OK, all you Mac-heads, a bit of help please. I've managed to turn something on, and I don't know how to turn it off again. Right now, whichever control has focus is "highlighted" by a black box. Trivial, I know - especially in light of all the important stuff that I can't get working at the moment, but it's driving me mad.
I almost certainly turned it on with some clumsy miss-keystroke, but I've no idea what it might have been. I've hunted all through the System Preferences, concentrating on the Keyboard and Universal Access panels but I can't find whatever it is I've turned on. Any hints?
It never lasts, and it can prove fatal.
Me, cynical? Never.
Saturday was top. I saw England win at Twickenham. Ugly, bad tempered match, and not the best rugby I've ever seen from either side, but I had enjoyed it.
We were thinking - England really needs a haka. Something like What you lookin' at? You want some, you faaakin slags? I'll 'av you... We could get Mike Skinner to write it.
Michael and I then got back to the pub in time to see Australia beaten, then South Africa, over a restorative beer or two. How can you top that?
Nail biting finishes, both of them. And I know that as an Englishman I should never admit to this, but I do love the French rugby team. Win or lose, the rugby they play is just so much fun to watch. They have so much, well, what can you call it but élan?
SOAP - I hate the bloody thing.
Can I get SOAPpy to access an Axis server using digest authentication? No, I bloody can't.
Can I write decent unit tests for an Axis SOAP client? Nope. Bloody concrete classes without no-arg constructors all over the shop, so I can't mock anything - or even get Spring inserting anything worthwhile in the first place.
Next time, I'm sending the bloody messages by post.
There, rant over. I feel better now.
There goes our crowd for London 2.0.
Update: Just to be clear - London 2.0 isn't off by any means. It's just that I'm concerned that many of our potential attendees will go the the Backstage meetup.
My blog seems to have turned into a game today - think of an obscure web app tool, and pretend to be indignant that I've not explicitly invited its users to London 2.0.
Anyway, that's enough of that - I'm off to the Einstein vs. Newton debate. Better get there early - it's going to be a busy one.
This is getting out of hand. December the 12th now appears to be a combined Python/Django/TurboGears/Ruby/Rails/Java/Spring/Hibernate/the million other things you need to build a Java web app these days/Perl/Catalyst/Maypole/Groovy/Grails Christmas party, and Jez is trying to get the Geek Girls on board too. Though that may be just wishful thinking on his part. ;-)
So, we really need another name. Jez suggested London 2.0, which is just so zeitgeist. Me, I'm more London 0.9, but I'll go with it...
Let's just hope the Perl guys don't have a punch up.
You know, if someone had told me ten years ago that I'd one day send somone an album from my computer, by radio, to a phone, I would have thought they were barking mad.
Update: The transfer failed - El Presidente's phone crashed. Every silver lining has a cloud.
Speaking of the London Web Framework Night - I never did write that up, did I?
OK, so, first up, Catalyst. What can I say? Catalyst may or may not be a great web framework, but since I didn't understand a word of the presentation, I'm not in any position to judge. It seemed mainly to consist of a list of CPAN modules that are either part of Catalyst, or can be plugged into it. No code, no working system, no screenshots, no inkling of what's in it for me. Nothing. Awkward, opaque, and unfriendly to all but insiders - much like I imagine Perl to be. (It must be said, the Perl mongers are aware of the problem - see this post, and this one. Message for Simon Wistow re your "Show Leon's Catalyst based web debugger. I'm willing to bet that it would be largely impossible in either of the other two" comment - I give you Ajaxy Exception Catching.)
Next up came Simon's Django presentation. I may have put The Fear into Simon about presenting to so many people, but perhaps I did him a favour - despite his admitted inexperience as a presenter, it was a cracking show. Compelling, funny, enthusiastic, and giving a very good idea as to what Django does, and how it does it. Using it will be pretty much a no-brainer when it comes to putting together a CMS style site. Whether it's the right platform for database driven sites like the kind of thing that I do for my day job is another matter. There's a clear front end/back end division with Django, with editors using its spectacular "magic" admin interface, and users mainly viewing content - though you do get community features like commenting pretty much for free. Perfect for a lot of sites, but would it suit enterprise database apps like banks and insurance houses need - and I write?
Simon demonstrated both the front and back ends of Django using lawrence.com - one of the sites for which Django was developed in the first place. Though the God of Demos made an apprearance at one point giving Simon an SQL exception, he also had a number of "oooh"s, and outright applause at least twice.
Last up was Matt Biddulph giving us a flavour of Rails. Struggling manfully through a stinking cold, Matt gave us the phiosophy of Rails in a very punchy manner. It looks very much a case of "do it our way", but that's often the right approach. Not enough code on show to tempt me away from a Python platform, though. ;-)
Without a doubt, the highlight here was Matt's demo of BBC Programme Catalogue. I have no words for how cool this project is. None.
I missed out on the booze up afterwards - I was feeling a bit fragile after several heavy sessions on the trot - so I'm sorry if I missed any of you. It was a good night nevertheless - a big thank you to Dean Wilson for organising it all.
Me? I'm looking at TurboGears. ;-) I like the concept of tying together best-of-breed components. Getting it running on my Mac was trivial, and the 20 minute Wiki is a superb demo. As soon as I locate some of that copious free time of mine, I'll try throwing together a simple site or two to see how it hangs together.
Not content with a Python/Django/Ruby/Rails meetup, Sam, Jez and I have teamed up to throw a Python/Django/Ruby/Rails/Java Christmas party this year. (For "party", read "bunch of nerdy blokes, many with beards, standing around drinking beer and chatting about computers".) It's at The Old Bank of England, Fleet Street on the evening of December the 12th.
Do leave a comment if you fancy coming - we have a room booked, and but we can change it to a bigger one if we need to. I anticipate a lot of interest, what with combining the Java crowd with the dynamic language people, and possible extra interest due to last week's London Web Frameworks Night.
Anyone want to demo TurboGears? ;-)
Update: Thanks to Dave and Dave, it's now a Python/Django/TurboGears/Ruby/Rails/Java/Perl/Catalyst/Maypole Christmas party. That has to be every web nerd in London, right?
Son of Update - This Time it's Personal: See London 2.0rc1.
Off to the London Web Frameworks Night soon. It's gonna be good, I think. I met Matt on Tuesday at a meal organised by Sam, and the lovely (if slightly obsessive) Simon was there too. He's a little nervous about presenting to so many people. I don't think he was before I pointed out how scary it'll be, but he certainly is now.
Name dropping or what? ;-)
Anyway, I hope the drinking won't be too intense this evening. Tuesday night involved a lot of Kronenbourg Blanc. This is evil stuff - I had a very nasty hangover yesterday moirning. Not that it lasted - we had a new starter, Amy (just turned 18, bless her), and spent the afternoon in the pub. But I could sure do with a quiet evening.
Yeah, yeah, I know.
Anyway, I hope to see a lot of you there.
Take that! Hah! Now start listening to people.
As if Aerial wasn't good enough, look what I found - Kate Bush in MP3. If you're a fan, you have got to hear these. And if you're not, you have no taste.
Something Like A Song is incredible. Why was it never released? Criminal.
Not that I'll be listening to Aerial much tonight - I'm off to the London Python/Django/Ruby/Rails meetup, with Alex, my Technical Director. I hope to see some of you there. No Sam, though; he's malingering. Or whatever.
I couldn't make lunch with Jez et al today - they had to start early, and I had meetings 'till late. Still, it was far from a wasted lunchtime - I picked up Aerial.
I've listened to to it once, but I've been coding, not focusing on it, so I don't really know what I think of it so far. Besides, you can't judge a Kate Bush album 'till you've listened to it a few times. There are certainly some good bits, though. I'll let you know what I think when I've had a chance to listen to it a few more times.
I also got Stars of CCTV and Dookie, too. Well, you can't buy just one CD, can you?
Coffee Beer. Now you're talking. Shame it's from those horrid Nestlé people...
Via James Robertson.
(In fact, it has no alcohol in it, so it doesn't really provide a one-stop-shop.)
Very good lunch at The Gulshan this lunchtime with my mate Neil. I had a couple of dishes that I'm not familiar with - a Chicken & Mushroom Rizoti, and a Badami rice - and a couple of Cobras. Very good food, clean and pleasant surroundings (once we'd been moved away from the smokers), and not too pricey. (Not as cheap as The Halal, true, but not too far off.) Recommended. I may be going there again on Monday with Jez.
Speaking of Jez, now I'm off to the London Java Meetup. Looks like a bit of a quiet one - but it's the quality that counts, not the quantity, yes? Well, OK, I'm going. But apart from that, it'll be quality, OK? I hope to see a few of you there.
And if I have to look at one more user story...
I can't tell you how glad I was to read this: Repetitive Information Injury. I thought it was just me!
NADD is something that I've learned to accept, to live with. The checking email, checking Bloglines, checking IM, checking IRC, straight back to email infinite loop, though, is more of a problem, and I though I was alone.
Bear in mind here that I'm writing this from the pub - I popped into the pub on the way home to catch up on my email.
What can I do, though? Before I die, I want to know everything. How else am I going to manage that?
(Via holygoat.)
Following the Tooting precedent, they should call the new moons "Morden" and "Colliers Wood".
There seem to be quite a few bloggers in Colliers Wood now:
Seven of us. If you don't find that surprising, you clearly don't know Colliers Wood. I'll have to see if I can coax them all out for a drink.
Lords consider 'torture' appeal'. I don't even understand why they even need to consider this.
Forget all the practical arguments against admitting this evidence - evidence obtained via torture is unreliable, the European Court is unlikely to stand for it, and so on. All true, but irrelevant. We shouldn't be using this evidence because torture is wrong. Duh. If evidence obtained via torture is admissable, it'll be a stain on British Justice.
Commenting on two week old news. How cutting edge am I?
We finished our first XP iteration last week.
My major observation - watch your estimates. Because the iterations are relativly short, one bad estimate can really fuck you up. One of our stories was initially estimated at 20 bananas, but when we broke it down into tasks, we had nearly 300! Since the first iteration (Acorn) was bound to carry a bit of overhead in terms of infrastructure, we were only intending to schedule 400 bananas for the whole iteration. Doulbling our estimates almost straight away was always going to be a bit of a problem.
(A banana is a an arbitrary unit of time - not an hour, but hopefully not too far from being an hour, either. Establishing what a banana is actually worth - which will take an iteration or two - should give us our velocity.)
Anyway, with a bit of hard graft, we didn't do too badly in the end. We delivered just about everything that we were intending to, bar one missing major function and a few missing system table maintenance functions. Oh yes, and a few missing unit tests, too - bad Simon.
We demoed it to our directors (our internal clients) yesterday. It seemed to go pretty well - everything worked, and after a shakey first five minutes, I even made use of some of the presentation skills I'm supposed to have been taught. I think the directors were more impressed by what we've done than we are!
(In fact, one of the Big Four missed yesterday, so I'll be going through it all again this afternoon with the help of my glamourous assistant, err, I mean my assistant, Tulna.)
Next week, another planning meeting, and round we go again. I'll be keeping a more alert eye on all the estimates this time. ;-)
BTW, here's an XP practice that I'd like to see us put into effect - Beer O'Clock.
It's going to be a busy month for nerdy stuff.
Firstly, there's Jez's London Java meetup on Thursday. Always a good night.
Then, next Monday, we have the London Python/Django/Ruby/Rails meetup. It's looking like we might get a good turnout for that - including my Technical Director! Gulp - I'd better be on my best behavior.
Then again, naaah.
On the 17th, there's the London Web Frameworks Night. Looks fascinating - demos of many of the happening web app frameworks back to back. Given the noise and drunkeness I don't tend to take much detail in during the Python/Django/Ruby/Rails meetups, so it'll be interesting to see more formal demos. Let's hope I'm quick enough to book a seat...
And lastly, there's the Einstein vs. Newton debate at the Royal Society on the 23rd. A different kind of nerdy, but nerdy nevertheless. Not to be missed.
Update: If you want to go to the London Web Frameworks Night, sign up now.