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Showing posts from October, 2008

A programmer's view of the Universe, part 1: The fish

I write a column for computer programmers called "Stevey's Blog Rants." It's basically a magazine column — I publish to it about once a month. The average length of my articles is about 12 pages, although they can range anywhere from 4 to 40 pages, depending on how I'm feeling. But for precedent, don't think blogs: think of Reader's Digest. The blog format sets the wrong expectations. Hence, some people complain that my articles are too long. Others complain that I have not given my arguments sufficient exposition, and that my articles are in fact too short on detail to warrant any credibility. This is a lose-lose situation for me, but I keep at it nonetheless because I enjoy writing. Even if nobody were to read my blog, the act of writing things down helps me think more clearly, and it's engaging in the same way that solving a Sudoku puzzle is engaging. You should try it yourself. All it takes is a little practice. My blog topics vary widely,

The Universal Design Pattern

  This idea that there is generality in the specific is of far-reaching importance. — Douglas Hofstadter, G�del, Escher, Bach Note: Today's entry is a technical article: it isn't funny. At least not intentionally. Update, Oct 20th 2008: I've added an Updates section, where I'll try to track significant responses, at least for a week or so. There are three entries so far. Contents Introduction Three Great Schools of Software Modeling Class Modeling Relational Modeling XML Modeling Other schools Finding the sweet spot Property Modeling Brains and Thoughts Who uses the Properties Pattern? Eclipse JavaScript Pushing it even further The pattern takes shape... Wyvern Lisp XML revisited Bigtable Properties Pattern high-level overview R