Wednesday, May 14, 2003

Weblogs not to be Searched Separately After All Google Search It At least according to this article, the Google to index and search blogs separately article that I mentioned is not correct.  In fact, "there's been no consideration of removing weblogs from our index." 11:47:08 PM   []    comment []

The Ultimate PC Chair Google Search It The picture says it all: 11:26:02 PM   []    comment []

Compiler Rather than Programmer Declared Checked Exceptions Google Search It In the an earlier posting from today I mentioned the article "What I Hate About Your Programming Language."  Below is a quote about these exceptions from the article: "I like the idea of checked exceptions in some situations, but forcing every method to catch all exceptions that its child calls or may call can be tedious. I'd rather be able to ignore an exception and let it propagate upwards. Sometimes, I'd rather not worry about exceptions at all." Recently during a C# course the Java programmers expressed regret over no support for checked exceptions and yet C# intentionally decided not to support them.  His comment about sometimes having checked exceptions seems rather difficult to implement because how do I have my function support checked exceptions when the function I am calling does not have them?  In other words it seems rather difficult to implement a sometimes checked exceptions scenario.  What is expressed by the Java dislike above is that the knowledge of what exceptions could potentially would be nice to have but the work involved in being explicit at all times about what is being thrown is cumbersome.  Java favors explicit declaration over the maintenance it causes. C# goes the other way.  Perhaps the compromise would be that the compiler adds the meta data about what exceptions could be thrown rather than the programmer?  This seems relatively achievable in all cases except when interfaces are used since interfaces have no implementation it is not possible for the compiler to know what exceptions could possible be thrown. Speaking of exceptions and interfaces.... how does Java do this?  Do you have to declaratively state what exceptions an interface could possible throw and if not, what good are checked exceptions because when calling an interface you have no idea what exceptions are thrown?  Alternatively, if interfaces require you to declare what exceptions are thrown then what happens when my interface implementation wants to throw an exception that isn't declared in the interface?  Presumably it can't.  I prefer the latter implementation but my preferences don't really matter.  How does Java handle checked exceptions on interfaces? 11:44:48 AM   []    comment []

A New Meaning of Mixed Metaphors Google Search It I have been blessed with a number of interesting "mixed" metaphors during some all day meetings with Itron colleagues. "That puts a monkey in the wrench." - Beth Breidenbach "Lets go forward and beyond." - Bob Gay "That puts more worms in the can." - Bob Gay 11:27:08 AM   []    comment []

What I Want In A Programming Language Google Search It This article is a nice discussion of various programming languages.  I was disappointed that the dislikes of C# were not mentioned, however.  Of the dislikes listed I believe the author was quite accurate and I appreciated his thoughts.  In the first half of the article the author discusses what to look for when evaluating a language.  As part of that he says: "Consider what happens when someone proposes a great new language feature. There are several possibilities; the language designer may reject it outright, saying that it doesn't fit in the language.Consider what happens when someone proposes a great new language feature. There are several possibilities; the language designer may reject it outright, saying that it doesn't fit in the language." This prompted a thought that I don't believe any mainstream languages support.  Why can't we write code that runs at compile time and changes what the compiler generates?  For example: I would like to decorate my class with a TraceAttribute such that when the .NET compiler runs a trace message would be inserted at the beginning of the functions on the class.  To do this the .NET compiler would call into the TraceAttribute code at runtime and pass the CodeDOM of the class that was decorated with the TraceAttribute.  The code inside the TraceAttribute would then be able to iterate through the CodeDOM and insert the call to trace at the beginning of each function.  The knowledge of whether the TraceAttribute was a normal custom attribute or a compile time attribute, an attribute invoked at compile time, could be determined by whether it supported an ICompileTimeAttribute or derived from a CompileTimeAttribute. This is a .NET implementation of such a feature but hopefully the explanation, even in its brevity, makes sense. Below is one more quote I enjoyed: "...a language that could prevent really, really bad programmers from doing really, really stupid things probably wouldn't be useful for much else."   11:11:29 AM   []    comment []

The Matrix as it Relates to Christianity Google Search It I found this article quite intriguing.  If one takes a purely surface look at the Matrix I believe that the result would be acknowledgment that the movie simple entertainment.  Part of the entertainment, however, is that afterward movie goers continue find it intellectually stimulating, in a similar way that Back to the Future made for entertaining mental gymnastics.  In other words it is fun to plop yourself into the movie and wonder how you could identify if the world was indeed like the Matix (in Back to the Future it was fun to play what if scenarios with time turned back on itself).  In such a way the movie has little impact except for pleasure.  If one goes down a little deeper in the plop-yourself-into-the-movie process, however, one may consider the self-help perspective the Matrix advocates, the idea that you can do anything if only you can imagine yourself doing it or believe in your self enough.  In fact, the Matix takes this idea to the extreme and even presents scenes of one practicing this (such as Neo practicing martial arts with Morpheus).  I think there is certainly some truth to having confidence in yourself but from a Christian perspective, one should be careful that belief in self does not out weigh belief in God.  More importantly, belief in self should not take precedence over an acknowledgment that God is actively involved in the universe, that he cares for you personally and that ultimately we are dependent on Him.  Unfortunately, our dependence on God is not advocated much (if at all?) within the Matrix.  If we step back and take another surface view of the movie one needs to acknowledge that overtly the movie is not advocating Christian values.  The scenes at the apartment with the kids bending spoons and the find your way or Neo's confusion about whether he is the one seem much more of an Eastern bent than anything else.  The problem with this is that most people probably don't take the time to delve deeper into considering what the movie is saying about real life, truth or religion.  As a result, they are bombarded with yet another non-Christian perspective that on it own is presumably not formative in ones thinking but en-mass with all the other anti-Christian world views will make an impact unless intentionally thought through. What is important to consider about this article, however, is that it encourages people to think more deeply about the religion in general. and this I believe should always be encoraged.  In fact, the idea of showing this movie at a church function and then leading a discussion of its value and truths seems to me to be a great way of bridging the gap and encouraging non-Christians to engage in a discussion about Christianity. (As far as the Matrix Glassary goes I would say that I almost entirely dismiss the correlations between Matrix images and characters and those found in the Bible.  I seriously doubt that many of these terms were intended by the authors to have such subtle correlation to Christianity and any forced correlation is meaningless in my opinion.) 6:22:26 AM   []    comment []

Internet Enabled Port-a-Potty a Hoax Google Search It I never for a moment believed this story but I did mention it because I thought it was fun especially since it was picked up by major news sources such as the Wall Street Journal.  According to this article, however, it was indeed a hoax but, none-the-less an intentional one brought on by the British (I love the British sense of humor) MSN division.  It would'a been a nice April Fools joke. 5:48:34 AM   []    comment []

© Copyright 2004 Mark Michaelis.