So my schema authoring article was posted on Slashdot yesterday and a little later I got an email in my inbox from an XML-DEV regular about tooting my own horn by submitting it to Slashdot and also posting it to XML-DEV. Well, next time I write an article about a technology that may be relevant to technical people who use said technology I'll be sure to avoid informing people about it. :)

On a lighter note, I believe I just found the first instance of flirting on Slashdot I've ever seen in a response to my post on why I don't use PDAs anymore.

Thoughts on the current situation in Nigeria, James Gosling transformation into a bitter old man and the new generation of Slashdot karma whores below.

Poll: Favorite Programming/Scripting Language Creator?

 

 

In a recent diary, some people asked if I seriously thought violence would occur if my dad got directly involved in the Amina Lawal case. Well, to answer that question I provide this link to a VoA article entitled Nigeria Muslims Riot Over Miss World Contest which includes the choice quote

Muslim youths took to the streets Thursday burning churches, looting shops and smashing car windows. Witnesses say they saw burned bodies in the streets.

Poll: Favorite James Bond?

 

 

I just noticed the Demise Of The Premier .NET community site article on Slashdot. Looks like it didn't make it to the front page which is a surprise given it is negative news about Microsoft. Anyway after reading the details of the impending shutdown of ASP Friends I looked around internally to see what was up since the FAQ makes it look like a screwup on our part.

My cursory investigation led me to a response by the ASP.NET folks which seems to put some of the story in context. However some of the comments by Charles Carroll struck a chord since I have to deal with them daily and I felt like clarifying some points.

Poll: Best place to get answers to technical questions?

 

 

Even though the flames from the Java community haven't died down enough from the MiddleWare company's J2EE vs. .NET benchmark, it looks like they may be hitting another sore spot with their target community. The headline on their front page reads

According the Gartner Group, 70% of Java projects fail due to lack of skills

There are 2.5 Million Java developers in the world. Only 800,000 of them have genuine knowledge. 70 percent of these developers agree that the lack of advanced Java skills makes adoption of EJB/J2EE risky

I'm sure there are going to be a bunch of flame warriors who take TMC to task over reporting this and question the gartner results if this ever hits The Server Side

 

 

I hung out with Joshua and Doug yesterday evening. It was cool shooting the breeze about work over port and beer plus I got to chide Doug for not only using Mac OS X but running Mozilla as well. Of course, my hypocrisy knows no bounds given that I use Apache at home and Emacs for all my coding and XML editing needs. :)

I spoke to my mom this morning and she confirmed the news that the Nigerian government is keen on preventing Amina Lawal from being stoned to death.

I saw I-Spy with a couple of co-workers on Friday. I liked it. More details below. Also some thoughts on the recently announced new C# language features announced at OOPSLA.

Poll: Favorite New C# Language Feature?

 

 

Just checked out Joel on Software and see he's announced fogBUGZ 3.0, the newest version of his bug tracking software. He explicitly points out the fact that FogBUGZ 3.0 does not provide a mechanism for tracking performance metrics like how many bugs are filed against a particular developer because FogBUGZ is not a crutch for your HR department. I disagree with his point but concede that such a feature is probe to abuse by clueless management. More thoughts below.

Also links to a sweet online emulator, Linus Torvalds uses his flaming fist and a truly stupid article on Slashdot.

Poll: Favorite Characteristic of Quality Software?

 

 

I was in Atlanta for a recruiting trip the week of 22^nd of October and spent all last week catching up on missing four days of work. It was good to be back in Atlanta kicking it with friends and the actual time at Georgia Tech was surprisingly nice with almost no heckling from the students. In fact, I got more teasing from people who knew me for ending up with the Borg (Yes, I was a Linux/Java bigot) than we got negative comments about my employer. Thoughts about the airport trip below.

One of my co-workers mentioned that he finally caught up on my K5 diary and had noticed the sudden influx of "daddy dearest crap". Well, guess what? There's more of that stuff in this diary. Plus some bitching and some celebration.

Poll: Favorite M$ Article On Slashdot in the Past Week?

 

 

I came across lots of interesting reading over the past week. The most amazing to watch has been the unfolding saga of the MS "switch" counter-campaign. I've been quite impressed to watch amateur sleuthing on Slashdot turn into headlines on Wired, MSNBC, Information Week, Associated Press and even the BBC. For some odd reason this incident reminds me of the phrase you are only as strong as your weakest link.

More below on Java (as well as C#) design issues, privilege escalation system calls in NetBSD, cool SourceForge .NET XML projects, recruiting trips, excessive HTTP requests for my RSS feeds, Noah Mendelsohn's ideas of the original thoughts behind the design of W3C XML Schema and lots more.

Poll: Favorite GoF Design Pattern?

 

 

Does your job have irritating IT policies? A recent discussion on Sam Ruby's blog reminded me how lucky I am not to work for a company with an overly restrictive Internet usage policy. I've always considered restrictive IT policies as detrimental to employee morale because they engender an us vs. them mentality, punishes many for the crimes of a few and encourages employees to leave work early.

Thoughts below on Fortune magazine's article on Generation Wrecked, the Office team's announcement of XDocs, musical condoms, ridiculous O'Reilly articles, and an amusing site on the Office of Homeland Security.

Poll: What is your favorite US generation?

 

 

More news from back home. Excerpt

Nigerian officials realized they needed to modernize their system after a trial run of the voter registration process in late September. The trial run resulted in riots when people were told that local officials had run out of registration forms.

There were also reports of shootings, lootings and takeovers of government and business facilities.