Patrick Cooney's Weblog

Kill Bill	2003-10-27
I saw Kill Bill Vol. 1 on the weekend. It was ok. All the violence made me feel uncomfortable, but the manga bit was cool. I think I will stick with cartoons from now on.
Llama headline charmer	2003-10-23
From the metro this AM: "Day of drama as llamas harm farmer." Clearly some rogue sub-editor / intern problems. My all time favourite is still "Horses stampede, random deaths, mar balloon fest", but this is a close second. UPDATED: Have I Got News For You featured this on Friday night. It was certainly the standout headline of the week.
The Dirt, Next	2003-10-20
I got through a couple of interesting books on the weekend. Michael Lewis' Next: The Future Just Happened is an interesting take on the internet, looking at the loss of control of information by big business / government. It has some really interesting stuff about Jonathan Lebed, who was fined by the SEC for ramping stocks. I also read The Dirt, the autobiography of Motley Crue. I had read somewhere that this book was debauched, but I was amazed by just how bad it was in places. A lot of stories from the book seemed to be lifted directly from Spinal Tap.
The MicrosoftMonoLinux Conspiracy	2003-10-14
While I wouldn't rule anything out, I think this is some paranoid and fairly thin Microsoft bashing. As far as I can tell, the SSCLI and ECMA specs are a genuine attempt at transparency. Microsoft is betting on having the best CLR implementation, the best FCL and the best stuff on top (for the enterprise, Jupiter et al, and for the desktop, Office). This may or may not eventuate, but I doubt msft want to pull the rug from under mono to force migration from Linux.
Exceptions	2003-10-14
Joel on software has a post on exceptions - the general theme is "don't like 'em; don't use em;." In my experience, exceptions and exception handling is one of the most poorly-taught and understood aspects of software. And I think they are very valuable, just not the way most people use them. In particular, I think the DBC approach, pre- / post-conditions and class invariants provide a good framework for understanding when it is OK to throw an exception. Sadly, a lot of designs I see don't play by these rules. Errors that should be addressed without an exception (e.g. by a client testing some pre-condition) are instead bubbled up to the client through an exception. When used properly, exceptions are the most intentional way of expressing some error. And they are much more effective at supporting the "fix this or die" philosophy of exceptions than return codes. Of course, all this changes when we stop talking objects and start thinking about distributed code.
Art	2003-10-12
Tags: wall art
Michael Lewis, "Money Culture"	2003-10-12
I read this last night, after enjoying Liar's Poker. While it lacks the "balls on fire"-type qualities of Poker, it is still an interesting read. I am going to read one more and then get back to that Stutz SSCLI book.
Indigo Preview Quote of the Day	2003-10-09
In response to a question regarding developers confusing objects and services: "You have to be at least this tall to go on the ride."

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