Uniter or Divider?

Maybe we should determine the request of another term from Mr. Bush on the answer to one question. In 2000, Mr. Bush clearly claimed to be "a uniter, not a divider."

Well, is he a uniter or a divider? (Arm twisting shouldn't count.)

Kingdomality

Another survey is making the rounds. Here I am...

Your distinct personality, The Dreamer-Minstrel might be found in most of the thriving kingdoms of the time. You can always see the "Silver Lining" to every dark and dreary cloud. Look at the bright side is your motto and understanding why everything happens for the best is your goal. You are the positive optimist of the world who provides the hope for all humankind. There is nothing so terrible that you can not find some good within it. On the positive side, you are spontaneous, charismatic, idealistic and empathic. On the negative side, you may be a sentimental dreamer who is emotionally impractical. Interestingly, your preference is just as applicable in today's corporate kingdoms.

Daily Zen

Daily Zen...

Because you grasp labels and slogans,
You are hindered by those labels and slogans,
Both those used in ordinary life and those
Considered sacred.
Thus they obstruct your perception
Of objective truth,
And you cannot understand clearly.

- Linji (d. 867)

Not Innocuous

Mark Baker responds...

"innocuous"? I wouldn't say that. I think it's actively harmful as a name for an architectural style. As I see it, "SOA" means different things to different people...it does nothing to constrain how one might go about building distributed systems.

Fair enough. I've not seen the harm yet, but there's still time. 8^/

REST and SOA

Mark Baker writes...

Gartner's claim that REST proponents rag on SOAP is backwards; we like SOAP, mostly. We just don't like SOA.

I consider myself a REST convert, to the extent I think I understand it and its incarnation in HTTP. Though I don't understand the position above. Is there even a concrete definition of SOA with which to make this statement?

I thought SOA was a fairly innocuous term, being so vaguely defined that an SOA could be built using REST and HTTP.

Deleted Post

Radovan Janecek writes...

Patrick's post looked like I don't like criticism or discussion. Btw, it seems he removed his 'Criticism', entry. Hmm.

Yes, I was in a hurry, saw your comment that I misinterpreted you, and took the fast route of just deleting the post, leaving no trail. Worked in a pinch, rather than leaving my misrepresentation up on the site for a day.

MBF and WinFS: a False Dichotomy?

Tim Brookins writes more about MBF and WinFS. This pleases me because I want to like MBF and WinFS. But it concerns me because I'm uncomfortable with the direction they're taking. I should say I like the high-level intent to support building domain-driven designs and flexible databases. But...

Wouldn't it be fantastic to finally let users see their Customers and Orders in the shell?

I think these days they want to see them easily from any device, any location. That would mean the Internet browser rather than the Windows shell. Why the shell? That's outdated. I don't even want to see the shell, period.

ISVs really need one combined platform which merges the best of the WinFS and MBF data persistence stories.

Most ISVs are building world-wide web applications these days, aren't they? They need a simple user interface and a flexible database. In tomorrow's mobile world, a flexible database will not have a single location...

While WinFS synchronization is great for keeping your pictures synced across machines, it really isn't going to be viable to build a multi-user business application. So you need the server-side N-Tier capabilities that MBF provides.

This seems to be a false dichotomy. I've seen too many domain-driven systems become prematurely obsolete from built-in dependencies on specific underlying mechanisms. We need objects that can live a dozen years or more. This is demonstrably *not* the way to do so.

MBF should be an arms distance from WinFS, Indigo, Avalon, SQL Server, etc. I've already stated WinFS should be a more flexible database rather than an elaborate file system.

Nukes

Ted Leung points to a rosy article in Wired about pebble-bed nuclear reactors as a "safe" way out of the energy crisis.

Even if this approach is safer, is it safe?

The article does not address a couple of, well, problems:

• Security ("dirty" bombs, anyone?)
• Waste Management.

Oh, the article *does* address waste management...

And with the fuel sealed inside layers of graphite and impermeable silicon carbide - designed to last 1 million years - there's no steaming pool for spent fuel rods. Depleted balls can go straight into lead-lined steel bins in the basement.

Looking around at our world's politics, not to mention science, I have to sigh just a little at the phrase "designed to last 1 million years". We have no true concept of this.

Python and Code Blocks

Hans Nowak is wondering about code blocks in Python. While Python's anonymous (lambda) functions are fairly awkward, Python does do a kind of "Currying" over self. The following code shows the simpler mechanism Hans is looking for...

Jython 2.1 on java1.4.1_01 (JIT: null)
Type "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> class FooBar:
...   def foo(self):
...     print self
...     print "OK?"
...
>>> fb = FooBar()
>>> fb.foo()
__main__.FooBar instance at 17493979
OK?
>>> fb2 = FooBar()
>>> fb2
__main__.FooBar instance at 24940415
>>> fb2.foo()
__main__.FooBar instance at 24940415
OK?
>> fb2.foo()
__main__.FooBar instance at 24940415
OK?
>>> fb.foo
method FooBar.foo of FooBar instance at 17493979
>>> fb2.foo
method FooBar.foo of FooBar instance at 24940415
>>>