Too much to read!. You know, this just shouldn’t be allowed. In fact, I think it ought to be outlawed. It’s just bloody not fair that the 2003 Extreme Markup proceedings come out just as I really ought to be getting a head start on fall reading. Oh, and, um, I guess we won’t… [Caveat Lector]

this has an insightful comment and link to interesting proceedings. 'specially the link to http://www.mulberrytech.com/Extreme/Proceedings/html/2002/Rosenblum01/EML2002Rosenblum01.html

Code reading and literary criticism. Brian Marick has posted a wonderful essay on the subject of commenting code. “I do believe that code with comments should often be written to be more self-explanatory,” he says. “But code can only ever be self-explanatory with respect to an expected reader.” To illustrate, he shows an algorithm in C, then translates to the kind of Lisp a C programmer would write, then retranslates to the kind of Lisp a Lisp programmer would write. Then he walks through the Lisp code line by line, exploring how the code itself sets up and then satisfies expectations in the mind of a reader who is presumed Lisp-proficient.
… [Jon's Radio]

this actually tails in with some of what i'm arguing in my dissertation… i/m saving a copy.

Software Patents?

My view is that the success of business processes–including software–depends on subtle issue of execution, rather than on the concepts that you can explicitly patent.  So I think I'm sympathetic to Paul David, et al, who argue against a proposal for the EU that would encourage software patents.

Bessen and  Hunt found that the correlation between R&D and patenting in the U.S. over time has been significantly negative. In other words, as software patenting rates have risen, R&D investment in sectors using information technologies has declined. Whether there is an underlying causal relationship remains unestablished, but the U.S. experience warrants scepticism regarding claims that software patenting would contribute to the goal of raising the software R&D investment rate in the European Research Area.

[Corante: Bottom Line]

I'm pretty much anti-patent toward anything that can be covered by a lesser form of license or other property protection.