Older blog entries for stevej (starting at number 7)

Picked up the following books:

• Building Parsers in Java
• Security Engineering (it looks like a fun read)
• Concurrent Programming in Java

I read the first few chapters out of the parser book last night in between having dinner with my girl and waiting for drunkards to arrive at the bar.

work on the E parser is picking up.

I might be getting an indy soon, that'd be fun.

I need to get my dell fixed. Or just get a new one, I'm not sure which.

Claim to fame:

nchriss and I nearly ran David Byrne the other day while driving through SF.

Worked more on cleaning up the code base of the ERTP MintMaker in Java, set up a CVS repository at home finally, did some UI work on Whisper, (still waiting for E to have a comm system).

Spent today also fighting with Roundup. I can't wait to get it working, I'm eager to see what this beast is like. (Well, I have seen what is like according to ping's demo page. I'm eager to put it to use). Alexandria is also a possibility.

dnm is talking about coming down for a week pretty soon. I think he's rather burned out after opencola. I know how he feels. I've been spending a lot of time studying for my java2 certification lately. I think I'll have to learn EJB2 here pretty soon. I really don't want to. it looks like ass.

First: Holy Shit. If you're wondering where your bandwidth is going, it's probably going to KaZaA or some other traffic-happy p2p app. I ran it for a few hours, downloaded a few albums (that I own on tape but not on CD; I'm not really a music pirate, I'll buy from small shops), and for hours afterwards (even until right now), traffic analysis on my network shows tons of SYNs being sent to port 1214 on my desktop... it was driving me insane, and actually slowing some stuff down considerably. poor, poor design. I should post to infoAnarchy about it.

Revised Projects Listing:

• E and Capabilities Papers
• OpenCSP
• Whisper
• E Compiler
• Playing with E language internals
• playing with java classloaders
• python fun
• mojonation/openbsd

mod_hash seems pointless, j2me can wait, RSS is covered by meerkat, IMHO. (btw, I started my own meerkat MOB, look for a link to it on my website). The reading list hasn't changed. I've spent a good deal of time in discussion about CSP with nchriss. We're coming up with some good ideas.

it's been a while.

I'm no longer working for opencola. Long story, they more than halved their company. All my IP there is open-sourced. I did a lot of cool shit and wish them good luck.

Now I have more time for projects:

• E compiler
• Whisper
• OpenCSP
• E/Cap papers
• Mucking around inside E language internals.
• Playing with Python
• mod_hash
• J2ME
• Mojonation/OpenBSD
• The Steaming Poop (RSS Newsreader in Java/Swing)
• reading, reading, reading

Books to read (either again or for the first time):

• Java Security, 2ed.
• C++ for Java Programmers
• Java Collections
• Modern Compiler Implementation in Java
• Java Performance Tuning
• Interpretation of Object-Oriented languages
• Refactoring (I've been doing a shitload of refactoring lately)
• Java I/O
• I need to finish The Retreat to Commitment. I'm half through it.

Yes, I spend way too much time in Java. It pays my bills and it's not horrible. Just too verbose.

Current Music: Avengers - The End of the World

Looks like I'm now working for opencola in the R&D department currently hacking out the DRM solution.

dnm introduced me to E about a year ago, after which I poked around reading documentation. Now, finally, I have the chance to actually _work_ with, and on, E. So far, I've been quite impressed with the language, and pleased with the pseudo-Smalltalk features.

Current E projects: compiler (with dnm) and now I own the Linux installer.

Side E projcts: Marc Stiegler's webServer.e (which I have been given full rights to do with whatever I please. which means, write a more full-featured version from the ground up. To make sure more is understood, webServer.e, as it stands, is only around 350 lines of E. approx. 5 objects)

pizza time.

I started writing a set of error logging classes last night when I stumbled upon a description of log4j (http://www.log4j.org) on javaworld.com.

check it out, kids.

Why take a potentially nice object system like java and blight it with an exception handling mechanism that boils down to a bunch of goto's?

Wrote a quick API and dirty explanation of how to use this SQL middle-layer I'm writing in Java for my own amusement. My friend James has started referring to it as the "upper middle class", sort of a pun on our interest in progressive politics. I eventually want to put full connection queuing, polling of database meta-data, etc

I need to abstract connecting to the database away from parsing and executing the queries.

I need to sit down and catalogue some of the ideas I have floating around in my head. Basically, a framework needs to be built before I can start thinking of higher level applications.

frameworks:
• data access layer
• membership tools that support both horizontal and vertical authentication
• XSLT layer.
• administration tools to kick people out. (seems pointless as I'd be the only person using it but thinking of the future is never bad)

Then I can work on the following (I think 7 days tops to build each of the following:
• CHANGES program, to facilitate keeping track of any changes in your code, a stream of consciousness idea I had to help keep documentation fuller.
• TODO List, visually modeled after the to the Palm TODO program that I've found so useful to my life
• a mini-calendar that incorporates only those features I use.
• a dairy program that can store your diary as XML/RSS or whatever other format I'd use. Shit, that's just XSLT again.
• oh yes, something that you can feed webpages into and will spit out a much simpler version of, you can even hand it DTD's or schemas to push it through an XSL style-sheet of your choice. Basically, there are pages I'd like to shove through AvantGo, but I hate how they end up being formatted on my Palm.