- Python’s Moratorium — Python language designers have declared a moratorium on enhancement proposals (feature requests) while the world’s Python programmers get used to the last batch of New And Shiny they shipped. I’m reasonably sure that the ALGOL designers went through exactly the same discussions, and I know Perl did too. So, don’t be afraid of it – don’t think that Python is evolutionarily dead – it’s not. We’re taking a stability and adoption break, a breather. We’re doing this to help users and developers, not to just be able to say “no” to every random idea sent to python-ideas, and not because we’re done. Reminds me of Perl god Jarkko Hietaniemi’s signature file: “There is this special biologist word we use for ‘stable’. It is ‘dead’. — Jack Cohen.
- This Week’s Finds in Mathematical Physics — I can’t meaningfully contribute to the math, but golly them pictures are purty! (via Hacker News)
- x86 Assembly Encounter — To use a construction industry metaphor, an average x86 assembler has the complexity and usefulness of a hammer, while the DSP world is using high-speed mag-rail blast-o-matic nail guns with automatic feeders and superconducting magnets. […] I find it ridiculous that the most popular computing platform in the world does not have a decent assembler. What’s even worse, from the discussions I’ve seen on the net, people are mostly interested in how fast the assembler is (?!) rather than how much time it saves the programmer. (via Hacker News)
- Finding Tennis Courts in Aerial Photos — more hacking with computer vision techniques and publicly-available data. This is going to lead to good things (and some unpleasant surprises, as that which was formerly “too hard to find” ceases to be so). (via Simon Willison)
"tools" entries
Dennis Ritchie's legacy of elegantly useful tools
We need more people who share Dennis Ritchie's spirit.
"UNIX is basically a simple operating system, but you have to be a genius to understand the simplicity," Dennis Ritchie once said. It's true, and we need more geniuses who share his spirit.
From crowdsourcing to crime-sourcing: The rise of distributed criminality
How criminals are applying crowdsourcing techniques.
Crowdsourcing began as a way to tap the wisdom of crowds for the betterment of business and science. Crime groups have now repurposed the same tools and techniques for their own variation: "crime-sourcing."
Search Notes: Why Google's Social Analytics tools matter
Can we finally track social? Also: New Google UI elements and a look at Plus response
In the latest Search Notes: Google Plus got all the publicity, but Google's Social Analytics tools and new interface elements are also notable.
Free to Choose ebook deal reveals the programmer zeitgeist
A list from O'Reilly's Free to Choose Cyber-Monday promotion offers a fascinating view of what's on the minds of the core audience.
Four short links: 8 December 2009
Python Moratorium, Math Pictures, Assemblers Needed, Tennis Vision
New on O'Reilly Labs: Open Feedback Publishing System
O'Reilly engineer Keith Fahlgren has formally launched our new Open Feedback Publishing System over on O'Reilly Labs: Over the last few years, traditional publishing has been moving closer to the web and learning a lot of lessons from blogs and wikis, in particular. Today we're happy to announce another small step in that direction: our first manuscript (Programming Scala) is…
Authoring Tools from Alpha Geeks
Cory Doctorow (@doctorow) has posted a nice article covering some of the tools he's built or borrowed to make his writing life more manageable. I'm especially intrigued by the Flashbake project, which augments simple use of version control (something many of our authors have been using for years, and which we use extensively in our production toolchain) to automatically capture…
What Publishers Need to Learn from Software Developers
There was a great exchange on the O'Reilly editors' backchannel the other day, so illuminating that I thought I should share it with the rest of you. We've been discussing the fast-track development we're using to produce The Twitter Book. (We're basically authoring the book as a presentation, after I realized how much more quickly I am able to put…
StartWithXML Research Report Now Available for Sale
If you weren't able to attend the StartWithXML Forum last month in New York, the accompanying research report is available for sale. The report covers topics like: Where am I and where do I want to end up? How much benefit do I want to obtain from content reuse and repurposing? How much work do I want to do myself?…
Webcast Video: Essential Tools of an XML Workflow
Below you'll find the full recording from the TOC webcast, "Essential Tools of an XML Workflow," with Laura Dawson….