Building simplicidade.org: notes, projects, and occasional rants

Notes

last update:

Problem solved

I keep a pad of paper between me and my keyboard at all times. I used to take down notes, keep track of what I need to do today, small brain dumps, and random scribbles. But with my hands going about their bussiness, the corner of the paper starts to bend upwards. The solution is not rocket science. A simple paper clip. Problem solved.

Last chance to see

The book turns into a TV show. It might not have a comparison between riding a manta ray or riding a air-powered submersible thingie, but it shouldn't be too bad, given the two names associated with it.

Bootstrap Perl

Whenever a new version of Perl is released, I install it in a separate directory and re-install all my modules into a new local::lib-powered directory. This takes a lot of time, but I had most of the process already in auto-pilot. But still it was a hack, so I decided to take the opportunity of the 5.10.1 release and make something more pretty and reliable. The result is my Perl bootstrap repo.

SAPO turns 14

So 14 years ago a project was born in Aveiro. Just a couple of guys (there is a picture of them, but it was buried somewhere due to hair style issues), love for technology and an idea. Today the company has over 200 persons working there, keeps sharing their technology with us all, gives us access to a bunch of very cool APIs, and invites us to have fun from time to time.

When to upgrade to Snow Leopard

This are the rules I use to do the upgrades between major versions of Mac OS X. You upgrade when: you have half-day of free time to do a clean install;all your must-have apps support the new version;any of your must-have apps requires the new version.I usually wait until the last item is true before doing the upgrade.

Template systems

I have a love/hate relationship with Template systems for quite some time. The following is a brain-dump about where I stand right now regarding which system to use in the E5 project. When I started using them at work (circa 1998 or 99) the goal was simple: separate programmers logic from the layout so that designers can tweak the templates without breaking the code. It was a simple and very worthwhile goal.

Start

A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct. from Manual of Muad'Dib by the Princess Irulan extracted from Dune, by Frank Herbert In the next weeks I'll be publishing a series of articles about a new project that I'm starting. Actually, I started this project once already, but I didn't like the path it was taking, so I'm restarting it. The new system will replace the current EVOLUI.

Perfect day for walking

Today the sky was blue, without a single cloud. The kind of day that turns this little town into a small oven. But at the place where I usually do my mid-day walk, near the see, there was a strong wind, blowing from north-west. Just perfect to stretch the legs, listening to some music. Must find some time to go back there today.

It lives...

The biggest advantage of having my own business with my wife, and having a site that uses laziness as a design principle (everything should be automated) is the possibility of taking about 8 weeks of cool-down time with the kids. Thats what just happened around here, and I'm slowly returning to work.

Parrot

Excellent article about Parrot, by Allison Randal. Parrot’s record for a language implementation was a conference session where the speaker implemented the basics of the LOLCODE language from scratch as a live demonstration. It was a 5-minute lighting talk. I have to get the time to implement a DSL for something on top of Parrot, to see how it works. Right now I only compile Parrot to run Rakudo.