Literate Programming: Python-Style

I don't think literate programming is something that will ever enjoy widespread popularity, but for those who write about programming, it's something devoutly to be wished. It might be a good match for Python, which is a nice language for data exploration and demonstrating algorithms and techniques. This tool: pyreport …

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Free Book: The Architecture of Open Source Applications

The Architecture of Open Source Applications.

I've just skimmed a few chapters, which you can do as well at the above link, or you can buy it in paperback or PDF.

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Choosing Scala (Somewhat Reluctantly)

Scala is the implementation language of choice on the next big project I'll be working on. For me, that's a tiny bit of a disappointment, as I've been slowly building up my knowledge, not of Scala, but of Haskell. But the high-level software at the observatory is predominantly Java, so …

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jQuery Events: Stop (Mis)Using Return False | Fuel Your Coding

Guilty as charged: jQuery Events: Stop (Mis)Using Return False | Fuel Your Coding.

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Bible-Study S/W Is...uh...Inspirational

What ebook designers can learn from Bible-reading software - OReilly Radar.

This is a good article on eBook design, as informed by Bible-study software. Bible-study software is a niche that every software entrepreneur would do well to know about. It's a big market and it attracts enthusiastic and diverse developers who …

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Fun: Tachyons and Čerenkov Radiation

The Fun of Going Faster-Than-Light : Starts With A Bang.

To the extent I would have ever thought about it, by symmetry I would think that a tachyon entering a medium in which it moved slower than c would emit some kind of impossible-to-detect tachyon-y version of Čerenkov Radiation, but apparently …

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Ramsey's Theorem

Ramsey's Theorem.

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Moving towards Scala

We've just shipped our first application whose core algorithm was written in Scala. Regrettably, the project didn't lend itself to "getting our feet wet," and it basically boiled down to the Scala modules being black boxes while the rest of us worked in more pedestrian technologies such as Java and …

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Process kills developer passion

I disagree with a lot in this post Process kills developer passion

...maybe junior (or specialized) developers should be writing the unit tests, leaving the more seasoned developers free to concentrate on the actual implementation of the application. Maybe you don't need to micro-manage them with daily updates to VersionOne …

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Elmer Gantry 2.0

Act 1

A charismatic con man declares that the world is going to end on a specific date. He calls for donations, ostensibly to alert nonbelievers of the joyful and ominous news.

Act 2

The meme goes viral and all of a sudden, his normal income from donations increase 1000x …

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