Here’s a good lesson to learn. If a geek is calmly trying to explain something to you, it’s generally a good idea to listen. Otherwise you run the risk of making a complete fool of yourself. Jerry Taylor is the City Manager of Tuttle, Oklahoma. Last week the company who hosts Tuttle’s web site had… Continue reading Please Try To Understand
Category: tech
What’s Wrong With ORM
Last night I gave a talk to the London Perl Mongers about “What’s Wrong With ORM”. It was a first draft of a talk that I hope to be giving a few times this year. There’s also an article in preparation (well, I say “in preparation” but I actually mean “slowly coalescing in my brain”).… Continue reading What’s Wrong With ORM
SWIM
Perl has a concept called “DWIM” (do what I mean). Greg McCarroll has prototyped a idea that he calls “SWIM” (search what I mean) where he monitors the speed that you type words in a Google search box and automatically quotes words that seem to have been typed together. There’s a fuller explanation in his… Continue reading SWIM
Working At Goohoo!
So Lloyd is leaving Guardian Unlimited to go back to Yahoo!. From what I’ve seen over the last few months, I predict that it’ll only be about another eighteen months before everyone in the web industry will be working for either Google or Yahoo!
O’Reilly Network
Those fine people at O’Reilly Media (publishers of such excellent books as Perl Template Toolkit) have offered me the chance to write on one of their blogs. I’m now a contributor to their OnLAMP blog and you’ll be able to see all of my entries here. Not quite sure what I’ll be covering over there,… Continue reading O’Reilly Network
Giving Software Away
An interesting story from Gervase Markham (who works for the Mozilla Foundation) which demonstrates that the concept of Open Source software is still confusing to a large proportion of the population. A little while ago, I received an e-mail from a lady in the Trading Standards department of a large northern town. They had encountered… Continue reading Giving Software Away
Interviewing the Interviewer
This article contains some good advice about getting the most out of an interview. In particular it has some interesting sample questions for the “do you have any questions you’d like to ask me” section of the interview. How long does it take from the time someone identifies a need for a new piece of… Continue reading Interviewing the Interviewer
Joel on Rails
Joel Spolsky has been playing with Ruby on Rails. He’s written about some of the problems that he found. This has upset some members of the Rails community. On of the best points that Spolsky makes is one I’ve mentioned here before – the fact that ActiveRecord is a horribly crippled ORM system – it… Continue reading Joel on Rails
Robot Moved by a Slime Mould’s Fears
A bright yellow slime mould that can grow to several metres in diameter has been put in charge of a scrabbling, six-legged robot. The Physarum polycephalum slime, which naturally shies away from light, controls the robot’s movement so that it too keeps out of light and seeks out dark places in which to hide itself.… Continue reading Robot Moved by a Slime Mould’s Fears
SIDStore are Spammers
(This is me using what limited Googlejuice this site has to get personal revenge) Last June I bought a t-shirt from SIDStore. It was a nice t-shirt. It had a dalek on it. Here’s a picture of me wearing the t-shirt. I was happy with my purchase. All was well with the world. Of course,… Continue reading SIDStore are Spammers