Mind Rot

Charles Petzold on Does Visual Studio Rot the Mind?. For some reason I hadn't seen this before (Thanks Kevin for pointing it out). It raises some very important questions about code automation, programming productivity, maintainability, data driven software and the importance of naming things right. It's very interesting as an opinion piece circa-2005 for comparison against where we now are at 3 years later.

/tech/code/C-Sharp | 27 Oct 2008 | #

What unit tests aren't

Andrew Bennetts comments on what a good unit test is not in this post and this followup.

Thanks for that.

/tech/test | 24 Oct 2008 | #

LCA2009 Registartion

Have you registered for linux.conf.au 2009 yet? Get in now while the huge early bird discounts are active!

LCA - conference nirvana.

/tech/linux-australia/lca2009 | 20 Oct 2008 | #

LinuxSA October 2008 - Building an Electric Car

  Hi all,

  Time for the October meeting announcement.

  The usual details:

   When:   6:30pm-8:30pm on Tuesday, 21st October, 2008 
   Where:  Room G05/G06 Gerard Innovation Centre
           Prince Alfred College
           Capper Street, Kent Town SA
   Cost:   FREE
   Who:    Anyone and everyone.
           No pre-registration necessary.

  Presentation:

   David Rowe will be presenting on Building an Electric Car:

     Until recently I had never worked with anything over 5V and 1A or
     welded or held a spanner in anger. Building an Electric Vehicle
     (EV) has changed all that! Over the past 12 months I have taken a
     Daihatsu Charade and converted it to run purely on electricity.

     My Electric Charade is faster than the petrol version, has zero
     greenhouse emissions and costs a few cents a day to commute all
     over Adelaide.  Best of all my fuel is made right here in South
     Australia.  No more 80 million year old fossilised plant liquid
     from the Middle East for me!

     This presentation will talk about how I turned from geek to
     mechanic, how electric cars work, how much it costs, what it is
     like to drive, and even some business ideas based around EV
     conversions.

     David Rowe has 20 years experience in the development of DSP-based
     telephony and sat-com hardware/software.  David has a wide mix of
     skills including software, hardware, and project management
     including a PhD in DSP theory.  He has held executive level
     positions in the sat-com industry (www.dspace.com.au) and has built
     and successfully exited a small business (www.voicetronix.com).
     However he has decided he is better at debugging machines than
     people so currently chooses to hack telephony hardware and software
     full time.

  Getting to the Venue:

   Prince Alfred College faces Dequetteville Terrace, but you need to 
   enter from Capper Street.  Parking is available on-street or maybe
   off-street (adjacent to the Sports Centre).  Look for the two storey
   stone fronted building with sign "Gerard Innovation Centre".  Enter
   through the double doors, first room on the right hand side of
   corridor (ground floor).  The external door automatically locks at
   night. Should it not be propped open please be ready to knock
   loudly.

   There are buses that go along Dequetteville Terrace, with a stop
   adjacent to Capper Street.  The 143, 145, and 146 buses leave from
   North Terrace, and the 141 and 142 buses leave from Currie Street
   and Grenfell street.

   If you are in the city, you could also catch the 99C bus to East
   Terrace, then take a 10-15 minute walk to the College.

  Pizza:

   After the meeting, please join us for pizza at San Georgios (cnr.
   Frome Street and Rundle Street in the city).

  For more information:

   Email:        organisers@linuxsa.org.au
   Web Page:     http://www.linuxsa.org.au/
   Mailing List: linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au
   IRC:          #linuxsa on irc.freenode.net





/tech/LinuxSA | 13 Oct 2008 | # 


Python 2.6 released!

Awsome news!  Python 2.6 has been released! Here's a list of what's new.




/tech/code/Python | 02 Oct 2008 | # 


Back running

Just finished my first 7km run in 3 weeks - everything feels good.  Awesome!




/exercise | 01 Oct 2008 | #