For the last couple of months I've been using a program written in one of the fashionably brief languages, Ruby. I've had to read the source on more than one occasion.
On one hand, the source is very brief. It does get a lot done with very few lines of code.
On the other hand, the program hasn't yet given me a single accurate error message. Every single error case (aleph-null and counting) has caused a misleading error message.
Something in me wants to connect the dots.
Those lucky enough to use Visual Studio need not work hard to document their code: Ghostdoc does it all automatically. No mental effort required. (more…)
Oxca makes a range of KVM products, including one to provide console access via TCP/IP. The latter uses a java applet and runs in the browser, and isn't very fine at all. (more…)
People keep saying blah about how IPv4 can go on even if there are no free addresses, they'll just be traded on a free market.
So. I don't think so.
Either, the blocks to be traded will primarily be large (the kind commonly routed today), or primarily be small (the kind commonly handed to end-users). I'll argue each separately. (more…)
Writing about Knuth's literate programming book reminded me about when I met him (at a conference) and asked why the following algorithm wasn't in TAOCP. He grasped the algorithm from a ten-second description, and said it wasn't there because he didn't know about it. Good reason.
My TA at university (when I invented it for an exercise) wasn't aware of it either, but unlike Knuth, my TA didn't understand it. And I hadn't commented the code at all. Sigh.
Here are some words in sorted order: (more…)
read errors
If AnyDVD pops up a big dialog about read errors (suggesting a region-free fimware from rpc1.com, cleaning the DVD, etc), and you're using it inside Virtualbox, then the correct solution is: (more…)
I need to use Puppet, a system to configure linux boxes (add the right users, install and configure the right services, make sure the right things are running and the wrong things not). Puppet seems good, better than cfengine.
So I read the existing configuration, which seemed to make sense but left a lot of open questions, read the the documentation, felt little wiser, and bought a book (Pulling strings with Puppet by James Turnbull) and (more…)