Alan Z. Calls Shenanigans On Office Open XML

Alan Zeichick brands ECMA a "vendor-driven standards body" and decries "the competitive aspects of turning one company's impossible-to-implement spec into an industry standard." I'm a little more sanguine about ECMA, but only because I'm skeptical that standards (or open source) have nearly the importance they're generally accorded. (I'm well aware …

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I'm not entirely happy about this...

Rock Star
You scored 94%!
Link: The BASIC classic rock Test

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Or you could get 'em Ruby and a snowboard

\<a href="http://www.c-jump.com/"" atomicselection="true">

Where's the LHS on 6-x;? And does that say "parent friendly" under the "x++"?

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Hopes for Jon Udell's Tenure At Microsoft

I imagine that every single person who reads this blog other than my sister (Hi Donna!) knows who Jon Udell is and knows that he is joining Microsoft. In the small world of "people who make their living by writing about software development," Jon is clearly the leading light on …

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DRM: Won't Get Fooled Again

For a few years, I've been a happy subscriber to Musicmatch Universal, a system that gave me on-demand streaming of a sizeable music catalog. Musicmatch also had a \$.99 song-purchase facility from which I bought a few songs. Although I've always hated the Musicmatch player (bloated, self-updating, etc.) I was …

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C++ GUI Programming Guide

I'd rather hang out with John Hodgman. I'd rather get a C++ GUI Programming Guide.  

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More On Functional Programming Languages and Silver Bullets

Paul... uh... NoLastName has an excellent post on silver bullets and functional programming. He cites studies, makes logical connections... why, it's hardly a blog post at all!

Anyway, I starting writing a comment, but it grew and grew, so I am posting it here instead. Read his post first....

You …

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Flash movie of a guy using Windows Paint well

I wish I could draw. I wish I could use tools to make my hideous drawings into acceptable drawings.

This guy can draw and can use tools to make his sketches into better drawings.

I wish I could learn something from this guy.

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Bullets Over Wrong Ways: Components, Functional Programming, and Essential Difficulties

In comments to my previous post, Wesner Moise says:

  • given today's components, "why build vi?";
  • the difficulty arising from software state "is a solved problem in functional programming"; and
  • suggests that the advances in graphics and networking that I'd acknowledged amount to a silver bullet.

I'm afraid he's missing the …

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Moonbase Alpha

I'm going out on a limb, I know, but I'm going to say that I don't think NASA will be ready to begin construction base on the moon in the year 2020 and, darn it, I know I shouldn't speculate wildly like this, but I'm going to say that when …

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