Late Night PC

In which we wander around the various software stacks and find out what Rob knows and doesn't about building web applications. I recently moved this site (Late Night PC Service) and my travel journals (On Beaches) to a new server. I went from shared hosting to a virtual private server (VPS). So I now have a lot more horsepower at my disposal and I want to try some cool stuff. One thing I've been on about recently is Eclipse and Java development. So I thought maybe I could look at developing with J2EE and what kinds of interesting things I can build. I have a lot of goals:

• build a good framework for developing casual games
• learn how to apply standards that I find interesting or intriguing
• build interesting webstites
• have some fun

This is the short list and I reserve the right to deviate whenever I feel like it. Application development on the web can be done by hand on an as-needed ad hoc basis. That's fine for experimenting and for building an application as a one-time event. For ongoing development and building applications that can be the foundation for the next big leap, you have to have a good set of tools. I've divined that this is what people are calling your application stack, your software stack, or maybe your superplatform. If you were walking into the Web 2.0 Shopping Mall, you'd find the stores selling three major name brands of software stack. They are .Net, Java, and LAMP. I run a Linux server and only have any real experience with Apache servers (unless you count the old personal web server on Windows 98). That excludes me from the .Net product line, so I don't find it very interesting or know very much about it. Here's what I've surmised through my totally informal and accidental trip into the Web 2.0 Shopping Mall. (this is gonna be a long one)

The XPointer Scheme Registry didn't sound like that big a deal to me when I first saw this notice. But I needed something to read while watching my kid at skating (no wifi in the arena :( ). I didn't know what I was looking at when I started reading the XPointer Framework Recommendation since I had no context other than the announcement. By the time I was done, this is what I guessed.

Very insightful piece by Kurt Cagle on the long tail. Great read even if you think you've got the general idea of the long tail already. Here's an interesting statement he makes on applying standards:

What this points to then is a point that standards developers themselves should take away with them - it is not necessary for a standard to be highly technically sophisticated, and indeed this may very well work against the adoption of the standard (which will take place first within the tail, not the head). It should rather be sufficient that it can be adopted (with some effort perhaps) by tail companies. It also points out that it is generally not in the best interest of tail projects to eschew those standards, as this effectively cuts them off from intercommunication with a "majority" of the tail.

It made me think, and it's a great way to explain why I like XML and not YAML.

My daughter has a French test coming up Monday. It's a source of anxiety for her, I think. I may well be part of the cause. I can be pretty enthusiastic about learning new things. I never picked up French in school because it's downplayed so strongly in Windsor. In Windsor we have our own take on pronunciation. Take the names of the roads. Oullette is pronounced "oh-let". Pierre street? Oh, you mean "peer-ee"? I grew up a few blocks from Grand Marais (yes, you can hear the "D" and it's grand mare-iss). Grand Marais is a road, but there is a big ditch to go along with the road as the name implies. Windsor does have some French-speaking population, but not much. My first exposure to French outside of a textbook came after graduating and spending some time in the Ottawa-Hull region. Then I understood that the language is alive and well. I'll admit I was surprised the first time I had a pizza delivered by a young man who spoke only French. That was something I'd only heard of in theory before. In my youth my impression was that the second language was an artifact of time gone by. My personal opinion wavered back and forth, but as I grew more aware of the world around me (past our loveable but very loud neighbour to the south), I found out just how common and workable it is for countries to maintain more than one language in everyday use. Anyway, I think I always envied the families whose culture was at least visible. My mother's parents first language was French. My mother never learned to speak it. As a matter of fact, my daughter's other grandmother's first language is French. So why isn't it being passed on? I don't make the time for this to be a real priority for me, so I'm not going to pretend that it's a bigger deal to me than it is. But I'm trying to help my daughter out with the little bit that I do know. So far it's only numbers up to cinquante. I managed get her past the disdain level and hold her interest long enough to study, but I'm sure she'll still scream if I put on my French learning CDs in the car. Oh well, I'll take what I can get.