The Cafes

The call for papers for Software Development 2008 West is now live. What follows are abstracts for some talks that I am not giving, but that I very much hope someone else will present. If anyone feels like submitting one of these under their own name, I’ll champion it when the advisory board goes over the submissions.

Intro to Ruby

Ruby is the fastest growing programming language of the new millennium. Through interactive exercises, this full day, hands on tutorial will bring programmers from zero to sixty with the language including:

• Control structures
• Strings and Regular Expressions
• Formatted Output
• Arrays and Hashes
• Math
• Objects and classes
• Closures
• Files
• Network Programming

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I’ve recently been asked by several people to summarize the state of native XML databases for those interested in exploring this space. IMHO, native XML databases are now roughly where relational databases were circa 1994: solid, proven technology that gets the job done but only if you pay big bucks to do it. However, there’s some promising open source activity on the horizon. To be brief, there are roughly four (maybe five) choices to consider:

• Mark Logic
• eXist
• DB2 9
• Berkeley DB XML

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I now know what the specs for the next, ultra-portable MacBook are going to be. Look for:

• 32GB solid state drive
• Intel Core 2 Duo Ultra Low Voltage chip running at 1.2GHz
• 1-2 GB RAM
• 802.11a, b and g wireless; built-in Ethernet
• Carbon fiber case
• 276 x 199 x 29mm
• 1.15 kg
• 11.1 inch screen 1,366 x 768 pixels
• Integrated webcam
• Integrated Dual-layer DVD writer
• USB 2 and Firewire
• 6 hour battery life
• Price (the number I’m least certain of) $2995

No, I don’t have any inside information. These are actually the specs for the new Sony Vaio VGN-TZ12VN (except for the price). Sony’s the only manufacturer that really competes with Apple in the “cool laptop” space; and Apple is not going to let them win.
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Perhaps the continuing confusion over the difference between checked and runtime exceptions in Java is because we haven’t named them properly. Mosts texts and teachers, including myself, have traditionally focused on how and when you handle the exceptions (compile time or runtime) rather than on what causes each. I propose a modification, not in code, but in terminology and teaching. Specifically I think we should should start calling checked exceptions “external exceptions” and runtime exceptions “internal exceptions”.
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I am pleased see that the just released QuickTime 7.2 enables full-screen playback for all users, not just those who’ve paid extra for QuickTime Pro.

As some of you may remember, I started the Amateur Project mostly because I was pissed off that Apple wanted to charge me again to play movies in full screen mode, even though I’d already paid for QuickTime Pro once. Amateur is written in Java on top of Swing and QuickTime for Java.

Amateur became capable of playing movies in fullscreen mode fairly quickly, and it even has a few useful features Apple’s own player does not. I’ve used it for most of my media playback needs ever since. It never achieved full parity with QuickTime Pro in other features though because:

A. Apple has more or less abandoned QuickTime for Java, and many new features of QuickTime 7 and even 6 simply aren’t available from Java.

B. I’ve had limited time to work on it for the last year or so.

C. Nobody else competent ever stepped forward to contribute. A couple of dozen people did fill out a generic java.net form requesting developer privileges without contacting me first, or giving me any indication of who they were or what they wanted to do. All I got was an opaque username and a request for commit privileges. Sorry that’s not enough. I did not get a single patch or even a usable bug report from anyone.
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