Muby, or Ronad Apr 6 2006
Two interesting points of view on a debate between two technologies that I didn’t think could be so comparable - Monad (MSH), and Ruby. Ted Neward puts forward his case for using Monad, because of its scripting ability, and provides some interesting usage of the scripting syntax to back his views up. Glenn Vanderburg says he’s sticking with Ruby however, and goes on to explain why, cleverly writing the same script that Ted did using Monad, in Ruby - just 17 lines of code, instead of 37 using MSH. Both posts are worth a read, however my opinion? I think Ruby has my vote all the way - it’s cross-platform nature, and the fact that it is a dedicated scripting language (rather than a shell with a neat syntactical scripting language to back it up) are really winning points for me. After all, I’d be happy combining Ruby with Rails to write a fully-fledged web application - but besides utilities/maintenance scripts, I don’t give Bash a run out very often. In the same way, I think at first people may say “look at how cool Monad is, look at what it can do!” but in the long-run, it’s use will be relegated to command line oriented tasks, and the “real code” will be written with languages like Ruby. My $0.02 on an interesting topic of conversation.
UPDATE: it looks like the original script in Ted’s article actually originated from a post by Lee Holmes - and since the debate, he has re-written the script, matching the Ruby version almost line for line - I guess that blows the whole lines of code argument out of the water then. Really it just comes down to what you are trying to write - in this case there’s not a lot between the two, however in other projects there may be a clear advantage to using one or the other. I’m happy to have both at my disposal :-)
Technorati Tags: el, eldiablo, monad, msh, ruby, rails, scripting
I'm getting real Apr 6 2006
I’ve decided to get real - today I went ahead and purchased a copy of Getting Real from 37 Signals, and I plan to get stuck in over the next few days. Expect a review soon.
Technorati Tags: el, eldiablo, “getting real”, “37 signals”, 37s
House Apr 6 2006
House just keeps getting better and better. We are a few weeks behind here in the UK, but the episode that was just on was really good. It had all the ingredients of a great House episode - a particularly nasty, yet intriguing case, along with some classic House lines:
Dr. Wilson: This guy’s name is Weber, not von Lieberman.
House: I call Weber “von Lieberman”. Way eviler.
Out of all the shows I enjoy watching on TV, I find House to be the most challenging, and that in itself is rewarding. I’ve only seen maybe ten episodes however, I really need to watch all of the first season, and then start over with the second to catch up. And I still find it amazing that Hugh Laurie is just so convincing in it as an American doctor, compared to, say, well his numerous roles through the four series and a few specials of Black Adder. Class act.
Technorati Tags: el, eldiablo, house, “hugh laurie”, “black adder”, tv
The greatest gig ever Apr 5 2006
So this is a bit delayed, but on Friday I went to the greatest gig I think I’ve ever been to. It was my girlfriend’s birthday, so we went out for a meal (mmm, American Hot pizza!), and then afterwards we nipped to a local pub, the Queens Head. My brother was playing an acoustic set there as the opening act for a night of music - just him, a guitar, an amp and a mic. He had already demo’d the songs he was going to do a few days before the gig, but listening to him play up there in front of a packed pub on a Friday night was just awesome. He was really cool, calm, and confident, and bantered with the audience between songs. His playing was nigh-on perfect, and the entire set was fantastic to watch. He’s in a band, and actually plays bass, but he’s a better guitarist than I think I will ever be, and he’s got a great singing voice to boot.
I’ve uploaded a couple of videos of the gig to YouTube - available here, and here. The second song in the set is the missing video of the three songs, and I’m working on getting that up shortly, so I’ll post the link for that here too. The videos don’t really do him justice, but they are just about good enough to get a feel for just how talented he is.
I was really proud of him, as he’s obviously got some set of stones to get up there and pull that off on his own - well done Luke.
Technorati Tags: el, eldiablo, luke, gig, music, acoustic, “queens head”
Beta Boot Camp Apr 5 2006
Apple have launched a public beta of Boot Camp, a package to allow the installation of Windows XP Home, or Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 or later, on an Intel Mac computer. They have managed to put together what a group of hackers did a few weeks ago, although obviously I assume Apple’s effort comes with the natural style and panache I’ve come to expect from their products :-)
Interesting, none-the-less, however I agree with Dave Winer when he says some the anti-Windows spiel displayed on the Boot Camp pages are in poor taste.
Technorati Tags: el, eldiablo, mac, apple, “boot camp”, “mac os x”, “windows xp”, “intel mac”
n00bie Apr 5 2006
This guy is documenting his switch to a Macintosh, from a Windows machine. Interesting read, and this is something I’m currently considering doing. I’m fairly certain I won’t be able to completely switch, certainly not straight away, but, like MacNewbie, with the reassurance that I could always stick Windows XP on a brand new Intel Mac Mini or Intel MacbookPro, it certainly is getting tempting ;-)
Technorati Tags: el, eldiablo, macnewbie, mac, “mac os x”, “windows xp”, “intel mac”, “mac mini”, “macbook pro”
Link blogging Apr 4 2006
Ok, in order to cut-down on the amount of link blogging I’ve been doing, here’s a post with the rest of the links I’ve been wanting to get off my desk last few days:
- MSBuild Community Tasks Project - a collection of community written, useful MSBuild tasks
- Scott Hanselman’s experiences of toying with an experimental Monad Subversion provider, as part of the AnkhSVN project
- More Monad/MSH related tomfoolery - a tool for working with and scripting with MSH, MSH Analyzer
- Some kind of uber-guide / set of articles on home studio recording, and how to get a decent setup together (sound engineering and home recording has always interested me - I’m going to organize my thoughts, so expect more on this soon)
- iFolder goes open-source!
Technorati Tags: el, eldiablo, msbuild, svn, monad, msh, “msh analyzer”, tweakz, “sound engineering”, ifolder, oss Comments
Mmm, hotdogs Apr 4 2006
Baseball season is back, and despite being an Englishman, the allure of hotdogs, warm floodlit evenings, and nine innings of big home runs, superb fielding, and cut-throat pitching are too much to resist. I hope to see a few games when I get over to the States later this year, but now, thanks to Gabe over at Memeorandum, I have an easy way to track baseball news - BallBug. Between this, and my MLB.TV subscription, I should have this season covered nicely :-) Take me out to the ball game!
Technorati Tags: el, eldiablo, baseball, ballbug, mlb, mlbtv, memeorandum
Read the signals Apr 4 2006
Here’s an informative review of 37 Signal’s online-only book, Getting Real. It’s something I wanted to get round to reading, so I think I’ll have to lay down the meagre $19 and pick myself up a copy. Of course, I mean, download myself a copy. Interestingly, Jason at 37S provides a 30 day update on the book, and DHH comments on how well the self-publishing route has gone for them. I think I’m now convinced it’s worth my time to read it (I’ve got a Rails book, a Ruby book, an ASP.NET book, and I’m part way through an Avalon book right now), even if I do have to sit at my PC to read it (may have to investigate - is there a decent PDF reader for the Sony PSP yet?). In the mean time, I wonder what 37 Signals next hit will be, how will they keep it real, but still provide me with another interesting, functional, useful product?
Technorati Tags: el, eldiablo, 37signals, “getting real”, ruby, rails
So true it makes me cry Apr 4 2006
This is a funny post, however it’s so true it actually smarts a little. I’ve been the developer on the end of it, the recipient of the nonsensical buzz words, lingo, quizzical looks and random remarks. It is obviously some kind of global experiment into the limits of a developer’s mind, the level’s at which he or she cracks and loses it. I’m sure this is just the beginning - I bet middle management types could write entire book’s of this kind of material :-)
Technorati Tags: el, eldiablo, insanity, buzzwords, nonsense, “middle management”
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