Writing ... or Just Practicing?

I thought I’d better start off this week with that well-known email disclaimer "INAG" (I’m Not A Golfer). Mind you, when I was a lot younger and fitter, I did occasionally caddy for a few affluent visitors to the R.A.F. Changi course in Singapore. Though when I say "caddy", what I actually mean is "carry the bag and look for lost balls", but you get the drift. Read More...

I was party to a discussion a couple of weeks ago that wandered off topic (as so many I'm involved in seem to do) into the concepts of whether a programmer is actually "OO" or not. I guess I have to admit to being a long-time railway (railroad) fanatic - an unfortunate tendency that has even, in the past, extended to model railways. So in real life (?),"OO" is the gauge of a model railway. But then someone suggested that many programmers, especially those coming from scripting languages such as classic ASP, are more "OB" than "OO". It turns out that what they mean, I'm given to understand, is that a large proportion of programmers write code that is object-based rather than object-oriented. Read More...

A couple of initially unconnected events last week conspired to nudge my brain into some kind of half-awake state where it combined them into a surreal view of "automatic" stuff. One of the events was the return from Tina, our editor and proof-reader, of my article about the Team System Management Model Designer Power Tool (a product that, thankfully, I'm legally permitted to refer to as just "TSMMD" - and will do so from now on). The second event was deciding that I ought to get a laptop sorted ready for an upcoming trip to Redmond. The combined result is some manic ravings on the meanings of stupid words, and the fact that Windows Vista obviously hates me. Read More...

Here in our quiet little corner of the People's Republic of Europe, our Government decided a while ago to flog off the radio spectrum in order to pay for their countless spin doctors, pointless focus groups, endless ministerial jaunts, never-ending quangos, and failed experiments with Socialism. In return, they gave us the opportunity to enter the brave new world of Digital Broadcasting. And, rumor has it, they will eventualy build enough transmitters so that those of us who don't live in London will actually be able to receive it. Last I heard, the target date is 2013. Meanwhile, I've had to fill the entire attic of our house with bits of bent aluminium to try and drag some scraps of DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) out of the airwaves and down to the kitchen so my wife can have rock music on loud enough to drown out the sound of me washing the dishes. Read More...

OK, so we don't actually make cheese sandwiches here at p&p. Well, as far as I know we don't (but if we did, they'd probably be the best cheese sandwiches in the world...). When I'm over in Redmond I have to stroll across the bridge to Building 4 and buy one from the canteen, though it's worth the effort because you get four different kinds of cheese in it - as well as some salad stuff. Only in the USA could someone decide that you need four different cheeses in a sandwich. Here in England a cheese sandwich is basically a chunk of Cheddar slapped between two slices of bread. Take it or leave it. Maybe it's because there is always so much choice over there, and people can't make up their mind which cheese to have. Read More...