afongen

The Selfish Class.

This paper takes a code’s-eye view of software reuse and evolution. A code-level artifact must be able to attract programmers in order to survive and flourish. The paper addresses the question of what an object might do to encourage programmers to (re-)use it, as opposed to using some other object, or building new ones.

Whether despite or because of the code’s-eye view, in the end these are worthwhile thoughts about writing re-usable software components.

Disney will start selling DVDs that self-destruct. Exposure to oxygen will render the DVDs unplayable after 48 hours.

I betcha they wish they’d done that when video tapes first appeared.

I wonder how these will play out in the marketplace. This scheme alone won’t prevent duplication, of course, but I don’t believe that was ever Disney’s primary concern (they’re worried about controlling how and when we view what they consider their property). The DVDs are being sold as “rentals,” so consumers won’t expect long-term access. Never mind that 48 hours is not long enough. If the DVDs are cheap enough, people might not honestly care about the time limit — unless the DVDs don’t play at all, which is bound to be the case on some “unapproved” hardware like computers (viz. Macs, as we saw with copy-protected CDs).

Unfortunately, I don’t expect this to completely backfire on Disney. If public reaction is poor, they can either quietly retire the idea or continue to put such a spin on it that it’s eventually accepted. I mean, the RIAA and MPAA have successfully done this with filesharing, haven’t they?

Edward Tufte: The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint. I might actually buy this.

Annraí O’Toole: The Problem with J2EE. “…while J2EE is great, it isn’t the answer to every problem, specifically it is overkill as an infrastructure to deploy Web Services.”

Jon Udell: Appropriate use of J2EE/EJB.

Not that this has anything to do with web services, but… A few weeks back I heard some rumbling about requiring that any CMS we use be J2EE compliant. This pissed me off for a couple days.

1. This criterion was being added by people who neither understand Java development nor are involved with any of the systems on which our web sites are deployed.
2. We’re not a Java shop.
3. There’s not a helluva lot of J2EE in the open source CMS world, obviously not in those written in languages other than Java. I’ll resist any effort to needlessly exclude open source solutions at the outset.
4. Requiring J2EE is a vendor-driven idea. It seemed pretty clear that this was being suggested to play nicely with Oracle, who have a portal to sell us. Call me crazy, but I’m a sucker for choosing software that meets an organization’s needs rather than a vendor’s.
5. Isn’t J2EE just a wee bit overkill?

Eventually I calmed down. We’ll need some sort of interoperability, I reasoned, and as long as it’s not set in stone as a requirement, J2EE might be useful. Too, it turns out that it’s just a suggestion. But still. It should not surprise me, but it sure as hell bothers me, the way these ideas are just tossed around as if they’re givens.

Blast it, I missed yet another TCPHP meeting on Wednesday. Looks like it was a good one, too. I’m just going to have to give up deluding myself that I’ll ever make it to one.

On the other side, that night I got to see The Matrix. That makes up for it, I suppose.

And then last night I got to spend a few hours with Owen walking along the Mississippi River. He’s started to be ticklish, which is just so much fun. There is no sweeter sound to my ears than my son’s laughter. He got tired after a while and dozed off on my shoulder as we walked, but occasionally would raise his head to stare wide-eyed at the trees. He is so damn adorable it breaks my heart.

Later that evening, I surprised myself by remembering to watch the lunar eclipse. Can’t remember the last time I saw an eclipse.

It’s strange, though. Normally when I look at the moon, I get a vivid sense of being a very small part of a very large planet, which is itself a tiny speck in the universe. This is at once humbling and enthralling. It’s the only time I ever even come close to imagining how truly vast and miraculous the universe is. I would have expected the eclipse to be even more awe-inspiring, but instead my reaction was very cold and analytical. “Oh look, the earth is casting a shadow on the moon, isn’t that unusual. Er, pretty.” I didn’t feel it in any way. Bit of a let-down, that.

Now I have a sudden urge to reread The Soul of the Night.

Kiara surprised me last night by taking me to see the Matrix. I didn’t expect to be there opening night; since Owen was born we haven’t been so gung-ho about seeing movies early on. So wow, what a surprise!

Very, very cool. Maybe not quite as cool as the first — if this movie stood alone I’m not sure that I’d be hyped up for a sequel — but I am already looking forward to seeing it again. I have a lot of questions, most of them having to do with Neo’s conversation with the Architect.

Here’s a tip: stay through the credits. You’ll be treated to a preview of The Matrix: Revolutions.

Update: I forgot to mention: the Matrix runs on Unix! Unpatched Unix, too, as these screenshots demonstrate. Note how she’s able to get root.

Via Bob Regan’s Macromedia accessibility weblog, a list of (US) state accessibility laws and policies.

Minnesota’s done some good work with laws, but our web accessibility guidelines are pathetic. A group of state agency webmasters spent a few months reviewing and editing standards and had a decent document, but for reasons that I still don’t understand the version that was forwarded for approval was a watered-down, error-riddled, piss-poor excuse for a set of guidelines. It was as if someone whined, “hey, this is too hard,” and ripped out everything that was good, correct, and meaningful.

Not that I feel strongly about it or anything.

And really, reading through it again, it’s not a completely useless document. But I strongly believe that it needs to be reviewed and updated.

I’m quite impressed by Illinois’s standards and, now that I have a list to work with, plan too spend some time looking at other states’ standards and guidelines. I’m curious how many have created their own rather than just adopt Section 508 or the W3C’s guidelines.

I can’t believe that you‘re two years old already.

I just stumbled into this: the Open Source Digest, now in its second issue. I can’t tell anything about it from the web site, but the articles are informative.

Bookmark cleaning time.

• Web development and business goals. In which Dirk Knemeyer argues that your web development needs should match/serve your business goals. An idea that escapes some.
• Migrating Legacy Content to your new CMS.
• The .NET Abstraction Pile. Excellent.
• Tim O’Reilly: The Architecture of Participation.
• Testing the Three-Click Rule. Are those marketing types insisting that everything be accessible within three clicks? Have ’em read this.
• Open Source Content Management Blog.
• Build It Free. Open Source for CIOs. “The prime driver for us is not really the cost—though the cost savings have been very substantial—but the software quality.”
• Strong Typing vs. Strong Testing. Bruce Eckel takes a crack at the debate. Finally, something interesting to add: “Strong testing, not strong typing.” I’ll have more to say on this in a little while. (via Simon Willison)