Since Brian and I are both busy and distracted, I thought I would share with you some of my favorite blog posts in the past. Some of them are from me, some of them are for Brian — check the byline to figure out which. There’s definitely a lot of them, but that’s just because there are a lot of quality blog posts on this blog: just scroll over them until you see a quote that catches your eye. Hopefully this keeps you satisfied for the time being.

Programming

• “…since I was writing JUnit tests anyways, I figured I would do a bit of clean-up. What I didn’t realize is that Ocaml has warped me, and my concept of “cleanup” is very different than everyone else’s.” (This Is Your Brain; This Is Your Brain on OCaml)
• “I just realized that my code has a possible infinite recursion case. Specifically, if two ThreeDeePoint objects compare to eachother, they’ll end up spinning infinitely into the abyss.” (A Java Gotcha)
• “It’s not prototypes that Tom has a problem with, it’s Perl.” (A Defense of Prototypes, or, Why Does Tom Christensen Hate Perl?)
• “…there is a difference, in terms of the Saphir-Worf hypothesis, between something being possible and something being easy in a given computer programming language.” (Implications of Easy)
• “I’m starting to realize that I’ve walked into the aftermath of a silent revolution in program development. When businesses want to hire a developer, they aren’t talking about Λ the Ultimate-style programmers anymore.” (The Programmer is Dead! Long Live the Developer!)
• “I was reminded of the joy unit tests bring me when I had to refactor some code, which was made much easier by the fact that I had an interface providing the coupling at a natural location.” (The Joy of Unit Tests)
• “Like most traumatic realizations, I’ve been having trouble getting the fundamental equals/compareTo brokeness of Java out of my head.” (Commons-Lang and the Equals()/CompareTo() Debacle)
• “Okay, there’s one, huge, bug-spawning pet peeve of mine in coding Java: premature declaration.” (Object Burn is Your Friend)
• “These moments happen most often when something you think you understood suddenly reveals itself to have unexpected depth and power. They’re still happening to me on a pretty regular basis with Ocaml.” (A WOW moment with continuations)
• “I’m going to take a break from bashing McCain for a while to bash Perl instead.” (Accidental Syntax)
• ” In any event, I’ve ended up with eight or so major interfaces. Which now I need names for. At which point I run head first and at speed into one of the common problems of programming: that there aren’t simply enough words on generic concepts.” (The Name Game)
• “So a list that guaranties uniqueness would have to be a Set or a List, but absolutely cannot be both. At least, not without violating the API.” (Collections, Sets, Lists, and the Deep Existential Question of Equality)
• “It’s reasonable to use your gigawatt laser beam to kill a fly- if the main purpose of the exercise is to test out your gigawatt laser beam.” (OCaml the scripting language)
• “Somehow, this business has become so deeply convinced of its own BS that it, like the Ouroboros, is devouring itself yet constantly recreating itself in its same image.” (Theory of Business)
• “One of the big topics of discussion recently among developers has been the Object-Relational Impedance Mismatch. Or maybe not, OO developers may have just decided that it’s a permanent fact of life, like the primacy of the church of Rome, the naval power of Spain, or smallpox.” (The Functional-Relational Impedance Match)
• I had an annoying surprise recently. I discovered that gcc has decided that long longs are 64 bits- on both 32- and 64-bit platforms. (Same Stupidity, Different Datatype)
• “I’m reading this post on the C++ committee’s dealings on threading, and, I am pleased to announce, there is absolutely no chance what so ever of anything sane, workable, or sensible accidentally arising from these precedings.” (C++ and Threading)
• “There’s something magical about taking a peice of technology, pushing it well beyond what you would rationally expect it to be able to handle, and having not just work, but work well.” (Postgres for the win!)
• “Like entropy, cluelessness always increases in a closed mind.” (Clued people wanted)
• “The up-shot of this technical process is that you can take your state/requirement/story documents, and give them technical updates that are red light/green light in simplicity.” (Fit, AntFit, and Fitnesse: Test-Based Communication Tools)
• “…there is a difference between what a programming language makes possible, and what it makes easy. Making lazy evaluation easy- and in other languages, such as Haskell, even mandatory- changes things. An example of what I mean by this is lazy lists.” (Ocaml Lazy Lists- An Introduction)
• “Now for some real meat. I’ve come up with a neat algorithm for sorting lazy lists. I’m not sure if it’s original or not, but it’s a neat enough trick I thought I’d pass it on.” (Sorting Lazy Lists)
• “The problem I have is that Java all but completely fails to be lazy, which is a shame considering how useful the trick is. The Sun team themselves seem to be of the opinion that functional programming generally isn’t something one should be doing.” (Java’s Failure to be Lazy)
• “The more I think about it, the more I think the future is going to be a combination of STM and message passing. Both have their advantages and disadvantages.” (Thoughts on Parallelism)
• “There’s a bit of ugliness with object-oriented development which I keep encountering, so I’m wondering if any of the locals out there have a better solution. Specifically, my problem is that the inheritance relationship seems to be conflating two purposes in at least Java and CSharp.” (Implementation Exposure Through Inheritance)
• “return new ArrayList(select(list, notNullPredicate()));” (Functional Code Win of the Day)
• “Okay, I’ve had some quality time with Java5 at my newest gig, and I’m starting to understand the great controversy behind Java generics. There was a particularly painful insight I just had that has officially flipped me from stalwart supporter to reluctant supporter, and I’d like to share that with the world so they don’t have to hunt this bug down themselves.” (My Newest Insight into the Generics Controversy)

Politics

• “Further evidence of Bush’s betrayal of conservativisim” (Bush vs. Bush)
• “So, because of this, I’ve studied all kinds of wacky conspiracy possibilities, but I never actually encountered the 9/11 conspiracy theories.” (9/11 Conspiracy Theories)
• “So I think that Diebold has to just cope — part of the business ramifications for your development choice to use closed-source solutions is that your code isn’t eligible for use in North Carolina. And it looks like Diebold finally had to admit it, too.” (Source Code Issues)
• “Read the comments and take a look, and it’s clear to see that the history isn’t going through any kind of Hegelian evolution (as Wikipedia’s founders argue it will), but that it is simply being driven to extremes by people on either side and then dragged back to the other extreme by people who respond.” (Literally Rewriting History: Coleman Goes Into Wikipedia)
• “In an ideal capitalistic system, the NFL wouldn’t exist because there are people able to do better job for cheaper. In a pratical capitalistic system, the NFL is effectively a monopoly, with violent business practices that suppress all competition.” (Football Is the Model for Anarchocapitalism?)
• “I once heard insanity defined as doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result. I’m not sure if this is the definition of insanity, or just brain-fsck stupidity, but in either case it applies to the Democrats as this Salon article shows.” (The Definition of Insanity)
• “The core philosophy of the Republican party, and it’s most vocal adherents, is not longer Conservatism as Eisenhower, Goldwater, or even Reagan understood it. Rather, the current principle of the Republican party comes from a little bit farther back- last around (about 70 years ago) it was called the “Leadership Principle”, or, in the language of the time, Der Fuehrer Prizip.” (The definition of Conservative?)
• “Compassionate conservatism is the political application of the belief that people deserve to be empowered — that people do best when they are given dignity and opportunity, and that people are personally hindered by systems (like welfare) that encourage them to be passive recipient of a huge system.” (Compassionate Conservatism)
• “…cutting taxes to “starve” the government has consistantly lead to an expansion of government.” (“Stoking the Beast”)

Navel Gazing and Miscellany

• “The concept of an enfranchised mind is a powerful one, and it’s one that’s been slowly composing itself in my head for a long time. This concept plays off of many of the major issues that I have, and effectively expresses many beliefs all at the same time.” (Enfranchised Minds)
• “…the best and indeed the only good Mason is he who with the power of business does the work of life; the upright mechanic, merchant, or farmer, the man with the power of thought, of justice, or of love, he whose whole life is one great act of performance of Masonic duty.” (Albert Pike and the Scottish Rite)
• “Near my computer is my lambskin apron, and on my hand is the Ring of the Lodge of Perfection. It’s amazing how deeply and quickly Freemasonry has touched me.” (Thoughts)
• “…at the same time I am being introduced to the traditions of Masonry, the standard bearers for my family’s traditions are passing away.” (Loss and Gain)
• “But is that all we can tell about the alien species, given that clue? I’d argue no.” (Today’s Idle Speculation)
• “Due to my fond affection and angst over their loss, I have cunningly located and now will proceed to host the first three installments of the Foamy’s Rant series.” (Foamy’s Rant)
• “Here are parts 1 and 2 of my series on “The Holy Saint John”, written for the newsletter of my Masonic Lodge.” (Parts 1 and 2 of My Series on “The Holy Saint John”)
• “…it’s a role, not a name: Jesus’s brother wasn’t “James Christ”” (To All Fledling Christian Theologians)
• “So, in short, the power of this grand and glorious organization usually falls to a 20-something, and far be it to hold the reign of control from so influential a person as the 2 year old Charles de Lorraine or 10 year old Rene d’Anjou.” (Review: The DaVinci Code and Holy Blood, Holy Grail)
• “Enjoy.” (Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner)
• “Okay, I keep track of the high water mark for geek humor on my whiteboard at work. The reigning champion is…” (High Water Mark for Geek Humor?)
• “While it’s gratifying that economics is finally getting past the idea of man as a simplistic economic creature, I don’t think either the economists or the physcologists (two groups that, in general, are not known for their astute logic) have thought the matter through.” (Who lacks rationality?)
• “Boy genius Michael Dean (Adkins) teams up with a super-talented chimpanzee and his caretaker (Modine) to take down an animal testing lab. In exchange the scientist gives the boy some pointers on the girl of his dreams.” This is why God invented user comments sections

If that wasn’t enough for you, check out the popular posts on the side, or just start at the beginning and read forward. Or go read XKCD or Sluggy Freelance from the start.

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