Applying for membership of ILT

Yesterday (Wednesday) morning I attended a workshop about preparing an application for membership of the Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education. There's a fast track entry route that closes at the end of July so if I want to apply now's the time to do it.

The March 13 talk organised by the BCS Edinburgh Branch is:

Extreme Programming, XP, is a way of building software, which turns out to be well-suited to the demands of modern business for fast delivery, ever-changing requirements, and no sacrifice of quality. It affects planning, customer relations, design, coding and testing.

In constrast to the rather dour content of most methods of software development, XP has aspects that are rather fun.

This talk explains what XP is, where it came from, why it emerged, and when it works best. The speaker will present his own experience in applying XP to two substantial developments over three years.

On the train to work this morning my train of thought turned to Extreme Learning (XL)

via hbwt - the excellent Bill Bumgarner comments on Mac OS X installers and how to avoid an identity crisis ;-)

It seems very appropriate that Penguin Books have published Rebel Code: Linux and the Open Source Revolution by Glyn Moody.

This book has been my constant companion on my train journeys to/from work since Friday. Friday was the day I received a surprise visit from one of my ex-students - Jamie. Jamie was a project student of mine and he graduated last summer and currently has a job in The City. The visit was even more surprising since Jamie bought me 'Rebel Code' as a thank you present. He told me that he thought I'd enjoy it. That proved to be an understatement!

Rebel Code is a riveting read. Author Glyn Moody has written a fascinating account of the rise of the Open Source Software movement in general, and software like GNU/Linux, Apache, perl, Python, SendMail, Mozilla, etc., in particular.

The link above is to the interview with Glyn Moody. There's also a link to the Prologue and first two chapters of the book.

I learned a lot from the book. As someone who has been on the periphery of OSS it was instructive to read the account of the personalities and products. I've been recommending it to my students as a 'must read'.

One little tidbit of information I learned about Linus Torvalds was that he taught himself low-level/assembler programming on a Sinclair QL. That took me back to the days that I taught low-level programming in M68000 assembler on precisely that type of machine more years ago than I care to remember.

Strangely enough, just in the last couple of weeks I've been extolling the virstues of OSS to my students. I believe that it should form a core part of our undergraduate curriculum. Interestingly, one of the concerns of the OSS advocates reported in Rebel Code is that if OSS becomes so successful that it undermines the software development teams of companies like Sun that, to a certain extent, underwrite some of the larger OSS projects, where will the OSS developers of the future come from? Students have (had) a role to play and this should be strongly encouraged IMHO. Of relevance here is the recent Slashdot discussion linked to from a DJ piece last week: Open Source as Programming Exp. for College Students?

No doubt links to stories like the Washington Post's Microsoft Outlines Next Move in Antitrust Case will proliferate on the web today:

Microsoft Corp. plans to argue in court hearings next week that if antitrust sanctions sought by state prosecutors are granted, the company would be forced to pull its latest Windows computer operating systems off the market and be unable to develop new systems.

In court filings late Friday, the company said the recently released consumer operating system, Windows XP, and the business-oriented Windows 2000 system could not be redesigned to satisfy state demands that they be made available in separate versions, with and without key programs, such as the Internet Explorer Web browser.

I find it hard to believe that Microsoft would have 'accidentally' made their systems so dependent on IE. It has to be a deliberate design decision. So, IE is Microsoft's cyanide pill. What Microsft are saying is that rather than reengineer Windows they'd bite down on the pill. Hah!

Or maybe it's more akin to MAD - Mutually Assured Destruction B-}

The Register also brings us the same news in it's unique style.

BBC - What's On - Programme Information for Ex-S | Rottenrow Maternity Hospital:

A look at the maternity hospital, famous for pioneering ultrasound machines and caesarean sections, which finally closed its doors after 160 years of service.

My office is right next to Rottenrow. The University now owns the building and site. It's due for demolition later this month so this edition of Ex-S is taking a nostalgic view of the old hospital. Fascinating stuff.