Disqus - Latest Comments for justindz

Re: D$Web

justindz — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 08:32:30 -0000

One of the main issues with gems (and with all gems-like things that I have experienced--I realize you're using this as an archetype) is the dependency on the version of what you include. So, you have to re-write to adapt to the gem over time or freeze it, which has a whole other host of problems.

A tool which would be able to report out (visually or not, I don't care) all segments of your code which reference the capabilities from an included gem would help with this. If frozen, you'd know what you need to touch if you decide to un-freeze. If un-frozen and upgrading, you'd know where you need to pro-actively improve things. Unit tests help here, but they just let you know where you need to make a change downstream and it would be nice to be aware up front, I think.

Something gem-like with a level of intelligence about it's applicability to your code and with more sophisticated tools for version management and impact assessment might be the next step. Though probably far from the end game.

And re: documentation, heavily used gems are great but niche stuff like MARC libraries in my experience can still have poorly-named methods, insufficient or mis-leading documentation or documentation that refers to three versions prior.

Re: Email. [Insert Swearing Here].

justindz — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 21:40:31 -0000

One of its biggest flaws is simply that of not working a lot.

Re: Email. [Insert Swearing Here].

cathodion — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:05:54 -0000

Yeah, I agree that we agree. I just need to stop getting annoyed about
words (I'm looking at you, Worcestershire!).

Re: Email. [Insert Swearing Here].

justindz — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:59:36 -0000

RESTful is annoying, but people understand what it means when you say
it. By people, here, I mean people who are familiar with
representation state transfer concepts. And, I think we're saying the
same thing. There would be an address for a conversation which could
be used as a reference for both human and machine reading of the
content.

Re: Email. [Insert Swearing Here].

cathodion — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:55:04 -0000

Here's some related wonkiness. I reply to your blog post using disqus, which then generates an e-mail, which I receive a notification about through my IM client. I know it's a response to the disqus post, but I need to go to my inbox to discharge the IM notification, click the link to go back to the blog post, and then archive the e-mail so it won't clutter my inbox.

Re: Email. [Insert Swearing Here].

cathodion — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:50:45 -0000

(I really hate that word, RESTful)

I really meant being able to visit it like a web page, using a web browser, but I suppose an API would be useful too.

Re: Email. [Insert Swearing Here].

justindz — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:47:05 -0000

I think the idea here, in a nutshell, is to start from a framework of
electronic communications that are universally threaded,
collaborative, searchable and indexed across history (so you can
revisit how the conversation evolved). It would make the distinction
between chat and email less important. Messages would be real-time
and all would have the same basic level of permanence. You could also
conclude a discussion by editing out all the noise and providing a
final summation, such that anyone revisiting the conversation would
see the summation and only if they were curious for some reason would
they roll back the timeline to see how it got there.

Regarding your thoughts on URLs, etc., I suppose that's just a general
RESTful API of some sort on top of the data repository, so I would
guess that's doable.

Re: D$Web

justindz — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 13:58:20 -0000

Just wait until you get to the boss.

Re: D$Web

justindz — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 08:12:46 -0000

A similar problem can occur in poetry where the rhythm changes subtly, makes a line sound dead, and that drags down the whole poem. Even if no one is counting beats or even writing something formal like a sonnet.

So, I agree. Technical excellence is not in itself interesting, but it's necessary to keep something really interesting from being dragged down, maybe.

Re: 'Deep Space'

justindz — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 19:50:37 -0000

Great opening lines. I think the first stanza is the best.

Re: 'De Isla Mujeres'

mXe — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 21:18:02 -0000

All Web 2.0 apps need unnecessary controls for expressing one's opinion!

Re: 'De Isla Mujeres'

cathodion — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 21:07:55 -0000

I don't use this that much, but probably not.

Re: 'De Isla Mujeres'

justindz — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:15:58 -0000

Well, thanks.

Should I add a "Like" button?

Re: Anyone Wanna Buy a Representative?

justindz — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:02:09 -0000

I'm told you can get policy tilted in your direction. And it would be hilarious to see some of them dance to hip hop videos.

Re: 'Pancakes'

justindz — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:19:49 -0000

Thanks. It needs a little maintenance here and there, but I'm proud of it and I find it personally useful. That's a win :-)

Novels is an interesting idea. The core idea would be the same, but I think you'd need a different UI optimized for writing much more content. Probably using the "remove distractions" style interface as the primary writing interface and have an entry box the width of the whole browser, or fairly close. Are you a novel writer?

And, glad I can hopefully have helped you on your own project. Point me to it sometime so I can check it out.

Re: 'Synechdoche'

mXe — Fri, 15 May 2009 22:06:10 -0000

Thank you. I see what you mean there, but the phrase beauty isn't meant so much to refer to the pieces or even the flower itself, but rather, to biological functioning. I mean, you crush a flower, it dies. Haha. The loss of beauty was a metaphor for the loss of life, and if I were to just come out and say it, I don't think it would just be the same.

Re: 'Synechdoche'

justindz — Sat, 09 May 2009 10:15:59 -0000

I like this one. Very tangible. One suggestion: instead of using the word "beauty" maybe just talk about the seeds or bits or whatever flowing away directly and let the beauty be in the imagery. Might add some more depth.

Re: 'Emotions and Cries'

justindz — Sat, 09 May 2009 10:08:36 -0000

I know I'm a brat about rhetorical questions, but consider how strong the ending would be if you changed the last line to "It might be you" or something like that.

Re: 'An Excuse to Try'

justindz — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 08:12:18 -0000

That opening line is just money. I'm even willing to be lax about my dislike for rhetorical questions :-P

Re: 'Stop.'

mXe — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 20:40:40 -0000

Good question. Haha. Old poem is old. I actually, after posting this, discovered that I previously posted it. Under pretty much the exact same name. So I just deleted the old one. I think that might be a nice tool to have. If you submit something and it matches something else word for word, barring whitespace, then it might be a wise idea to disallow submitting. Haha.
But in any case, I think I was just having fun.

Re: 'Advisor'

justindz — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 16:07:20 -0000

Nice ending.

On the opening stanza, you have canes plural and pipe singular, so it seems like one dude with two canes and a pipe. Got a little twisted up there. I like this, though.

Re: Programmer University

cathodion — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 12:57:57 -0000

Being able to start with General Studies and gradually zero in on an are like CS might be an advantage of a traditional university.

As CU got farther from the traditional university system, there would be a need to make sure the "kick-ass programmers" were still knowledgeable about CS. Of course, I'm making the assumption that knowledge of CS is a good preparation for a career as a programmer. I'm not actually sure that's true.

Re: '"Apathy," he wrote.'

mXe — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 19:43:35 -0000

Haha. It does answer the question. I will edit it in just a moment. I sort of just included it in there as a reminder that's the sort of focal point.

Re: '"Apathy," he wrote.'

justindz — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 19:07:44 -0000

You know. The title answers the question. I know I'm always telling you to try chopping stuff, but try chopping that last line ;-). I like the flow in the first four lines a lot. Especially three and four.

Re: Personal Cloud Computing

justindz — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 12:20:13 -0000

Have you looked at EUCALYPTUS (I know...) in Ubuntu 9.04 server yet? It's actually supposed to be able to locally mimic the EC2 API. Penny for your thoughts.