Burningbird“Essential Blogging” has hit the streets, available at a bookstore near you. O’Reilly has put my chapter, “Advanced Blogger”, online if you want a peek.
I haven’t received my copies yet. Hopefully soon.
In the meantime, I’m finishing up the writing for the RDF book in the next few weeks. Time to weblog less, work on book more.
Recovered from the Wayback Machine.
I listened to the President’s speech on Iraq last night. I’m not surprised at the familiar refrain of Saddam Hussein being an evil man, nor was I surprised about the tie-in with September 11th.
There was a strongly inconsistent message in the President’s speech that I’m a bit surprised no one seems to have noted. President Bush emphasized the need for Iraq to disarm, but also brought into the message questions about terrorism, treatment of its people, and other factors outside of the original UN security resolution:
And that is why America is challenging all nations to take the resolutions of the U.N. Security Council seriously. Those resolutions are very clear. In addition to declaring and destroying all of its weapons of mass destruction, Iraq must end its support for terrorism. It must cease the persecution of its civilian population. It must stop all illicit trade outside the oil-for-food program. And it must release or account for all Gulf War personnel, including an American pilot, whose fate is still unknown.
The confusion about the focus of our goals was further enhanced by direct attacks on Saddam Hussein:
The dictator of Iraq is a student of Stalin, using murder as a tool of terror and control within his own cabinet, and within his own army, and even within his own family.
What are our goals? Do we want to disarm Iraq? Or do we want to depose Saddam Hussein? The former is within the charter of UN security resolutions, the latter is not. Sending arms inspectors back and allowing them unfettered access will, hopefully, result in disarmament, but won’t remove Hussein from office.
Which does the President want? Disarmament? Or Hussein? There’s a world of difference between these two. A word of difference.
In the meantime, if you want your views known, contact your Congressional representatives. I would also recommend that you contact your local politicians (mayor, governor, and so on). And you might want to consider joining whatever demonstrations are happening in your area that support your viewpoint.
Archived at Wayback Machine, including original comments
If programming languages could speak, really speak, not just crunch bytes and stream bits, they would have much to say that is both wise and profound. After all, the original programmers were philosophers, and programming languages were philosopher tools…
In Babble Meadow, in the twilight hours between day and night, when pesky noseeums float past on the breeze and birds rustle among leaves in preparation for bed, the programming languages would meet. And talk.
The talk would start as it always started, on issues profound and serious, focusing on the existential core that is center to all languages.
Do I exist or not? In this never-ending loop of life, when is the purpose? Where should I go, and what should I do when I get there? What comes after the end?
(It’s not easy being a programming language, in forced contemplation of the existence of Self, day in and day out.)
However, after a time the languages would loosen up. There was something about Babble Meadow — something that worked its way into their hearts and souls, loosened their threads, opened their parameters. The Meadow was magic, no doubt.
Today, though, the group was quiet, much quieter than usual, because one of their members, PHP, was not its usual cheerful self. In fact, one could say that PHP was in a true funk, if one had a mind to say something like that aloud, or within the hearing of one’s boss. Or doctor.
Why the blues, PHP, the other languages asked. All the languages that is but C, because all C ever said was “bite me”, being a rude language and hard to live with, but still respected because it was such a good worker.
And PHP answered:
All I ever do, day in and day out, is work and work and work. The only time I’m noticed is when I break, and then I’m cursed and kicked, and roundly blasted for being useless. However, when things go well, I never get a kind word.
There’s no notice of my ease of use, my elegance, my simplicity. Only my failures.
And on that dark note, PHP fell into a contemplative silence, dark cloud heavy with aggrieved sorrow.
You think you have it bad, said C++. Try being me.
Without me entire industries would fail, banks would close, ships would sink, trains would crash. Why, I virtually run the world.
Yet the only time I’m noticed is when a memory leak is found or an exception occurs, and then I’m cursed, and sworn at, and ruthlessly debugged with nary a thought for my sensibilities.
Each of the languages nodded their heads, because they knew about C++ sensibilities, it being a most sensitive language. In fact, Perl was so moved by C++’s eloquence, it felt compelled to speak, though normally at these gatherings Perl would sit quietly in a corner, consuming pattern after luscious mouth watering pattern.
PHP, C++, I sympathize with you both. My own state is a sorry one at times.
I match and match and match and match, first cryptically and now objectively, but still I match and match and match. And match after flawless match is taken for granted though I’d like to see others match with such style and elegance as myself.
Why, you can’t mention “regular expression” without my name coming up.
But do I get any credit? No.
O it’s Larry Wall this, and Larry Wall that, and Larry Wall, he’s our guy.
But it’s grab the Perl interpreter when a task is close at hand.
As Perl finished, Python and Ruby looked at each and rolled their eyes. For all that talk of matching, you’d think that Perl could at least rhyme.
FORTRAN reached up a withered hand and patted Perl’s shoulder.
There, there, Perl. There, there.
At the very least, though, you must remember that you have a place still in the world. As for myself, I am nothing more than a wisp, a ghost of my former strong and virile self.
There was never a scientific problem I couldn’t handle, or complex equation I couldn’t solve. At one time I was a master of my domain, the king of the processor.
Now, sadly, my glory days are over, and I’m doomed to live my twilight years as Legacy code.
As FORTRAN wheezed to a stop, COBOL was emphatically nodding its head, unable to speak, though, because of the oxygen tube up its nose (for which the other languages were secretly thankful because COBOL did tend to maunder a bit about its glory days).
At that the floodgates of complaints was loosed, and the noise increased and increased and increased, to the point that squirrels came out of their holes, and birds peered over the edges of their nests. Suddenly the quiet glen was quiet no more.
What about me, said Pascal. I’m only used for training. Training! What good is a language that’s only used in school?
What about me, said SNOBOL. No one’s even heard of me!
What about me, said C#. I look like Prince!
Bite me! said C.
LISP would have spoken, but it had caught a glimpse of itself in the pond and fell in when it tried to meet itself coming. And Java was too busy trying to clean a bag out of Babbling Creek.
The noise rose and rose, and the babble increased and increased until across the meadow, from the trees roared a Voice.
Enough!
I tire of your bickering, I weary of your complaints. I grow bored with your list of whims and whines and ‘poor mes’.
I thought this was going to be a party! If I knew it was going to be nothing more than a bitch session, I would have stayed home.
The languages stopped their talking at once. Who was it that called out? They counted heads and arranged themselves alphabetically (C++ having to position Basic, because it never did learn the alphabet), and counted heads again and came up with the same answer from the North, South, East, and West — all the programming languages were accounted for.
As they puzzled and wondered, the bushes at the end parted and XML walked into the light.
XML! Exclaimed C++. What are you doing here? You’re not a programming language.
Tell that to the people who use me, said XML.
I’m considered the savior, the ultimate solution, the final word. Odes are written to me, flowers strewn at my feet, virgins sacrificed at my altar.
Programmers speak my name with awe. Companies insist on using me in all their projects, though they’re not sure why.
And whenever a problem occurs, someone somewhere says, “Let’s use XML”, and miracles occur and my very name has become a talisman against evil.
And yet, all I am is a simple little markup, from humble origins. It’s a burden, being XML.
At that XML sighed, and the other languages, moved by its plight gathered around…
…and tromped that little XML into the dirt. Yes, into the very dirt at their feet. Basic tromped, and C++ tromped, and Java cleaned and tromped and cleaned again, and COBOL tried to throw a kick at XML’s head but fell over on its cane. Even LISP pulled itself out of the pond to throw loopy hands around XML’s throat, but only managed to choke its ownself.
And each language could be heard to mumble as it tromped and tromped and tromped, with complete and utter glee:
Have to parse XML, eh? Have to have an XML API, eh? Have to work with SOAP and XML-RPC and RSS and RDF, eh?
Well parse this, you little markup asshole.
The End.
Recovered from the Wayback Machine.
There are several webloggers I admire not just because of their facility with writing, but also because they stand by what they write. They may debate their words, but they don’t retract them, and rarely regret them.
In particular, I’ve always liked Jonathon Delacour’s tenacity when it comes to his writing. His work doesn’t always follow the popular path (and I don’t always agree with what he writes) but he stands by his writing with humor, elegance, and skill and without becoming belligerant or defensive when it’s questioned or even attacked.
(Does anyone remember You and I both know, Dave, that the breathtaking hypocrisy of “Where Men Can Link, But They Can’t Touch” isn’t going to get “looked at” any time soon, not by the BlogSisters nor by anyone else in the blogging universe?).
When AKMA writes about confidentiality, or Dorothea writes about self perception and ugliness, neither is taking a “popular” view on their subjects, but both are writing from the heart. They stand by their writing.
Loren once used the term “Pullling a Shelley” to denote putting one’s foot in one’s mouth — writing something regreted, which is then either pulled or apologized for. And I agree with Loren, that I have been “pulling a Shelley” far too frequently. However, my use of the term is perhaps not in the sense that Loren intended.
Lately I’ve been writing more and more “from the heart”, but then I don’t have either the strength or the courage to stand by what I write. And if people I like or respect disagree or question what I write, or I don’t get positive feedback and lots of comments, I tend to equivocate, explain, retract, or apologize for my writing.
My last posting is a classic example of “Pulling a Shelley”. By putting myself into an apologetic stance within the comments, by ‘explaining’ what I was trying to write, I didn’t stand by my writing. And what I wrote was lessened because of my wanting to ‘please’ my audience, even though my audience wasn’t asking for either a retraction or an explanation — they wanted a dialogue.
I think if there is one trait I have that can be said to be stereotypically ‘feminine’, it’s fear of alienating people I like, or whom I want to like me. Unfortunately, this fear of losing affection carries over into my writing.
Earlier today, I caught myself in the act of “Pulling a Shelley” in comments attached to one of Jonathon’s postings. In the them, Mark Pilgrim wrote:
“Work that is accessible in every sense of the word” is such an incredible weasel phrase. It’s like a philosophy freshman who is losing a philosophical argument and falls back to the “dictionary definition” of some technical term in order to make their point.
I’m becoming Stallman. I can just see it.
I wrote in response, You’re not in danger of becoming Stallman, Mark. But you are in danger of becoming intolerant in your zeal.
Later in the afternoon, I found myself going back to Jonathon’s comments, wanting to attach, if not an apology, at least a softening of my comment. Yet, there’s no need for such prevarication — my statement wasn’t a personal attack on Mark and wasn’t said to hurt him or antagonize him. It was my honest opinion based on his statement — why do I feel this need to apologize for it?
There’s a difference between writing to antagonize — to generate buzz or to deliberately create controversy — and writing from the heart. If one writes from the heart, no matter how difficult the writing is for our audience, then we have an obligation to ourselves and to our readers to stand by what we write — not in defensiveness, but with openess and honesty.
Time for me to stop “Pulling a Shelley”. Perhaps I’ll try “Pulling a Loren”, instead…
Recovered from the Wayback Machine.
Today, President Bush will address the nation with his rationale for a pre-emptive strike against Iraq. I would say that if the increase in noise of this issue is anything to go by, I expect to see a strike sooner rather than later. And I still don’t understand the frenzy associated with Iraq, and with our having to strike now.
The likely invasion of Iraq is polarizing this country as it hasn’t been since the Vietnam war. And along with the moral, civil, and legal implications of our launching a first strike against Hussein, we can now add an economic impact: in my area at least, several major employers have halted hiring at this time, awaiting ‘further developments’.
For someone who opposes a hasty first strike against Iraq without UN support, careful thought and pre-planning, and a very real consideration of the lives that will be lost, this situation is disturbing. Being unemployed only makes the situation even more frustrating. If that makes me selfish, I guess there are others who are also selfish — or is worried the better word?