Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Programmers' Golden Rule

  • Let w be your typical work day,
  • Let a b is a bug discovered at m minutes before w is finished,
  • Then, iff m <= 60, the following holds:
(1)  b must be ignored for the following m - 1 minutes
and taken care of at w + 1

This is the same as saying that a good restful night is determinant to solve even the most fearful bug.

And it's also equivalent to saying that ignoring (1) is the best way to introduce more bugs and confusion instead of actually resolving the initial bug.

Trust me.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Ipocritically correct

Ci siamo quasi: un'altra notizia così e potrei incazzarmi... di brutto!

Fin dove arriverà l'ipocrisia di una classe dirigente corrotta, fino a dove il viscido servilismo di molti organi d'informazione, fino a quando gli italiani ai quali l'attuale stato delle cose sta bene dovranno rovinare la vita alla (probabilmente sempre di meno) brava gente?

Senza contare che magari sarebbe ora di pensare ai problemi veri (volete l'elenco? Ogni giorno qualcuno muore mentre lavora, qualche vecchio muore solo e abbandonato, si fanno le cacce all'immigrato e si ha il coraggio di vantarsene, si ruba, si ammazza e la si fa sempre franca... che dite, proseguo?).

E comunque, visto che ci siamo:
È anche la mia opinione e non solo della Guzzanti che tra 20 anni (io spero prima...) un papa corrotto (uno a caso e con la 'p' minuscola) se la dovrà vedere con qualche "diavolone frocione"... (Oooops! Scusatemi quelli che benpensano: ho detto "frocione"!).

Ed è anche un'altra mia opinione che TUTTI, a partire dal capo dello stato (anche lui minuscolo), fino al più indegno (come se ce ne fossero molti "degni") deputato di questo paese non mi rappresenti più e mi abbia davvero stancato: siete le zecche della nostra società, voi e quelli ai quali sta bene che continuiate a stare dove state.

E siete ancora più zecche voi italiani che appoggiate questi signori, nella consapevolezza che a voi conviene o nella inconsapevolezza di essere troppo stupidi per avere diritto al voto!

VisualVM: graphically profiling Java applications

VisualVM is a new tool Sun is providing for doing runtime analysis of Java applications (both local and remote ones).
It mades available through a simple GUI all sort of graphical data about threads, heap, GC, classes and much more (being it expansible through plugins).
It deeply integrates with a number of CLI ("Command Line Interface") tools the JDK already comes with.

Right now I can't tell you more than this, but I'm looking forward to writing a review if this tool proves itself really useful.

I wonder how it will perform when profiling Tomcat running my webapps...

Friday, July 11, 2008

Cinque poesie incivili


E io ci aggiungo la mia:
Non ero in piazza, non vi sono ancora sceso...

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Io il Sabato porto a spasso orchi e streghe (a Berlino)

Vorrei asserire pubblicamente una legge dell'universo recentemente scoperta (si badi bene: non un teorema, ne una teoria... una legge):
L'ultimo album degli Afterhours è semplicemente meraviglioso

Go go Hyenas!

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

A great river always starts up as a little spring

Every time I come to read a sentence similar to "new search algorithm will annihilate Google" or something like "X researchers teamed to find the anti-Google technology", well, I always feel the same:
Those pretty heated boys are likely to be first misunderstood, secondarily praised as the new Leonardo Da Vinci of the search-engines market, then beaten up by some quite obvious objections and finally forgotten in no time.

And, 'til now, they proved me right every time.

The reason is pretty simple: this kind of claims may be absolutely correct and these people really found something interesting and new, but they also found the worst possible way of promoting and marketing their idea: going against Google.

Why going against a Mountain with your new car is really a bad idea should be quite obvious, but let me offer some not-always-cited additional reasons:

People do really like Google

This assertion may seem incorrect but the incredible success of the Mountain View giant would never be so explosive without that appeal they have (it's like that other one Apple has too).


Google simply works

And, you may throw a wild goat (or whatever you usually throw at blasphem prophets) at me, their algorithm works damn well.


Today Google is perceived as
THE search-engine

And this one doesn't really need further explanations...


Right by now 
Google isn't only search

Just look at their on-line office suite, GMail, YouTube, AdSense, AdWords, Maps, Android and so on.
All the services Google offer contribute to the appeal we told before and increase the number of data they can reach with their search algorithm.


So, why do you insist on promoting your ideas as alternative to Google?!?
Just be smart: promote them as complimentary to it or, best of all, do not even cite Google when describing your "completely-new-and-mighty-algorithm".

I think someday, by doing so, your ideas could become a Mountain.
Or a great river, if you like it better.