david koblas's Comments

Skis / Toys / Fun : Web 2.0 development - C vs. Java vs. PHP vs. Python

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 20:18:05 +0000

I think I was hinting that XML processing in PHP is easy... the SimpleXML additions to PHP 5 are a breeze to use (similar to the lxml library for Python). Those languages at least deal with a lot of the memory management issues, etc.

Skis / Toys / Fun : Alternative to OpenID

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 16:57:39 +0000

Simple proposal: * Input Email address * lookup hostname in DNS for "v=eaut1 url=http://auth.example.com/?u={user}&d={domain}&...[making up some formatting string] -- similar to SPF http://www.openspf.org/SPF_Record_Syntax * Use that URL to to then do an OpenID transaction to * Now you have a fully authenticated user, using DNS & Email

Skis / Toys / Fun : Alternative to OpenID

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 13:44:01 +0000

That does look interesting and nice to see I'm not the only one thinking this way. Though fundamentally, it should be built into the resolution layer (aka DNS). Not through a 3rd party service like EAUT.

Skis / Toys / Fun : Python Documentation -- Fail!

Fri, 5 Sep 2008 16:29:49 +0000

Nice to see it's documented... But, which is the source of truth? You've now illustrated that they're different... There are advantages to javadoc systems. Where the documentation (online/offline/codeline) are all integrated...

Skis / Toys / Fun : Python vs. Ruby Performance

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 21:42:29 +0000

Not that I track it... But, as I understand Python 2.6 is the end of the road for 2.X and the launching point for Python 3K migrations. Since the performance is consumed by the random package, it illustrates the problem in benchmarks more than languages.

Skis / Toys / Fun : Performance of Python, PHP and Perl

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 14:58:33 +0000

I am aware of the "intention" of the language, but there are times that succinctness is useful. The biggest issue is that if the code ended up being something akin to this bit of perl.. (assuming that you need to extract the match group in each case)

if (/regex_one/) {
} elsif (/regex_two/) {
} elsif (/regex_three/) {
} elsif (/regex_four/) {
} elsif (/regex_five/) {
} elsif (/regex_six/) {
} else {
}

That the Python code would have indented half way across the screen, while the PHP or Perl code would have kept things a bit neater.

Skis / Toys / Fun : Performance of Python, PHP and Perl

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 14:58:33 +0000

Skis / Toys / Fun : Front-end vs. back-end developers (my take)

Thu, 5 Jun 2008 12:02:28 +0000

I spend most of my days being front end and back end, working with a variety of technologies... Kinda fun, but find my life is "best" when I take a day to focus on one section of the problem space. Yesterday it was all about getting everything scripted under a single server framework (mail delivery, application server and queue management). Rather than intermix the box model and HTML issues in the the brain cells simultaniously.

Start-ups are fun.

Skis / Toys / Fun : Python is not Java

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 09:25:42 +0000

Rails is a single stack... I could always do PHP <-> MySQL ... but that is counter to the basic premise.

Skis / Toys / Fun : Web 2.0 development - C vs. Java vs. PHP vs. Python

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 09:15:04 +0000

All of my work is done on my Linux box... I'm very old school:
* Unix (Linux)
* Vi (vim)
* g++ via Makefiles
The one nod to modern development is that I'm now using syntax highlighting.

That said, when I worked at MailFrontier doing cross platform server development between Windows and Unix, it didn't take long to really enjoy using Visual Studio for development (and debugging) -- though I still used VI for most of my code editing (though I'm fair with the VS code editor -- auto complete is handy).

C++ libraries, STL and Boost are the standards in this day and age [string, list, etc.] When it starts drifting off to XML processing, is where I want to pull out Python/PHP/etc. as the glue layer since most of those languages have better integration -- plus odds are your reading/writing configuration not performance focused.

McInblog : Are You Experienced?

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 18:17:31 +0000

Kinda quirky ... at some level it's reminiscing about two lost eras.

The 60's via Hendrix and the 90's and excite...

Ah, well there has only been three companies that I've truely enjoyed working for:
MIPS, SGI and Excite

Online Aspect : Startups and Risk Assessment

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 10:02:27 +0000

Totally resonants... I'm always amazed at people who spend months of time working on software that isn't core to the mission of a startup... then wonder why they're not getting anywhere.

You need to be able to build a prototype, use it to validate the idea, then if it works make it "worthy".

Skis / Toys / Fun : Programming for kids?

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 12:47:23 +0000

Here's a thought ..

RobotWars in flash.

I've found a few robot programming language sites, but I'm now wondering about using them as the basis of a flash based arena.

Simple premise:
Flash Based Arena
Robots coded in JavaScript (action script) ... or ... a simple curly brace language (ducktyped)
Directory of peoples robots
The ability to have multiple robots in an arena of your choosing
Stats kept

Feels like a good web2.0 (community) driven site

Skis / Toys / Fun : Programming for kids?

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 12:43:00 +0000

wrong reply line. Ment to say:

I'm not clear how Rebol helps kids grow their inspiration of programming. It looks like another UI oriented language.

Skis / Toys / Fun : Programming for kids?

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 12:40:27 +0000

looks interesting, another block programming model. But has the visuals.

Skis / Toys / Fun : Programming for kids?

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 12:40:02 +0000

looks interesting, another block programming model. But has the visuals.

Skis / Toys / Fun : Programming for kids?

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 12:38:56 +0000

tutorial is good, but kids are motivated either externally (friends) or internally (discovery). I'm not sure that ruby is going to initiate that discovery.

Skis / Toys / Fun : Getting attention via Facebook

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 06:07:43 +0000

We've tried with sitemaps and without sitemaps. Nothing changed, we've tried back channel communications... Alas, not much...

The funny part is a while ago there was this NY TImes article http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/business/yourmo...

Describing the Teak Patio problem... all the parts are there, just somebody needs to use it (on our behalf)

Skis / Toys / Fun : Getting attention via Facebook

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 12:49:24 +0000

I did submit something about 6 months ago and got dead silence. Since we were in the process of doing a large re-write didn't put any more attention into it. We were running into two problems:
* Spammers
* Pages that had a header that was a little large -- making the possibility of duplicate content a risk...
But, now that we're past that, I'm re-doubling efforts to get some attention.

Skis / Toys / Fun : Punked

Thu, 1 Nov 2007 22:10:49 +0000

Virenque ... not even close. The best alternate suggestion is Spike or Mark (roving Scottish MLS coach).