Misfeatures #1

From http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/extensions-to-ansi.html:

MySQL Server understands the || and && operators to mean logical OR and AND, as in the C programming language. In MySQL Server, || and OR are synonyms, as are && and AND. Because of this nice syntax, MySQL Server doesn’t support the standard SQL || operator for string concatenation; use CONCAT() instead. Because CONCAT() takes any number of arguments, it’s easy to convert use of the || operator to MySQL Server.

Which brain-dead moron came up with this gem of a misfeature?   What’s C got to do with anything? (And I like C).  What they meant to say was “Because of this nice syntax, seasoned users of other systems will waste their time trawling through the docs to find out why on earth a most basic SQL standard doesn’t work as it should.” I shall limit myself to saying that this example epitomises the MySQL philosophy, and is frankly the kind of mindset more commonly associated with Redmond.

NO2ID – *Really* saying NO to the database state

My previous post reminded me of another screengrab I caught back in 2006.  I’m all for the NO2ID campaign, but perhaps they were taking it a bit far on this occasion:

Date: 2006-02-27, 22:24

Net Neutrality

I had to laugh when I took a look at Wikipedia’s entry for Editor War last month. I saved the screenie for future amusement value (and in case they ever do resolve the dispute. Yeah right…)

Nerdy but amusingly matter-of-fact statements #1

The first in a throw-away series of matter-of-fact statements about incomprehensibly large or improbable concepts:

 #1 – From Wikipedia’s entry on NTP  (Network Time Protocol)

Background – NTP will soon represent timestamps using two 64bit numbers; one for the whole number of seconds, and one for the fractional part of the second:

According to Mills, “The 64 bit value for the fraction is enough to resolve the amount of time it takes a photon to pass an electron at the speed of light. The 64 bit second value is enough to provide unambiguous time representation until the universe goes dim.”^[4] Indeed, 2⁻⁶⁴ seconds is about 54 zeptoseconds, and 2⁶⁴ seconds is about 585 billion years.

That ought to do it.

It’s a joke alright, but no April Fool

When I saw the timestamp on the tech press articles I hoped against hope. April 1st 9:43am.  Draft International Standard DIS 29500, more commonly known by the wonderfully double-speak name of Office Open XML (it’s neither Open, nor XML), is about to became IS 29500.

It would seem that Microsoft have been successful in fast-tracking their OOXML “spec” through the International Standards Organisation,  somehow managing to side-step the fact that their proposal is overblown, has no reference implementation, is not based on user need, and is full of bug-for-bug compatibility flaws with existing proprietary Microsoft Office products.

How they managed to get their provincial proposal past a committee containing 47 coutries that aren’t even able to use their own alphabets in OOXML URLs is anyone’s guess.  And all this despite the fact that an ISO standard for office documents already exists – Open Document Format.

One barrier to adoption still remains however, and it’s a big one.  The global market. A market containing large constituencies who are are less inclined to bow down to Microsoft. China, India, Brazil.  After the posturing of the Committee processes, this is where the real battle will be fought.

In defence of walls

Danah Boyd comes to the defence of the Walled Garden – the notion that certain parts of the web be protected from external gaze. It’s certainly a relief to hear someone question the prevailing orthodoxy (open==good, closed==bad).

To reiterate some of Danah’s ground, the very notion of a “wall” has somehow acquired an inherently negative connotation. This is a shame, because it is only by delimiting states and distinguishing between them that we create and perceive value. Value, in its widest sense, is the difference between two states, one state being more desirable than the other. My schoolboy physics reminds me that energy in any system naturally dissipates until everything reaches the same level – a mean steady-state – maximum entropy. So to create localised pockets of interest amidst the bland soup we must inject energy and impose structure. And that’s where walls come in.

Brave New Worldwideweb2.0

Amidst the clamour and frenzy that surrounds whichever star currently shines brightest in the web2.0 firmament (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace et al), it seems that some old-fashioned principles have fallen by the way-side.

Long before the WWW, in the dark years of WW2, our governments took pains to warn us of the perils of spilling our beans too readily. ‘Walls have ears’, we were reminded. ‘Loose lips sink ships’, the posters warned. Citizens were urged to be vigilant about what they might be giving away even in casual conversation. After all, piece together a few bits of seemingly innocuous information and before long a more telling picture emerges.

Sixty years on, and such cares are far from our minds of course. As each shiny new social networking site comes along, we’re happy to reveal all in exchange for a ticket to ride on The Next Big Thing. Once aboard, we do it all over again by giving it up for our 2479 new best ‘friends’.

Theo & Co have a lot to answer for

I’d really like to write a piece on the different cultures that surround various products and technologies, but as we have just started our beta phase at phuser.com I really have to get back to enticing new users to join up. So until then, this:

I can’t quite remember the fateful course of events, but yesterday I found myself checking out the lyric page for the OpenBSD release theme songs. In a wreckless moment I found myself downloading the OGG for the v4.0 release – ‘Humppa Negala‘ – [Ogg] [MP3] . Now I am no authority on Humppa, but this is surely the most fiendish song I’ve heard in a long time. The worst thing is that I kinda like it. Imagine my alarm when I woke up this morning and the bathroom was resounding to the daemonic tones of this latest release from the OpenBSD studios, courtesy of my own vocal chords. Try as I might to fight it, it has lodged itself in my brain-stem and it won’t let go. If relief does not come soon I may have to resort to intensive therapy by means of ‘Tie me kangaroo down, sport‘.

Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years

Peter Norvig’s article Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years is not new, but I want to flag it up because it really is dead on the money and full of sage tips for the budding software engineer. In fact, as Peter says, the basic principal seems to apply to many acquired skills. Natural talent is a always a great start but there’s no short-cut to solid experience. And that means getting your hands dirty. It means learning the tools of your trade as well as the techniques, the practice as well as the theory. And, like Donald says, it means knowing that most of what’s out there is unknown unknowns, even after ten years of dedicated graft.

Ha Ha Only Serious!

From religious wars to phuser via shamanism and tribes.

For over a decade, two fundamentally opposed doctrines have been locked in struggle. On the one hand, a modern dogma of cultural imperialism that wishes to impose its world view on those that refuse to conform, their aim being to make the world a better place for civilised society and global business. On the other, a disparate array of fanatics defies the oppressor’s might and somehow manages to inflict disproportionate damage and humiliation on those they are avowed to fight.

Windows vs Linux ?

Only joking. Of course I’m talking about something much more important. (No, not vi vs Emacs).