A bit of fun

Posted on 29 September 2008 in Uncategorized

This week's unofficial meme on the Unofficial Planet Python seems to be to name the programming languages you've learned. Here's Eric Florenzano's list (hat tip) -- it looks like the meme was started by Corey Goldberg -- and here's my list:

  • BASIC (an odd ICL dialect, then Spectrum, Commodore, Amstrad, BBC, and QuickBasic)
  • Z80 Assembler
  • Pascal
  • C
  • Hypertalk (remember that? Answer 'Are you sure?' with 'Yes' or 'No'. If it is 'Yes' then...)
  • Logo
  • Prolog
  • LISP
  • C++
  • ML
  • Modula-3
  • Neil (proprietary, probably still in use at IST)
  • Java
  • JavaScript
  • C#
  • Python

Hmm. It looks like I've slowed down. Time to pick up that Erlang tutorial again...

Off to BoS

Posted on 2 September 2008 in Uncategorized

Tomorrow I'm off to Boston for the Business of Software conference, organised by Neil Davidson of Red Gate software and... hosted? Branded? In some obscure way connected to? ...the inimitable Joel Spolsky. I'm particularly looking forward to meeting those two characters; I was lucky enough to sit next to Neil at a Cambridge dinner earlier this year, and had a very interesting chat, and Joel is someone whose blog I've been following since before I knew the word "blog". For added fun, Alex Papadimoulis of the Daily WTF will also be there -- I have to wonder whether he's looking for ideas for further commercialising that site, or if he's building up the business that is his day job...

So, good attendees -- and a fantastic set of talks, with speakers ranging from Seth Godin to Richard Stallman. It should be great.