A couple of people have mentioned being interested in my notes from Don's XML 2002 keynote which has already been the cause of some speculation. Below is my summary of his presentation with my personal comments and opinions in italics.

Poll: Biggest Technology Hype Jobs of 2002?

In preparation for my changing job role and the amount of meetings I now attend I got to order a laptop on the Borg's dime. I ended up getting a Toshiba Portege 3500 Tablet PC. I've had it less than twenty four hours but so far I'm loving the form factor. It is hot. Using it in laptop mode one minute then transforming it into clipboard mode and using Word or Outlook with hand writing recognition is sweet. I am geeking out.

Below are thoughts on poor technology journalism coming from C|Net, moneybags arguments in technical discussions and the "we only hire the best" Borg mentality.

Poll: I'd like a _____ for Christmas.

Just stumbled on a weblog post about OO databases which struck a chord. The author seems enamored with OODBMSes and complains about lack of OO features in commercial RDBMS products even though XML features abound. A number of counterpoints below.

By the way, against my better judgement I saw Die Another Day which despite having one of the best opening sequences of any James Bond movie I've ever seen rapidly turned to crap. There is an entire 15 - 20 minute chunk involving a palace made of ice that should never have made it into the final script.

Just got back from XML 2002 on Thursday evening. Thoughts about the conference in general below. Also some amusing observations during dimsum with Joshua and Doug plus various links to laments about the current state of affairs in America.

I leave for XML 2002 this evening. I'm rather amused by the fact that whenever I've flown to Atlanta from Seattle or vice versa on my employer's dime I've always had to layover at some airport along the way and now that I'm going to Baltimore I'm going to have to layover at the Atlanta airport along the way. Well, there goes my impression that there were no direct ATL <-> SEA flights.

Followup thoughts to the IBM <-> Rational purchase, agreeing with Shelley Powers about Clay Shirkey's Social Software Summit and thoughts on interviewing for Microsoft.

Poll: Are you going back home for Christmas?

IBM is buying Rational. Wow. Couple that with their purchase of the consulting arm of PriceWaterhouseCoopers and buying Informix it looks like they've been on quite the acquisition binge. I wonder if this recent purchase means we'll start seeing more high quality Open Source UML tools for Java. That would be nice especially since I don't plan to buy a Java IDEs (Emacs is just fine, Thank you) but wouldn't mind a free yet high quality Java UML tool.

Thoughts below on why people should and do use XML plus some news from the C# team on what the story is for backwards compatibility and generics.

Poll: Favorite Looney Tunes Character?

It looks like I'll be at XML 2002 in Baltimore doing booth duty. The higherups kinda sprung this on me at the last minute but I don't mind given that I'll get a chance to actually meet all those folks from XML-DEV I'm always arguing with. With any luck I can get some books signed. :)

Looking at the schedule for XML 2002 it looks like there'll be a bunch of XML Schema and XQuery presentations which I'll attend. The only down side is that I'll probably have to be dressed in borg attire (MSFT polo T-shirt and khakis) and not my usual work attire of ghetto baggy jeans and expressive T-shirts like the one with the chicken humping the rabbit or the one with the little green man smoking a phat blunt. That's weak.

Links below to the equivalent of Edsgar Dijkstra's blog, thoughts on a review of my XML Schema article and all the stuff I forgot to mention on Monday.

Poll: Movie of the Year?

Don't really feel like long entries today. So I'm doing a Bob Abooey style diary with bulleted lists and all that. Thoughts below on undeserved Academy awards winners, Japanese fertility festivals, a mini-review of the new Harry Potter, rap battles, Roger Moore's James Bong vs. Pierce Brosnan's and a call for reviewers.

Poll: How many serious romantic relationships have you been in?

I noticed that the Nigerian government cancelled the fatwa against the reporter which started the Miss World riots. I notice the Western media had lots of coverage of the fatwa decree I wonder if there'll be as much coverage now that the Federal government has attempted to repeal the fatwa. Doubt it, instead we'll probably see more interviews with Pat Robertson preaching religous intolerance.

It's looking extremely likely that my job description might change from SDET to PM in the coming months. I found very good description of what PMs do on the Joel On Software forums for those who wonder what the acronym means. The main thing I'm going to have to learn is talking to people who aren't as aware of the technology as I'd like. As a tester I mostly talk to devs or our standards reps who usually have more knowledge about the technology than me, as a PM the reverse will be the case. Interesting.

Poll: Favorite Part of Traditional Thanksgiving Meal?

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?