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I’ve had an on-and-off relationship with Linux for the past 10 years. It all started with RedHat 5.2, which I got on a CD that came with a book (because it would have taken 3 days to download on the old 56k modem, and I thought the book was a good way to start). Now, just to clarify, I was thirteen at the time.
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Every good programmer probably has to write about their opinion on this subject once in their lifetime, so here’s my take

As part of my consulting gig I work on “Enterprise Java” code. I just had to write this line after receiving two separate exceptions on the matter (types obfuscated to protect the guilty (and they are oh so guilty… I won’t get into that)):

String somenumber = (String) ((TypeAttribute) TypeCache.getTypeFromCache("Thingie") .getAttribute("someNumber")).getValue((Thingie) object);

You’re a freaking computer! Figure it out for me!

Also, xkcd, as always, says it the best.

It’s revealing to be a Java programmer every 2 weeks, and a Ruby and Flex developer the next 2 weeks, with PHP and JavaScript by night. I understand everything about why static typing is good and proper, but today, when computers (and compilers especially) are powerful and intelligent, I think the computer should do what a computer is great for, namely figuring out extremely complex yet orderly relationships between types of things, leaving the programmer to focus on much more important stuff.

When I’m coding in Java, it takes me 50 lines of rudimentary logic and typecasting muck in a new inline comparator class to do something as simple as sorting custom objects.

In Ruby it’s a one-liner. I don’t care how much less efficient that is for the computer (and it’s not), that is worth its weight in gold in programmer time and code elegance.

I enjoy dynamically typed languages, and any good programmer knows that it’s programmers having fun that makes good software, not programmers spending 50% of their time dealing with code that gets in their way. What kills me most is that computers are really good at automatically doing the stuff that’s not fun–that is in fact what they’re designed to do–and there are people who have fun making that stuff fast, so why don’t we just let them?

Most artists or bands today barely manage three or four good songs on an album, so it’s quite a feat when a musician puts out a full EP of six songs that are each as good as the next and impossible to stop listening to. Especially when that musician is someone who has a degree in composition and orchestration, and lists Chopin as one of her influences.

I haven’t had a favorite album in a few months, but I like this one a lot. If you’re into good music you should definitely give Brooke Waggoner a listen. The EP “Fresh Pair of Eyes” is 100% free as a download from her web site right now, so you have no excuse not to. Her style is sort of piano folk/singer-songwriter with classical influences and an incredible skill and sense of music and sonority. She can go from some slow quiet notes and speed up and build to an expansive full-orchestra climax in the span of a single song, and her lyrics are intelligent and interesting to match. The music feels extremely natural and easy to listen to and matches so well with what she’s trying to convey, like she was somehow able to pull the emotions out of her heart and place them straight into your ears.

Give it a listen at her myspace page or go to her site to grab the totally free download.

Ever gone in a public restroom and seen one of those new-fangled sensor-activated automatic devices? They range from toilet flushing to soap dispensing and everything in-between these days, but some of them make more sense than others. Here’s my analysis.

1. Automatic Sinks - Marginal Usefulness. People touch the sink fixtures before and after hand washing. Before doesn’t matter, because you wash your hands just after turning on the sink, but generally having to turn off the water means there’s risk of post-washing contamination. There are ways to turn off most normal sinks after hands-washing by means of arms, elbows, or feet, so this isn’t a complete necessity, but is still very useful. Also, these save water by only being on when used. Kudos.
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To all Zenphoto users - Zenphoto has a new release out yet again, 1.1.3! This version has much improved setup, which now does a systems check and lets you know if anything needs to be fixed before installation. It’s much easier and more intuitive than before, so it should help anyone get started easily. There are many other improvements and bugfixes as well, but instead of talking about them here, I’m going to direct you to the release entry on the new Zenphoto.org web site!

That’s right, Zenphoto.org has a new design and new useful features, like a blog, theme browser, and showcase gallery that shows off some great Zenphoto installations from around the web. The new site was designed and developed by Malte (acrylian) and Mark (aitf311) and looks excellent! Make sure to go check it out.

Since Zenphoto has a new blog, the release announcements will now be made there instead of here. I’ll keep making entries here for each release right now, but please switch your RSS feeds to the new one, located here: http://www.zenphoto.org/category/release/feed/. It should be the main source for Zenphoto information from now on. The main blog can also be found at http://www.zenphoto.org/category/News/.

Congratulations yet again to the Zenphoto team for the new site and another great release. We hope you enjoy it. Happy holidays!

Following last week’s highly successful and well-reviewed 1.1 release, we’re already keeping up with the bug fixes and improvements.

1.1.2 is a small release that fixes all the reported bugs from 1.1 so far, including some bad installation problems with 1.1.1. It also adds a few useful features. You can read more about it and download it on Zenphoto’s home page, as usual.

Go to Zenphoto.org to download or read more.

Update: 1.1.2 released on 11/8/2007 to fix the installation bugs. If you tried 1.1.1 and it didn’t work, try again with 1.1.2, it should be fine.

I am happy to announce, on behalf of the Zenphoto development team, the release of Zenphoto 1.1!

Go get zenphoto 1.1 now!

First, I’d like to give a warning to upgraders — you’ll need to move your zp-config.php file from the /zen/ folder to the new /zp-core/ folder. We just renamed it, but I know that’s going to be confusing, so I’m reiterating it everywhere I can. After the upgrade you should delete the /zen/ folder.

Ok, now that’s done, here’s what’s new in this release:

• Sub-Albums - fully supported in the Admin and all themes.
• Tags - enter tags in a text field on albums or images, and then you can…
• Search! Searches within tags, album titles/descriptions, image titles/descriptions, and other text fields.
• RSS Feeds for the gallery and albums.
• EXIF/IPTC reading and display - IPTC Titles and descriptions are loaded when images are loaded, EXIF is displayed in a nice table.
• Video support (.flv, etc.) by Zenvideo
• Preliminary Plugin support
• Sp@m filtering for comments
• Geospatial visualization - maps photos by geocoded metadata onto a Google map.
• Image archives by date
• Even more, lots more.

Wow. That’s a lot of new features. And what’s even more incredible is that I cannot take responsibility for any of them. I helped out here and there, but mostly did nothing, as I still don’t have the time to dedicate. The release was made possible by many people, but I want to thank Stephen B. (sbillard), Mark (aitf311), and Malte (acrylian) in particular because they did by far the most work for 1.1.

I know I am never satisfied with anything; I feel like a bad parent to this project sometimes, when at some point I simply should let go and let the new team have their own spotlight. This is that moment. They deserve all the credit and more for the great things in Zenphoto 1.1, while I take full blame for the delay in getting it to you all. There are still some known issues, but none of them are important enough to hold up a release. I apologize for that, and I hope I can do better in the future.

This is truly a great achievement, and I am truly impressed with how it has come together. Look forward to more releases in the future with less time in-between, and for now, enjoy your photographs as displayed by Zenphoto. Thank you.

[Note: due to a bug in Wordpress (which is fixed in 2.3.1 which I just upgraded to) this post couldn't be in the zenphoto category and the 'Release Announcements' category at the same time. Sorry if those of you subscribed to the 'zenphoto' feed didn't hear about it until now!]

November 2nd, 2007.

Sorry folks, needed more testing and a few bugfixes first. Out soon!