Archive for November, 2007
Monday, November 12th, 2007
Michael Stonebraker (grandfather of PostgreSQL) on database management for big science.
Ben Laurie writes about Caja ("Capability Javascript"), a restricted subset of Javascript that supports safe execution. Interesting...
Jon Udell is messing with PowerShell again. I really wish I had time to get into this, and still think a Javascript-based open source ...
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
Saturday, November 10th, 2007
I was pretty depressed by the lack of CS department demos at DC15, so David Crow's reminder of how strong a community has formed around 'Camp stuff in just two years was timely (and welcome). No sign of CS demos for DC16, either, but almost 40 people from outside the ...
Posted in DemoCamp | 1 Comment »
Saturday, November 10th, 2007
Beautiful Code made the Amazon Editors' Top 10 Computers & Internet Books list for 2007.
Posted in Beautiful Code | 1 Comment »
Thursday, November 8th, 2007
String theorist and self-described futurist Michio Kaku has a two-page ad for his upcoming BBC TV series Visions of the Future (masquerading as an article) in the Nov 3 issue of New Scientist. It's pretty depressing: the title is, "Are you ready to play god?", and he spends a few ...
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Thursday, November 8th, 2007
If this post was more nuanced---paid more attention to shades of gray---it would be more truthful and more interesting. It's still both, though, and occasionally funny as well:
This entire problem space comes down to a single error in the metamathematical approach to computing, which is that the 1930s metamathematicians were ...
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tuesday, November 6th, 2007
One of the differences between professionals and amateurs is that professionals measure things, and use the data they collect to improve their performance. Whether it's the cost of making a widget, teaching evaluations, or how far your tape measure reaches, knowing where you are and how things are changing is ...
Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments »
Tuesday, November 6th, 2007
An exceptionally talented student of mine would like to spend next summer doing something techy in a developing country. He knows Linux and networking better than I ever will, works very hard, is perpetually cheerful (at least around me: maybe it's sort of a dipole effect), and would be ...
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, November 6th, 2007
Via one of the few mailing lists I still subscribe to, a partial list of Bachelor's degrees in Software Engineering:
Cal Poly
Carleton
Clarkson
Drexel
MacMaster
Ottawa
RIT
UVic
Waterloo
Western Australia
Know of any others?
Posted in Teaching | 4 Comments »
Sunday, November 4th, 2007
I'm starting to pull together project ideas for my students for next term. If you have something with some intellectual challenge in it, and want a couple of grad/undergrad students give you 120 hours each next term to make it happen, please let me know. (If you were all in ...
Posted in Student Projects, Teaching | No Comments »
Sunday, November 4th, 2007
No time, no time... Here are some links from the past few weeks that caught my eye:
The SourceForge Research Data Archive A warehouse of information gleaned from SourceForge for use in empirical software engineering research. There's going to be a full-day workshop at SIGCSE'08 (Portland, March 2008) ...
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »