When I told people I was coming to Toronto they all commented that it would be cold. I shrugged it off.
I’d forgotten that in -5C, you probably want to put a jacket on.
Archive for February, 2007
I spent a lot of last week in the Nuffield Theatre for the Maskers production of King Lear. I was board op, and as such got to see the play quite a few times! I enjoyed it. More importantly, for a play which I didn’t get told what to think, especially Shakespeare, I understood and followed what was going on. The acting was good, with a number of really good performances which really brought the play to life, though I think I misunderstood the relative importance of the various characters because of it for the first couple of performances. Something to watch out for next time I watch a play!
I’m just back from the ‘crit’ which was, I think, pretty positive. It brought out a lot of depth and complexity in the play which I had missed, and that in other productions might have been more obvious. Personally, I’d return to the fact that it was a very clear production which I felt was very approachable which I prefer (on the balance). Hopefully I’ll have a chance to think over the depth a bit in the coming days and weeks.
JSR 311, Java API for RESTful Web Services
Published February 17, 2007 Tech , java , jsr311 , rest , standards , sun , webservices 2 CommentsHaving met Marc, I’m sure he’s got some great ideas and the best of intentions for this JSR. However, he’s got an uphill struggle given the propensity for the JCP to produce horrible compromise solutions that excite very few people.
I’ve spent some time of the last few days trying to design a java REST API and I’m a little stuck. I keep on defining a higher level HTTP API. That, or a generic object/HTTP mapping a-la RoR. Neither is really a REST API. I suspect that’s what the outcome of the JSR will be, though to keep the servlet api people in Sun happy, they’ll keep the REST name, annoying a number of people and confusing many more. Please Marc, if you’re simply defining a higher level HTTP API, drop the REST name.
As a higher level HTTP API, I do like the example that Marc showed in his blog. It looks pretty simple, and I don’t see why (if you were building an implementation on top of the servlet API), it would take very long to implement. So, I’d encourage Sun to implement it, release it widely very soon, and solicit feedback before even a public review of the spec. You’ll get a lot more feedback from use than from people reviewing a PDF.
I think there’s real scope here for a distinct improvement for people progamming (POX|JSON)/HTTP or REST, and that it can be done pretty simply. This is a proof point for the JCP. If a spec comes out that prereqs JAX-WS, it’ll be a nail in the coffin of this JSR before it ships and will reinforce the view that complexity rather than simplicity is a JEE design goal.
Last night I went out to celebrate George turning 25! We ended up in an 80’s club in Southampton. I’m ashamed to say that it was good fun - and I was driving so I don’t even have the excuse of alcohol. It reminded me a lot of parties in the Bedlam, with the improvement that the dancing wasn’t on a stage with people watching… so I wasn’t self-conscious, and actually did some (admittedly dreadful) dancing.
Open Source - HOWTO?
Published February 17, 2007 IBM , Open Source , Tech , apache , axis2 0 CommentsIn 10 days I’m attending an IBM internal conference on open source. I’m giving a presentation on how IBMers join and participate in open source projects/communities, and how we can improve the experience for the IMBers and the projects they are joining. I’m basing my talk on my experiences working on Apache Axis2 for IBM. I’d be really interested in hearning from people on the other side of the fence on their experiences with IBMers joining their projects, how it’s been good or bad and how it could have been better.
How does a computer know what’s important?
Published February 4, 2007 IBM , Tech , dogear 0 CommentsI just searched the IBM intranet to find information about the medical insurance cover we have for overseas business travel. The intranet is a big place so I wasn’t optimistic that this would turn out well. And were we limited to the standard search I would’ve been right. The top 10 results were related to travel and insurance but not what I was looking for.
At the top of the page was the ‘dogear’ results - our tagged bookmark service like del.icio.us and the first result was the exact page I was looking for.
More than that, the name associated with the result was…. D. Illsley. 14 months on, I’d forgotten I’d bookmarked the page, but dogear hadn’t. It’s total chance that I was clearly the first person to dogear that page (which is why my name is associated with it) but because someone had, I’ve saved a lot of time (and probably others have too).
So how does the computer know what’s important? I told it.
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It’s that time of year again… the start of the 6 Nations.
Will Scotland fare well? Dunno. Mmmm. Whisky |
