The Cave

Nice chart showing number of characters, scripts and other interesting factoids, from Unicode 1.0 thru 5.0.

What’s new in Unicode 5.0.

BabelMap and BabelPad are pretty if you work with Unicode. BabelMap is essentially Windows’ Character Map (charmap.exe) on steroids. BabelPad is the same turbo-charging for Notepad.

A nice little bump. Now if they can just cut the XML Madness and support some of ActiveRecord’s auto-magic behavior…

‘Java’ (language, libraries, community…) need to fix the mess they’ve created over the past decade: This is a total of a whopping 117 lines of very liberally spaced Python code that defines all three database tables and fully implements every feature of both sample applications. The PHP version of the pizzaService backend […] is 138 [...]

I’m always amazed at those who champion “free markets” as if it were a magic wand that cures all ills. You want “free markets”? Fine. I want child labor. Oh? You have a problem with 10 year olds buying crack cocaine? From other 10 year olds? 14 hour days at wages and conditions that would [...]

The future of the computing industry in the US. Think it through – how do you have an industry if there’s no new apprentices?

I’m still waiting.

Why frameworks suck: Frameworks suck because they are an avatar of enterprise, frameworks suck because they take away your freedom, frameworks suck because they build walls between coders, frameworks suck because they make you fit your project to the toolset rather than the toolset to the project, and frameworks suck because they take the fun [...]

I didn’t know the W3C uses RELAX NG as the source for their schemas. Heh

Some (IMO, sound) advice on the state of XML and related machinery.

More REST v. SOAP, but this one quite good if you’re not really clear on what this ‘REST thing’ really is. Also of import, note the bookmark comment regarding WAS and K-Station…

Huh. Funky. Effective improvement or too smart for its own good?

Mark Baker gets it right I think Jorgen misses part of the point of the team comment for WS-Transfer, when he writes; The W3C Staff comments on WS-Transfer make interesting reading – and really summarize what WS-Transfer is all about: [...] WS-Transfer does not have all the features of HTTP regarding the manipulation of representations, [...]

Seems like a serious loser merely on its technical ‘merits’, which is only reinforced (thankfully!) when people start tossing around terms like WS-Lemon and BS-Transfer. Here’s a great quote I came across: WS-*: The Suckage Continues Sigh.

This article discusses why formal standards are essentially an inferior solution compared to open source. From first hand experience, as well as the XML/REST/SOAP/SAX/DOM/WXS debacle, yes, I prefer a standard that commonizes existing practice than one which ‘invents’. Prior art and real world experience should be a requirement for inclusion into a standard.

Nice to see Tim Bray agrees with me

The SOAP guys have reinvented HTTP?

This Python module detects the encoding of an arbitrary string. Smartly done, and very handy in this day and age.

Large post describing how web UIs and relational DBMS are impediments to the future. Alas, they may be ‘dead ends’, but there’s no clear successor, so we continue to muddle thru.

This solution the the messy world of timezones is obviously tongue in cheek. Sadly, I’ve heard it advocted in earnestness by some in the past.

This post talks about various issues including the flawed premise of ‘Universal Workflow’ instead of more focused (and effective) workflow offerings.

Hmmmm.