A random list of cool things.

1. HTML5. Start now. It's supported (more or less) by all browsers if you add appropriate shims. Start with sites like http://www.html5rocks.com/en/ and continue reading. It's largely arrived and there's no compelling reason to delay.
2. JavaScript. I'm not a fan of …

After spending a couple of years (really) working with a publisher, the deal has gone south.

The problem was—likely—all mine. The book wasn't really what the publisher wanted. Perhaps it was close and they thought they could edit it into shape. And perhaps I wasn't responsive enough to …

Here's an object lesson in bad requirements writing.

"Good" is defined as a nice simple and intuitive GUI interface. I would be able to just pick symbol from a pallette and put it somewhere and the software would automatically adjust the spacing.

Some problems.

1. Noise words. Phrases like "'Good' is …

http://madexpo.us/ June 27 - 29 Hampton, VA

I hope to see you there.

I suddenly realized that QR Codes are everywhere. Except my business cards. http://pypi.python.org/pypi/qrcode/2.0 That should allow me to solve that problem and move on.

Recently started looking into Metadata Registries and UDEF and related semantic technology.

The Wikipedia page lists a bunch of relevant Metadata Registry projects and commercial products. Very nice. Easy to follow the links and determine features and benefits.

However.

A client has IBM Cognos. Is there any easy to to …

Check out this picture.

http://www.petapixel.com/2011/12/27/what-5mb-of-storage-looked-like-in-1956/

Okay. This is seriously cool.

The Universal Data Element Framework (UDEF) provides a controlled vocabulary that should be used to seed a project's data model.

See http://www.udef.com/

See http://www.opengroup.org//udef/

We're looking at applying UDEF retroactively to an existing schema.

What a pain in …

Just updated the Stingray Reader. There was an egregious error (and a missing test case). I fixed the error, but didn't add a test case to cover the problem. It's simple laziness. TDD is quite clear on how to tackle this kind of thing. Write the missing test case (which …

See this article: "The COBOL Brain Drain" in ComputerWorld. This article is very, very well written and repeats a number of common fallacies.

The fallacies lead to expensive, labor-intensive in-house software development and maintenance. Either there's a lot of effort poking at the COBOL code. Or there's a lot of …