playsh: Flickr is a Glidr




Flickr is a Glidr

Originally uploaded by ptufts.

Coders Matt Webb and Ben Cerveny are digital age heroes, making a highly interesting thing with playsh, **the playful shell**.

Matt [talks about it in his blog](http://interconnected.org/home/2006/03/15/playsh).

Tech keywords: the Python programming language, the Twisted framework, fragments of Zope framework, parts of MOO game software LamdaMOO, SSH as lifestyle.

Culture keywords: Marshall Berman’s “All that is solid melts into air”, Infocom’s text adventures, social patterns.

I am psyched, stoked, enthusiastic. Emailed mr Webb asking for a mailing list or the like. This project cries out “Dance with me! I’m available!”

Joel Spolsky is not impressed by coding conventions

Joel Spolsky is not impressed by coding conventions. He says something like “When I was program manager on the Excel team…” in a [podcast](http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail207.html) at [IT Conversations](http://www.itconversations.com).

Here is a clip where mentions the coding conventions. The clip was made with ITC’s fine PHP tool to “Create a Clip or Excerpt”. Makes me involved.

RubyGems: gem_server

So, you are using some modules for Ruby, in the shape of [gems](http://rubyforge.org/projects/rubygems/) (read [the book](http://docs.rubygems.org/)!). You need to read the gem’s docs. Instead of Googling, fire up a local pure-Ruby webserver ([Webrick](http://www.webrick.org/)), on a custom port, and view the beautiful RDoc pages there, in their web-native shape! Invoke the thing like this:

gem_server

Then go visit [http://localhost:8808/](http://localhost:8808/). (Corrected the link, thanks Matthew!)

(I wrote this here since Googling the term gem_server turned up nothing the un-informed could use at once. Or, you could have [read about this a year ago](http://laughingmeme.org/articles/2005/04/01/some-rails-tips-especially-for-os-x-hackers) at Laughing Meme. The top results were all bug reports and such.)

Read a book (Beyond Java, by that kayaker)

This weekend I had some wonderful spare time, and I spent some of it reading [Beyond Java](http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/beyondjava/), a book about the Next Language. (Spoiler: It is [Ruby](http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/), or some cool continuations-based project – read: [Seaside](http://seaside.st/) with Smalltalk. But you knew that.) The book is chock-full of kayaking metaphors, which got so irritating they became funny.

Java’s rise to power, that was the best story in the book, for me. A history of how Java captured a whole segment of disgruntled C++ programmers, and kept them. And, how Microsoft uses a the copycat C# to capture the Java-folks to their platform. The author says the problems that Java developers have in their environment are just the same shape and size if the move to .NET. He wants a dynamic language for his next tool.

([Sam Ruby tells it best](http://www.intertwingly.net/blog/2005/11/01/Beyond-Java), so read his commentary on how the languages fare in Tate’s book.)

What I’d like to tell you about is my experience in the bookshop, [Gad, at Nørreport](http://www.gad.dk/om/her/gadkbh.asp) (address and opening hours at the link). I complimented the clerk on their well-stockedness, especially on the fact that I was able to waltz in and buy a book I had heard buzz about. I added that I am one of those customers who buy computer books on a whim. The clerk then got a genuine smile on her face. My fiancée gave me a compliment, a thumbs-up, a well-done gesture. (All my make-the-world-a-better-place I have learnt from others. And my fiancée’s taught me a lot these last years. Thanks!)

Copenhageners, where do you buy these kinds of books on an impulse?

PS: When I registered the book at O’Reilly’s website, I was granted the possibility to copy and paste as many kayaking metaphors as I wanted, via their e-book thing, [Safari Bookshelf](http://safari.oreilly.com/). I might never exercise that right.

Javascript ate my hamster: Go get Yahoo Event Utility and Firebug

Dustin Diaz tells about Yahoo Event Utility which is the addEvent killer of all time. If you do serious Javascripting these days, please, do yourself a favour, and read that piece. Slowly. You might find drool on your chin afterwards. Then, go get the Event Utility. You owe to yourself. You deserve it.

And, be sure to get Firebug, while you are at it. It is Firefox-only debugging nirvana. Just exhale, and see the internals of your web apps. (And others’ web apps, as well.)

The times they are a’changing. I love today’s stuff. Be safe out there. Me: back to the cave.

Mongrel: funky server

The [Mongrel](http://rubyforge.org/projects/mongrel/) web server project, in Ruby, by Zed Shaw, is taking shape. With some help from Luis Lavena, Zed’s making his lovely Mongrel run on win32, as a Windows service. The last mail I read at the mongrel-users mailing list had Zed oohing and aahing over the Ruby win32 library:

Otherwise it’s incredibly cool. It’s sad to say that Mongrel will soon have better win32 support than Unix.

Why [writes on Mongrel](http://redhanded.hobix.com/inspect/mongrelSGoingToKillWebrickGiveItAMonth.html), about an earlier release.

Bonus link: The [win32 category](http://raa.ruby-lang.org/cat.rhtml?category_major=Library;category_minor=Win32) at [RAA](http://raa.ruby-lang.org/), the Ruby Application Archive. And the [win32-service](http://raa.ruby-lang.org/project/win32-service/) package, which lets you control Windows services, too.

How to get a dentist in Sweden

Update 2012: I now go to Slottsstadens tandläkargrupp. An elegant gentleman called Semi fixes my teeth. (The rest of this blog post concerns my choices in 2006. Cheers.)

In Denmark, dentistry is prohibitively expensive. People go to Sweden to fix their teeth. First, you need a good one to go to. Here is the guy I got warmly recommended: Mikael, at Citytandläkarna. They do not have a website, but they offer prices at roughly half of the estimate I got in Copenhagen. (Also, I compare with a cheap estimate from a recommended Copenhagen dentist, so this is as low as Copenhagen dentists go.)

Take Bus 999, switch to local bus 35 at Södervärn station in Malmö. Get off at RosengÃ¥rd. Ascend stairs to the “stores level”. Pass City-grossen’s house, pass FolktandvÃ¥rden, and when you see Försäkringskassan you’re almost there: facing it is Citytandläkarna, your destination. Here is a map.

Reach them at their email address: intersale at spray.se. Or, just call them up +46 40 21 27 10.

When I called, this morning, to get an appointment, I got to talk to Mikael, the guy who will fix my teeth, directly. Small business, good service.

Denmark is Dead: Great programmer booted out of the country

My neighbour Sean Treadway today posted a sad post – he is getting kicked out of the country:

> So that’s all folks Denmark has evaluated that my contribution to the
country through my freelance work is not of significant value.

This is patently horrible. On so many levels. Sean’s one of the really great minds I have met here in Denmark. He’s contributed greatly to the local and global Open Source community, and to the local freelancer environment.

If not even this guy can start a business in Denmark, then who can? Oh, right, me: and the only thing I have got going for me is that I’m an EU citizen.

These are the ill effects of an immigration policy dictated by backwater opportunists of the bleakest kind. This is what the government’s association with Dansk Folkeparti means in practice.

It’s good to know that the Berlin-based effort [Plazes](http://www.plazes.com) will have one razor-sharp mind more to refine their geo-tagging application. I have an informed hunch that Sean will like Berlin, but that’s cold comfort when I have to keep living in a country run like this.