Head On

As I have been in charge of setting the administrative infrastructure at WeMind I continuously tried to use web based systems to limit the number of systems administered by us. We use Google Apps, Basecamp and outsource all our servers to Mathias and colleagues at GlobalInn.

We have however run into problems when trying to find web based services that are preferrably local to Sweden, like accounting. Even if marketed as “web based”, they are all based on Internet Explorer using ActiveX or some other proprietary part of IE. As we use Macs at WeMind, these services are as available to us as any software packaged as a .exe file.

I tend to see this in Sweden and not as much in other countries, or am I wrong?

Yesterday I twittered that I was trying to find a version of Ruby that both cc.rb and Rails likes. Last night, Wordpress plugin Twittertools posted yesterdays twitters to this blog. And this morning, I have an answer from Alexey Verkhovsky what the good versions are. Gotta love the lazyweb.

I have never programmed anything using Microsoft products, but if I did, heroes happen here and source fource would make me feel embarrassed. Who are they targeting?

JFokus has the traditional format of speakers talking for an hour, which is way too long. Every speaker I have listened to has spent more than half of their allotted time providing context and explaining why they are talking about whatever they are talking about.

I so wish that they would have used lightning talks.

After reading Aslaks post on his upcoming conferences it is obvious to me that Stockholm is sorely lacking in the conference space.

Aslak mentions RubyFools in Copenhagen and Oslo, and Smidig 2008 in Oslo. RubyFools seems to be great, and I know that Smidig was awesome in 2007.

The only conference I can think of in Stockholm is JFokus, which I hear is very good but Java only. Looking to the whole of Sweden we have Øredev which I always has found too unfocused, and Expo-C which I cannot tell if they exist anymore.

I guess I have no right complaining if I am not prepared to do anything about it. So, after Smidig 2007 in Oslo, we have had talks within the Agile Sweden network about running a similar conference in Stockholm this spring. And while this is no announcement by any means, I am putting pressure on myself to actually contribute to make it happen by speaking openly about it.

Look out for Agile Sweden 2008 this spring.

They actually do say that, here in Sweden. In a brochure handed out at SIME07, Google provides a little glossary for the technically challenged, and to my amusement JavaScript is described as follows:

JavaScript - scripting language for those who are not programmers, in first hand intended for creating web pages.

The translation is mine. The original text in Swedish: “JavaScript - skriptspråk för de som inte är programmerare, som i första hand är avsett för att skapa webbsidor”

This is of course a mistake, and my guess is that mistakes like these are inevitable if you have local offices like the one is Stockholm without technical knowledge. I find it funny, but I wonder if Sergey and Larry would laugh if they were to find out?

DHH’s post about the Rails 2.0 is incredibly well written. It is almost as he is showing off a unknown past as a PR agent when he talks about Rails not supporting commercial databases out of the box:

But that doesn’t mean the commercial databases are left out in the cold. Rather, they’ve now been set free to have an independent release schedule from the main Rails distribution.

This sort of well formulated marketing has been known to render some sour remarks from the rest of the open source web framework world. My belief is though that when they ask themselves “Why are people so attracted to Rails, my framework of choice is just as good or even better”, sentences like the one above are probably a large part of the answer.

I am subscriber of the Test Driven Development mailing list as well as the RSpec ones. One thing that strikes me continually is the lack of innovation and new ideas in the former one, as opposed to the flurry of brilliant ideas constantly coming out of the RSpec one. It seems to me that communities stagnate and that the people who once were the revolutionaries turn into keepers of their own revolutions ideas. The free thinkers become conservative.

Guy Kawasaki gave a brilliant keynote on the MySQL conference, talking about innovation. He said that the only way most people think about how to improve themselves is by using the tools they know more proficiently. No makers of horse carriages became car manufacturers. And the original TDD’ers are still talking about the same things they did five years ago. The revolution has moved on.

Eurocard really wants you to close the window. (”Stäng fönstret” is swedish for “Close the window”)

In todays edition of all things gossipy in IT Sweden, aka Computer Sweden, swedish union SIF manages to make complete fools of themselves. They actually attach a physical CD to an ad supposedly containing their latest tv ads. Filmed by famous-in-Sweden director Felix Herngren no less - it says so on the cover.

SIF just spent a lot of money saying that they basically have no clue how modern communication is done (YouTube comes to mind) or that they from an environmental point of view do not mind some 50 000 cd’s thrown away.

Oh so brilliant.

Alan Francis: Quite the best pop video I’ve seen for AGES: “

OK Go on YouTube

(Via Planet TW - Alumni.)

At least in the server world, Linux has won.

Here in Sweden, Microsoft has an inexplicable stronghold, even in the server room. The last time Craig Larman, Valtechs Chief Scientist, was here he noted that nowhere did he see as large proportion of server side windows as in Sweden - and Denmark.

I don’t know what makes swedes pay for stuff others get for free. Perhaps the high taxes have made us used to money disappearing?

A must read

(Via Labnotes.)

Todays Foxtrot reaches new levels of geekiness :).

When parking my car today at the supermarket to take care of the weekend grocery shopping, I noticed this guy returning to his car that was parked in a spot reserved for disabled people. He was obviously not disabled, and his car did not sport the sticker required in Sweden to use handicap parking spots.

It really gets to me when people think that rules applies to everybody but themselves and handicapped people be damned, so I walk up to him and tells him that he seems to have lost his handicapped parking permit. This guy, in his fifties, loses it and basically tells me to go to hell, get a life and drop dead.

What the hell? How come people become so narcissistic that not only do they act totally immorally, but when told about it they have the balls to say that I am wrong?

Does this happen elsewhere, or is this a Swedish phenomena?

I submitted my soul to iTunes an hour ago, as Depeche Mode so far has released their new single on the net only. Since I’m an avid loather of DRM this was not an easy step, but I really couldn’t help myself.

The song? Classic Mode stuff - really, really good.

Like so many others, I have read Hackers and Painters by Paul Graham. And, surprise, I find it highly recommendable, like everybody else. The following are a few thoughts about I jotted down while reading:

• Why, oh why, in the name of mad page flipping are the footnotes placed in the back?
• I am surprised that Pete McBreen of Software Craftmanship fame is not mentioned - in my opinion they are making the same case against “Computer Science”
• Contrary to common XP belief Paul Graham favors code ownership. Quite unusual in this day and age, and interesting - I need to reflect on it more.
• His thoughts on developers needing empathy are spot on. Not only for the end users but also for the later developers. It is also better to tell a developer to see things from somebody elses view and document accordingly instead of having him follow the RUP Deliverable Tablets of Stone without reflection.
• Hosting your own web application - I wish. Companies today still see the intranet as something that should be inside their own, very physical, walls. And I can’t blame them - at Lecando we run our own JIRA, Confluence, SugarCRM etcetera in house. It hit me though when thinking about this - what would we choose if Atlassian offered a hosted JIRA at a competitive price? What if that was the only way they offered their solution? Would JIRA be developed faster since they did not have to worry about releases and customers maintenance problems, or would they spend that time managing the server park?
• Paul Graham makes a very strong case for capitalism. Whatever your view on politics - I believe that the starting part of the Wealth chapter describing the difference between wealth and money should be taught to all.
• The parts about Lisp are quite tiresome. And regarding Perl as a higher level language than Java? Please.
• With “Partisans of permissive languages ridiculing the other [preventive languages such as Java - my note] as “B&D” (bondage and discipline) languages” Paul Graham wonders what “prevent”-style people say of Perl? At Lecando we normally just say “Perl …” and shake our heads.
• Paul Graham has a slightly dismissive tone when talking about stuff like object orientation, static typing etcetera which can get on your nerves if you are a Java head.
• I get the feeling that he sees Java people the way Java people see VB people. Prejudice!
• He suggests that pointy-haired bosses select Java for programming projects. Since I would select Java for many programming project, would that make me pointy-haired?
• He does explain, perhaps unintentionally, Javas success by emphasizing the importance of existing libraries for a programming language to succeed. Hibernate, Lucene et cetera anyone?.
• When he mentions the importance of efficiency and the ability to rewrite code I believe he is right. But, I can be dead wrong, I imagine Paul being a Emacs hacker, and if you still only use Emacs, it is sure easier to write code in Python, Ruby etc. But in Java land there is this neat thing called refactoring IDE’s - Eclipse, IDEA and the lot. My problem is that it is hard returning to Emacs after using a code-completing, refactoring IDE like IDEA.
• I guess I have to learn Lisp to see what the fuss is all about

Edit: Fixed typos

I saw this on Boing Boing and it is just staggering what people can do. As mentioned you have to watch the video clip. And think about what you buy.

Lyssnar mest nu p?

• The Sounds
• Queens of the Stone Age
• Ladytron
• Marilyn Manson
• White Stripes

B?st, b?st, b?st just nu: “United States of Whatever” med Liam Lynch. M?ste ses och h?ras. Jag lyssnar p? den p? repeat - och den ?r 1 minut och 26 sekunder l?ng.