via HtP - Standards board approves Microsoft's C#, CLI

Gartner's Smith said C# and CLI do little to create an open way of developing Web services for platforms other than .Net, because they only represent a portion of the necessary technology. "It appears on the surface that this means there is a way to create some sort of cross-platform .Net." he said. "But [standardization] does nothing to address the issues around cross-platform development."

By coincidence, I was talking about C# and CLI at my [52.223] Low level programming (LLP) lecture earlier today.

As per usual SiT has some great links and commentary about, surprise surprise - Instructional Technology. For instance: Serious Instructional Technology (SiT): Integration and organization

I see a good web CMS that mixes elements of weblogs, e-mail, teaching, and more formal web pages as critical to solving this kind of problem. Units need the ability to work out in the open, actively narrating what they are doing and thinking about. This doesn't just include the "business" side of a college, but also the teaching side, where faculty's insights and techniques can stay too easily hidden. Re-organization and power-grabs won't solve the problem. I'm suggesting that we replicate the evolutionary knowledge anarchy of the web, but within a single environment that is easy to use and makes both sharing and discussion the default behaviors.

Well said David!

One of my colleagues - Prof Paddy Nixon - just e-mailed the department:

"To put me in the mood for a beer this evening (5pm in the Printworks - prob' sitting at the back at the big tables) I marked 263 assessments this afternoon.

It took 15 minutes to mark them and email them out to the students.

The serious point to this is, after an investment of about 1 person year of programming and content work I managed to get an automated systems to run labs assessments for computer systems. I am sincerely astounded at how well it worked and how much easier it has made the management of this course."

At the moment I'm using the old-fashioned way of marking. Taking about 263 minutes per 15 assignments ;-) I must automate. I must automate. I must automate...!!

XBoxHacker

"Disclaimer: Anything Done to your Xbox is Done at your own Risk!"

Cool! - errorwear: embrace your computer problems

T-shirts that fuse geek culture with high fashion.

How To Write Unmaintainable Code

"This essay is a joke! I apologise if anyone took this literally. Canadians think it gauche to label jokes with a :-). People paid no attention when I harped about how to write __maintainable code. I found people were more receptive hearing all the goofy things people often do to muck it up. Checking for unmaintainable design patterns is a rapid way to defend against malicious or inadvertent sloppiness."

Javalobby - Special Report: My Trip To Microsoft - by Rick Ross

For those of you that don't receive the JavaLobby weekly newsletter, here's a copy of this week's issue. It is my report on my recent trip to Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, where I and several other Java folks received an intensive briefing on .Net.

This was complicated to write, and I hope people will read and consider it with the same care I tried to use while writing. We'll all be facing choices that involve .Net soon enough, and my recommendation is that we cultivate informed awareness of .Net within the Java community rather than blind rejection. We could always act like ostriches with our heads in the sand, but that will not make this major push from Microsoft go away. Much better to know some details about what it is...

Thanks for the link Stephen. To answer your question: no!, I don't think you'll ever see a "Smeed at Microsoft" report unless I get round to writing about the time I flew to Redmond in the early 80s to pick up the master disk for Dragon BASIC in person or the time I was there at a developer conference where they launched (the preview of) of Windows. I met Bill G that trip and my abiding recollection of him is the way he put down any contrary view to his own with the words "yes, so what?". A very effective strategy as I recall ;-)

Looks like Re: C text from a comp.edu posting of 1991-04-08 14:49:25 PST is the oldest Usenet posting of mine I've found so far.

I bet you there are literally thousands of people right now searching for their first message to relive the moment they lost their Usenet virginity. Ah! Heady days ;-)

O'Reilly Network: An Introduction to AppleScript on Mac OS X [Dec. 11, 2001]

"AppleScript has been one of the most overlooked, cool technologies lurking in the Mac OS since 7.1, but it's usually hidden in your Apple Extras folder waiting to be discovered. Now with Mac OS X, it has a new home in the Applications folder, indicating that Apple no longer considers it just an extra. AppleScript has a bright future, and there's no better time than now to take advantage of this amazing technology."

Via Brent's great Mac scripting weblog - http://mac.scripting.com Thanks Brent, I often use your links here in DJ!

Compiling Applications on Mac OS X - Compiling Problems and Solutions.

Extreme Programming: A Gentle Introduction

XProgramming.com - an Extreme Programming Resource

JUnit, Testing Resources for Extreme Programming