May 31, 2005
Off to Greece
We (Maria and me) are on our way to Karpathos, Greece right now for one week of sea, sun and fun. Anything related to work (including my PowerBook :-) has to stay back at home, which also means that I will not be able to check my email the coming week.
I finally bought myself a digital camera yesterday (a Sony CyberShot DSC-P200), so look out for some nice photos on this place in the coming weeks. No more crappy photos from my mobile phone's built in camera.
Btw, I am writing this from a free internet terminal at the Graz airport while waiting for the flight. Nice customer service!
May 29, 2005
Putting the eXtensible of XML back into SOAP
Finally someone officially acknowledges that the way we've been doing SOAP in Java and .NET for all the years is fundamentally flawed.
Nails, Screws and the Soft in Software
Wise words about enterprise software development (and technology decisions made by the wrong people) by Bill de hÓra.
May 16, 2005
Oh Shiny!
I got a new PowerBook G4 and a 20-inch Cinema Display last week to replace my old PowerBook and my aging seven years old Sony Trinitron 17-inch display. Great stuff!
May 13, 2005
Steve Jobs Buys a Washing Machine
Wired has an excerpt from the upcoming unauthorized and Apple-censored biography of Steve Jobs, describing how Steve's family bought a washing machine and a dryer. Makes me think about how the washing machine Bill Gates would buy must be like...
May 12, 2005
Something to Read
A new essay by Paul Graham titled Hiring is Obsolete stating you should rather start your own company after college/university than looking for work elsewhere.
Also, a new piece by Joel Spolsky on coding styles and hungarian notation (the real one, as intended by Simonyi, not the idiotic and useless one introduced by the Windows team).
New C++ Portable Components Release
On May 9th I released a new version of the C++ Portable Components. The latest release features a new library, Util, that implements frameworks for handling configuration files and command line arguments. Configuration file handling is extensible, which means support for new file formats can be added easily. Support for Java-style property files, Windows-style INI files and XML files is already there. Support for command line options is platform-agnostic, implementing GNU-style options (-o, --option) on POSIX platforms and Windows/OpenVMS-style options (/option) elsewhere. Improvements to the existing libraries have been made as well — have a look at the release notes.
Next on my list is implementing the Net library with support for socket classes and implementations of various protocols (HTTP, FTP, SMTP, ...). Should be ready early to mid-June. Stay tuned!