wasted potential in ContentProvider. I love ContentProviders. They’re the same sort of thing as a virtual filesystem layer (VFS): an interface, that lets people come up with ingenious ways of using it. When it comes [...]
Phone Screen Size & Usability
Published on 2011-11-27 08:55:42
In my previous post I observed that the screen size of the new Galaxy Nexus phone is such that usability suffers. To back up and illustrate that statement, I’ve decided to shoot short demo videos. But first, let’s examine how we can hold and use touch screen mobile phones in general. In the first image [...]
Galaxy Nexus / Ice Cream Sandwich First Impressions
Published on 2011-11-27 06:32:04
For my job, I ordered the new Google Galaxy Nexus phone a few days ago, and yesterday it finally arrived. After having used the Nexus One as my main phone for years, I knew there’d be a big difference in the phones. But of course, the Galaxy Nexus is also the first phone to ship [...]
How Science Works
Published on 2011-11-10 15:18:43
Recently, I found myself in a discussion around science, religion, and whether or not god exists. It was fun. But I was slightly frustrated by it, too, because the person I was talking to demonstrated a slight misunderstanding on how science works, what science, in effect, is, that to me is at the heart of [...]
Dennis Ritchie & Steve Jobs
Published on 2011-10-13 05:40:07
I haven’t commented on the sad death of Steve Jobs before, but now that I found out Dennis Ritchie (dmr) has also passed away, I’m thinking this week marks such tragic losses to computer science/the computing industry that something needs to be said. Thing is, I find myself a bit too stunned for words. Steve [...]
Software Craftsmanship
Published on 2011-10-11 03:56:11
A friend just sent me a link to the Software Craftsmanship Manifesto, a manifesto of values to uphold when crafting software. As I’ve often lamented the common mistakes people make in the software industry, you’d think I’d love that manifesto. As a matter of fact, I saw it a few years ago and decided, after [...]
Standing Desk: Aftermat(h)
Published on 2011-10-10 08:28:40
Ah, the punnery! I decided to revive the series on my standing desk experiences with a very brief update. First, some have asked me whether I still work standing up, and the answer is: yes! It’s been about three months since I started, and I’ve not had any inclination to stop. More importantly, though, I [...]
Dependency Management & Versioning
Published on 2011-09-22 08:43:40
As you can see from my previous rant on dependency management, one aspect that will rear it’s head in any dependency management solution is that of version numbers. Branding One of the things that’s not immediately obvious is that version numbers mean different things to different people. In particular, the version number you, the user, [...]