Category — General

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.

actually this is a game that should be played by everyone, not just college students. you already play it so, perhaps you should know what your playing with. in any case, i recommend distributing this game to your students and friends.

Discover: Built-In Spam. Steven Johnson. Software designers are quietly integrating commercial transactions into ordinary applications. Before too long your spreadsheet may start selling you stock tips, and for the low, low price of $1.50, your word processor might offer to clean up that last paragraph you wrote. [Tomalak's Realm]

Gack, one more reason for open source software.

Tyranny of structurelessness. 'The Tyranny of Structurelessness' by Jo Freeman should be compulsory reading for any libertarians, funky-businessmen, self-organisation enthusiasts, hippies, entrepreneurial gurus,… [iWire]

New politics.

Two articles from the Washington Post today, Haliburton making nearly $2 billion from war in Iraq and Bush holds Federal employee pay raise to 2 percent.

[vanderwal.net Off the Top]

I wonder whether Haliburton will pay any taxes on that 2 billion, because i know federal employees will pay taxes on their 2 percent. I strongly suspect that there is some sort of tax waiver in effect for Iraq companies already isn't there?

Perens: IT Pros Must Lobby for Open Source. 27 Aug 2003: Open-source pioneer and evangelist Bruce Perens urges IT managers to lobby for the protection of open-source software from the infringing threat of software patents and legal liability.Read the short interview [RootPrompt.org -- Nothing but Unix]

Blasted!. Ouch. The Cornell College ResNet system, which connects students to the internet and the college network has been slammed with the W32/Lovsan.worm (MSBlaster) virus. This means that students will be disconnected from the network (and internet access) until things are… [Eat Your Vegetables]

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i expected this to happen at many more campuses, all those fresh new unprotected pcs plugged in at once, and blammo, worm/virus/cracker heaven….

Selecting Fast. This is a programming war story with a moral that I think is is important for those who care about their code running fast… [ongoing]

the perception of speed is like the perception of magic.

A Bastard of a late night call-out. Episode 18 But I need help now… [The Register]