Duct Tape And Turing Machines

A few weeks ago, I switched from using Subversion to Bazaar for versioning my projects at work. So far, my impressions have been overwhelmingly positive.
Bazaar is a distributed version control system- unlike Subversion, which has a master repository that everyone checks out and must synchronize with, every Bazaar repository is first-class. This leads [...]

(Or, structured posts are for godless weenies.)
I’ve been working on a web app tailored for the iPhone for the last few weeks, over at searchableradio.com. It’s got me seriously debating between waiting to see how the first Android phones turn out and getting one of them iThingys once the initial rush dies down.
Consider [...]

File under: wait, what?

Or, Who Let The Author Near A Hacksaw?
I’m one of those unlucky people who’s naturally prone to RSI symptoms. I’ve managed to get ergonomically-minded workstations set up both at home and at work, so I’m doing pretty well these days. That said, over the last month or so, I’ve noticed that my right [...]

Laws of Software Development: A great collection of pithy laws put forth by various hackers, usually with a bent towards the “ha ha only serious” kind of humor.
I can only offer Mayfield’s First Law: The degree to which an error message is inappropriate and/or funny is directly proportional to the likelyhood that someday, somehow, a [...]

For the past few years, I’ve been kicking around the idea of a general framework for AI development using high-level dynamic languages. It’s one of those grandiose ideas that’s oh-so-hard to get off the ground and I’ve had several false starts on its development. Over my spare time in the last few weeks, [...]

After trying several flavors of David Allen’s Getting Things Done methodology over the last year, I’ve finally managed to develop a personal organization system that works for me. I’m using 37Signals’ wonderful free Backpack service to keep what amounts to a lightweight spiral-bound notebook full of writing, todo lists, reminders and the like. [...]

I recently finished reading Dreaming In Code. Inside was a quote that I thought might be the wisest words I’ve heard about personal projects:
“Nobody should start to undertake a large project. You should start with a small trivial project, and you should never expect it to get large. If you do, you’ll [...]

In my copious spare time since I last posted, I’ve managed to get JDE set up and usable. JDE is pretty complex- it essentially turns Emacs into a full Java IDE- so I’m just going to outline the details of how to quickly get set up and exploring the environment. Check the User Guide [...]

I’ve been working with something recently that’s made me reconsider my stance on JavaScript as a sensible language. It’s historically been the red-headed stepchild of dynamic scripting languages and for good reason:

The standard library is a pitiful thing, indeed.
Writing in anything resembling an object-oriented style involves some pretty goofy hacks to get inheritance and [...]