Time for some Soup (without imported items)

Lately, I've been tinkering a bit with Spring 2.5, Hibernate 3, JPA, HSQLDB, Maven 2 and related technologies.

Sun, 04 Jan 2009 02:39:20 GMT

Lately, I've been tinkering a bit with Spring 2.5, Hibernate 3, JPA, HSQLDB, Maven 2 and related technologies.

As usual, a simple, little blog (back-end) app serves me as a playground for that. :-)

However, I've decided to make its Subversion repo (sort of) publicly available 'cause I guess it might be interesting for others as well:

svn co https://svn.robert42.com/blog-backend/trunk blog-backend

HTTP auth user/PW: public

Update: added the unit tests once more, this time written in and compiled with Groovy via GMaven.

Dave Thomas' RubyConf 2008 Keynote ★★★★

Fri, 02 Jan 2009 01:41:29 GMT

No matter if one loves or hates (or something in between) Ruby, I think this is really an interesting talk for various reasons...

BTW, the proposed, so-called Cluby (~ Closure-based Ruby) looks quite a bit to me like an attempt to make Ruby "groovier" (as does oTuby ~ Optionally-typed Ruby in some way, too). ;-)

(via)

Rating: 4/5

"In the end, programming shows us how small we are."

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 17:55:00 GMT

"In the end, programming shows us how small we are."

–Stevey's Blog Rants: A programmer's view of the Universe, part 1: The fish

"However, I've decided that in the future my posts will be more rambling, and ..."

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 17:14:22 GMT

"However, I've decided that in the future my posts will be more rambling, and more pointless. I think part of what I don't like about the older posts is that they are sometimes arguing a point or something, but my real point (or my intention, at least) is just to share some kind of idea or thought, not convince anyone of anything. Also, I think this will be a lot easier to write because I can just type a bunch of words and they don't have to fit together in any particular way, and it's also a good excuse to not bother with any editing, so I should be able to crank these things out really fast.

I also have this idea to outsource the writing of my blog posts to someone, ideally everyone. The idea is that I'd write a bunch of stuff and then someone else (maybe wiki-style) would turn it into something coherent and readable. That would save me a lot of time and also provide plausible deniable when I write something that turns out to be especially stupid or offensive. But that's in the future. For now, it will just be a bunch of words that keep going until I get bored or distracted, and then I'll hit "send" :) (I'm also writing these things in Gmail since the blogger interface upsets me)"

–Paul Buchheit: blog, v2

Wenn man schon mal dabei ist...

Thu, 25 Dec 2008 14:11:40 GMT

Wenn man schon mal dabei ist...

"Wir sehen unmöglich aus
wir sind der Zeit voraus
wir sind die wunde Stelle
mitten unter euch
wir sind ein Schattenriss
aus Knochen, Fleisch und Blut
wir stehen auf der Schwelle
einer neuen Zeit" -- Kante - Zombi, 2004

IMHO, einer der schönsten Songs ever und folglich ein absoluter All-Time-Favo...

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 18:13:49 GMT

IMHO, einer der schönsten Songs ever und folglich ein absoluter All-Time-Favourite von mir.

e * 42 farshimmelt blintz

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 15:22:50 GMT

(via)

http://www.google.com/search?q=e+*+42+farshimmelt+blintz

"I am proud to say that Grails integrates nicely with Maven now :-)"

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 14:11:17 GMT

"I am proud to say that Grails integrates nicely with Maven now :-)"

–Graeme Rocher's Blog: Grails & Maven Kiss and Make-up with Grails 1.1 Beta 2

Die Tüpen von AKQA nehmen sich um

Sun, 21 Dec 2008 19:06:36 GMT

Die Tüpen von AKQA nehmen sich um die 40 Mikrowellen, schliessen die Dinger an eine, mit mindestens 32 Ampere abgesicherte Sicherung am Starkstrom an und programmieren die zeitlich dann so, dass die bei dem Kling, der beim Ausgehen einer Mikrowelle erklingt, Jingle Bells spielen. Im Dunkeln!

- kfmw.blog

[Reposted from murdelta via c3o]

Nice JS FX

Sun, 21 Dec 2008 16:50:31 GMT

(via)

http://www.rolyn.co.uk/wub.htm

"At the risk of sounding self-contradictory, I also think that when the studen..."

Sun, 21 Dec 2008 15:03:57 GMT

"At the risk of sounding self-contradictory, I also think that when the student owns the task of learning, they will learn enormously better than when the task is imposed."

–Students learn what they need, not what is assigned -- Ted Dunning (via langreiter.com)

michi bloggt!: Master Theses

Sat, 20 Dec 2008 21:03:48 GMT

http://michi.knallgrau.at/blog/stories/5399632/

"The interesting thing is that we were right about needing to finish the langu..."

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 17:41:46 GMT

"The interesting thing is that we were right about needing to finish the language even though it had missing features. It was a timing issue, there was only about a three month window in which the whole Java phenomenon could have happened. We barely made it. It is also interesting that Bill [Joy] was absolutely right about what Java needs long term. When I go look at the list of things he wanted to add back then, I want them all. He was right, he usually is."

–The Long Strange Trip to Java -- Patrick Naughton, 1996

"There's a natural law in programming language and API design: as backwards co..."

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 16:07:45 GMT

"There's a natural law in programming language and API design: as backwards compatibility increases, elegance decreases. Backwards compatibility is very important. There's a cost to breaking code, but there's also a cost to not breaking it—complexity in the developer's face."

–Seeking the Joy in Java (via hannesw)

(Image)

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 11:20:20 GMT

"Will we all be programming in a dynamically typed language in 2010?"

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 15:16:49 GMT

"Will we all be programming in a dynamically typed language in 2010?"

–Robert C. Martin, 2003

(Image)

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 15:07:56 GMT

"Groovy's optional typing is one of its strong points. It's not perfect, but i..."

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 14:52:44 GMT

"Groovy's optional typing is one of its strong points. It's not perfect, but it makes a big difference to code maintainability."

–Graeme Rocher in reply to Stephan Schmidt

Rails Worst Practices: 13 Coding Nightmares You Should Avoid

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 14:47:19 GMT

"This is not a post about best practices. This is about the worst of the worst, the things you should never, ever do, the stuff of coding nightmares." (via Code Monkeyism)

http://www.pathf.com/blogs/2008/12/rails-worst-practices-13-coding-nightmares-you-should-avoid/#more-1314

"Aber eben, einfach ist das nur bedingt."

Sun, 14 Dec 2008 20:28:39 GMT

"Aber eben, einfach ist das nur bedingt."

–Anonyme Köche » Nicht ganz unschwer: Simplifikation

"Intelligence is not about knowing lots of things, it's about being able to le..."

Sun, 14 Dec 2008 00:52:30 GMT

"Intelligence is not about knowing lots of things, it's about being able to learn lots of things."

–Overcoming Bias: What I Think, If Not Why (paraphrased)

[Reposted from c3o]

Unfactoring From Patterns

Sat, 13 Dec 2008 15:17:31 GMT

ROFL (via bookworm8at)

http://rubyconf2008.confreaks.com/unfactoring-from-patterns.html

"Some Things Are Better Done than Described."

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 02:05:14 GMT

"Some Things Are Better Done than Described."

–The Pragmatic Programmer

Röyksopp put all their videos on Vimeo. Remind Me, an old favourite of mine i...

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 16:53:12 GMT

Röyksopp put all their videos on Vimeo. Remind Me, an old favourite of mine is among them \o/

[Reposted from mzeltner]

Just stumbled across this pic from October 29th, 2006 (taken by Michael "Mike...

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 16:14:26 GMT

Just stumbled across this pic from October 29th, 2006 (taken by Michael "Mikele" Zeltner at Knallgrau HQ). Clockwise: yours truly, Matthias Platzer, Christopher Clay, Ben Ferrari.

As time goes by...

"Lambda is the ultimate glue, if you will."

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 21:02:10 GMT

"Lambda is the ultimate glue, if you will."

–Gerald Jay Sussman @ SICP video lecture 5

Soup ♥ Powncers

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 18:29:29 GMT

http://www.soup.io/pownce

Appcelerator Titanium™

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 14:35:01 GMT

"[...] is the first open platform for building rich desktop applications."

http://titaniumapp.com/

Cappuccino Blog » On Leaky Abstractions and Objective-J

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 14:06:49 GMT

"OK, so how is Objective-J different?"

http://cappuccino.org/discuss/2008/12/08/on-leaky-abstractions-and-objective-j/

"I consider this to be a good compromise: Take the good parts from one langua..."

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 14:04:59 GMT

"I consider this to be a good compromise: Take the good parts from one language and bring them to JavaScript to allow for the greatest amount of flexibility and control - without a massive abstraction."

–John Resig - JavaScript Language Abstractions

Effective collection handling

Sat, 06 Dec 2008 19:05:43 GMT

A fundamental programming task: one has some kind of collection of some kind of objects/elements (of some kind of type), wants to apply some kind of function resp. algorithm to some (certain ones) of them and get back a collection of the resulting (altered) objects/elements.

So here's a little comparison of how this generally can be done in Python, ECMAScript (Rhino JS on Helma NG, in this case), Ruby and (JVM's) Groovy in an (hopefully) as effective, comprehensible and elegant as possible way through applying the power of functional programming.

Therefore, serving as a simple example the concrete use case is to have an ordered list (a.k.a. array) of integers and want to get back a list containing doubled integers of all even ones from the original list.

In Python one can use a so-called list comprehension for getting the job done:

$ python
>>> numbers = [1, 2, 3, 13, 42]
>>> numbers
[1, 2, 3, 13, 42]
>>> doubled_evens = [x * 2 for x in numbers if x % 2 == 0]
>>> doubled_evens
[4, 84]

ECMAScript's equivalent is called array comprehension:

$ helma
helma> var numbers = [1, 2, 3, 13, 42]
helma> numbers
1,2,3,13,42
helma> var doubledEvens = [x * 2 for each (x in numbers) if (x % 2 == 0)]
helma> doubledEvens
4,84

Ruby doesn't support Pythonic list comprehensions, so, alternatively, one can use a couple of so-called higher-order functions for achieving the task:

$ irb
irb(main):001:0> numbers = [1, 2, 3, 13, 42]
=> [1, 2, 3, 13, 42]
irb(main):002:0> doubled_evens = numbers.find_all { |x| x % 2 == 0 } \
irb(main):003:0* .map { |x| x * 2 }
=> [4, 84]

Groovy doesn't support list comprehensions as well, so again a bit of functional programming equivalent to the approach in Ruby (BTW, Groovy's single map function is called collect as in Smalltalk):

$ groovysh
groovy:000> numbers = [1, 2, 3, 13, 42]
===> [1, 2, 3, 13, 42]
groovy:000> doubledEvens = numbers.findAll { it % 2 == 0 } \
groovy:001> .collect { it * 2 }
===> [4, 84]

Note that Python similarly supports the above techniques as in Ruby/Groovy (tho, in a slightly less OOP-style way):

>>> numbers = [1, 2, 3, 13, 42]
>>> numbers
[1, 2, 3, 13, 42]
>>> evens = filter(lambda x: x % 2 == 0, numbers)
>>> evens
[2, 42]
>>> doubled_evens = map(lambda x: x * 2, evens)
>>> doubled_evens
[4, 84]

So does ECMAScript as well (yet, even also more OOP-style than Python):

helma> var numbers = [1, 2, 3, 13, 42]
helma> numbers
1,2,3,13,42
helma> var evens = numbers.filter( function(x) { return x % 2 == 0; } )
helma> evens
2,42
helma> var doubledEvens = evens.map( function(x) { return x *= 2; } )
helma> doubledEvens
4,84

Now, if only Soup had real, blog-like comments... ;-)

"The slogan for JavaFX is “Do More.” Yep, that sums it up. For anyone to pay a..."

Sat, 06 Dec 2008 14:07:07 GMT

"The slogan for JavaFX is “Do More.” Yep, that sums it up. For anyone to pay attention, JavaFX needs to Do More."

–JavaFX 1.0 API Arrives, but Vastly Incomplete

"The interpreter prompt (>>>) will not change. It gives Guido warm fu..."

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 22:54:13 GMT

"The interpreter prompt (>>>) will not change. It gives Guido warm fuzzy feelings."

–PEP 3099 -- Things that will Not Change in Python 3000

What’s New In Python 3.0

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 15:42:48 GMT

http://docs.python.org/dev/3.0/whatsnew/3.0.html

"And that's how it should be: choose the language that lets you implement your..."

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 08:38:35 GMT

"And that's how it should be: choose the language that lets you implement your vision."

–Timidity Does Not Convince -- James Hague (via earl)

Recently, I've done some literature research on applications and algorithms f...

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 21:22:41 GMT

Recently, I've done some literature research on applications and algorithms for Support Vector Machines (SVMs) as part of a machine learning course assignment at uni whose results I'd like to share here too:

PDF, BibTex

(Video)

Sat, 29 Nov 2008 19:59:20 GMT

Martin Röll (May '08): Self-Organisation for Effectiveness

True. I LOL'ed, thx.

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 13:49:55 GMT

[Reaction to ppp]

True. I LOL'ed, thx.

Reminds me of my Linux quests, BTW, when I used it as primary OS for a couple of years before switching to Mac OS X.

Although, in comparison, I enjoy the experience with the latter the most up till now, it also has (other) flaws for sure.

There's no such thing as a single silver bullet (unfortunately)... ;-)

"There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves we feel no one el..."

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 00:50:56 GMT

"There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves we feel no one else has a right to blame us."

–Oscar Wilde, "The Picture of Dorian Gray"

"The limits of language are the limits of one's world."

Sun, 23 Nov 2008 23:20:30 GMT

"The limits of language are the limits of one's world."

–Ludwig Wittgenstein