X-Git-Url: https://codewiz.org/gitweb?p=wiki.git;a=blobdiff_plain;f=JuneBlog;h=0384695b42b9e8af73ac406945eba9b318f73ec9;hp=5e01a43325ea600e440fd521437a60275359f286;hb=1f9518e3380a7fecbd23cd4e95186e7681032c8b;hpb=fec0b49920f8b76330ac61e327b9b8ba21f3740d diff --git a/JuneBlog b/JuneBlog index 5e01a43..0384695 100644 --- a/JuneBlog +++ b/JuneBlog @@ -1,5 +1,146 @@ == June 2007 == +The story continues in JulyBlog of course. + +=== Sat, 30th === + +==== Italian profanity ==== + +I just found out that "A Cappella" is how Italians say "in the style of the church". +It's used for music played by human voice instead of instruments. Yes, indeed. +Nobody could understand why I was grinning :-) + + + +==== Random Birthday Paradox ==== + +I'm writing you this from ChrisBalls's house. cjb for IRC friends. +Yesterday was his wife's birthday. And also the birthday of somebody +else too. That's where the title came from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_paradox . + +We're having a lot of fun and getting drunk very quickly. Someone +came with a box of Avocados with a picture of Avogardo saying: +"let's Party. arriba." It's the things like these that will make it +very sad for me to leave this nation. + +Food is vegan, and incredibly tasty if you ask me. There are people +from the office as well as other nerds from other places. One guy +showed up with a tee saying: "shut the fuck up and write some +code!". We're listening to TheSoundOfSilence from Xyzzy's (*) mp3 player. +That's one of my favourite songs, but I thought it was from the Beatles :-) + +(*) We'll call her Xyzzy 'cause she doesn't want her name to end up on +Internet. + + +Xyzzy: remember...all is not as it appears to be and the best place to hide something is in plain sight + +Bernie: hmmm... then I guess I'll hide at OLPC and the USCIS won't find me :-) + +RandomBirthdayParty.jpg +RandomBirthdayPartyHouse.jpg +RandomBirthdayPartyTv.jpg +RandomBirthdayPartyHall.jpg + + +=== Tue, 26th === + +==== Long time, no C++ ==== + +The title was inteded to be a joke on "long time, no see", because I've +not been updating the blog for some time. + +But this reminds me that, yes, indeed I've not been doing any C++ for a few +months now. That's probably irrelevant to most of you... but this is my blog +and I get to decide what goes in. Except when *you* edit it. Damn WikiWikiWeb! + +The reason we don't have any C++ in the OLPC is that, in the Linux world, +C++ never flied that much. The kernel hackers say it's not well suited +for kernel programming, and I partially agree. Of course, C++ can't be +used for glibc and POSIX system libraries. Even MicrosoftCompany uses C +for those. + +This leaves us with three more layers to exclude: windowing server, +desktop and applications. + +X11 is written in C for historical reasons. Since its internals mostly +deal with interfaces and specialization of interfaces, C++ would have +been very beneficial. + +Gnome also uses C, for no good reason. KDE is older than Gnome and +was entirely written in C++, although I clearly remember g++ 2.7.2 being +quite a painful experience. The GObject crap in glib and GTK is expecially +ugly, hard to use and error prone due to lack of good OOP support in the +language. + +And applications? Well, applications in the OLPC are written in Python +anyway, like many higher level applications in regular Linux distros. + +There's a few exceptions: Mozilla is written in C++ and eToys is written +in SmallTalk. I don't know about TamTam. + +'''rasky:''' in fact, with the raise of scripting languages and fully-featured +platforms (like Java's), using C++ for doing almost *anything* is the wrong +choice. As you said, system programming wants C for several good reasons, and +almost anything else can be done in scripting language. I think one last thing +that C++ is still good today at is high-performance libraries (eg: math +libraries), where you don't want to use C and you need a lot of performance. +But C++ is feeling more and more like a dead horse... + +'''marco:''' About writing kernels in C++: +http://okmij.org/ftp/cpp-digest/toy_OS.txt + +=== Wed, 13th === + +==== Under pressure ==== + +Miletstone B4 was expected to ship today. I don't care because my work +is for due for Trial2. But many of my colleagues were extremely +under pressure. + +There is one last bug with some laptops not coming out of resume. +And it's still not fixed at 21:00. Kernel hackers are scraping +their heads. + +We had pizza together and, seeing so many tired faces, I casually asked: +"when do we close for summer?". + +People look at me puzzled: "What do you mean exactly by ''close''?". + +"Err... companies don't close for summer here in the States?". + +They look at each other, trying to guess if it's some kind +of joke: "Why would companies ever ''close''? They're not schools." + +I quickly added: "Oh, I'm asking because, you know, most +companies in Italy do close a few weeks for summer". + +At this point everybody laughed like if companies closing +was an extremely funny idea. + +This is one reason why we have a strong economy here: people +are extremely committed at work. Will I ever catch up? Hope so. + + +=== Tue, 12th === + +==== Eutelia Voip ==== + +I have a new public phone number: {{055-3984187}}. + +It's Eutelia's VOIP service, formerly Skypho. People told me +that the quality is good. All the previous phone numbers remain +valid. + +I've also switched from Ekiga to a SIP client that doesn't +totally suck: + + http://www.twinklephone.com/ + +Actually, the user interface is horrible. But if you close +your eyes, it works beautifully. + + === Mon, 11th === ==== Sleeping At The Office ==== @@ -72,8 +213,7 @@ Pepperoni aren't vegetables, but a kind of hot salami: And, finally, beware of food franchises pretending to be Italian. There are many: - http://www.emich.edu/dining/images/sbarro/sbarro.jpg - + http://jrfowler.com/SbarroLogo.JPG === Fri 1st ===