Unless, of course, the work of “someone else” amounts to a half-meg schema file.

Now, my spider senses start tingling if I come across a single schema file that’s over a few 100 kilobytes, but Netbeans gets it’s knickers in a right proper twist if you try to generate sample xml from this epic monstrosity. 289MB generated before I managed to kill the process.

And oh, what an xml. I don’t think separation of concerns was a primary, secondary or even tertiary thought for whoever sat down with tool in hand to design this particular ’standard’. If a simple type named ActionCommonDataTypeCodesEnumeration isn’t worrying enough, the fact that it contains terms such as Begin, Cancel, Complete, Create, Delete, Dispatch, Lookup, Initiate, Instruction, Information, PartialCancel, PartialComplete, Read, Request, Update, and so on, hurts the back of my brain.
Let’s not get started on PriceCommonData, UnitPriceCommonData, and the myriad other CommonDatas littered through the document. Ack. Aching brain.

Okay, yes, I’m not the target audience, and I haven’t paid the US$149 for the documentation, so I may be reading more into the schema than I probably should, but if I look at it through even slightly REST-tinted glasses, it frankly gives me the heebie-jeebies.

Suffice it to say that I will probably not be using ARTS’ inventory.xsd for my, much simpler, requirements. I may indeed roll my own, but happy to entertain suggestions if someone has a better idea.

That is RPC. It screams RPC. There is so much coupling on display that it should be given an X rating

Worse yet, Word appears to no longer support Thai language — meaning it’s not fit-for-purpose for my wife either. Unfortunately, we left the Office 2003 disk in storage, back in NZ, so we can’t rollback to the version of Office that did support Thai language.

Exactly why is Office such a cash cow for Microsoft? Because of muppets like me, obviously.

Somewhat irritating, was the fact he claimed to have found connections between us. Quite how he managed to find a connection I don’t know — given that there were/are none — but more galling was the subsequent request that I post messages to that effect, on all the forums where this muppet had been posting. Needless to say, I was somewhat less than agreeable, and I suspect that my refusal cemented whatever paranoid delusions of persecution he had conjured.

I only bring this up now, because YAK has suddenly become the target of that self-same troll. Or at least, I’m guessing it’s the same twit (given the similarity of name). This time ridiculously claiming that my plugin has somehow opened a gaping security hole in WordPress’s administration panel. Laughable.

I suggest that rather than YAK causing the problem, it’ll be the fact that this individual has a few too many brain-cells short of a functional cranium, and that “password” is rather too simple an administration password.
On the positive side, it does hopefully prove that the troll has nothing to do with me, and is obviously a sad git with far too much spare time on his hands.

UPDATE: just to be thorough, I’ve double-checked some of the access points in YAK where there might’ve been potential for a security hole, and I can’t see anything that might compromise WP’s security. So I return to my earlier description of the poster: a muppet.

Transpose Red Elephant’s menu and chefs to the Thai Friends location and you’d have the perfect restaurant. As it is, I’d rather put up with the crappy view of Khyber Pass and the motorway, and enjoy the steamed snapper and flaming chicken.

Interestingly, I have yet to find a Thai restaurant in London which comes even close to Red Elephant. The closest would be (coincidentally) Blue Elephant in Fulham — but that has variety in its favour rather than quality.

I don’t think so. I’m attempting to follow the pragmatic creed of learning a new programming language a year (well, laziness will probably turn it into every 2 years, but that’s nothing to do with age), and I think my head is in a better place now, to do so, than it was 10 years ago. Certainly my mother doesn’t think age is any barrier — she started learning Spanish in her late 20s (I seem to recall), and began Italian well into her 50s.

I could probably come up with numerous other examples at a push.

So the fact that the British High Commission in Thailand has just rejected my sister-in-law’s student visa because of her age (early 30s) smacks of excuse, rather than legitimate reason (in which case, why didn’t they tell us the real reason for the rejection?)
Despite the fact we pre-paid for the course, provided evidence of income, accommodation, etc, etc, etc — all the masses of paperwork you need to provide when sponsoring a visa application — it appears that ageism is rife within the Home Office.

Disappointing.

First talk, good. Last talk, good. Stuff in between… meh.

Highlights of the evening: catching up with Ben. And, after 7 years, finally meeting Alan (the last talk!) in person…

…even if it was only for a few minutes.

Erm… economies of scale might have something to do with it, perhaps?

CNet only manages to touch on that in their conclusion…

So why so pricey, Apple? Less buying power? Greed? Good business sense?

…whereas it perhaps should’ve been the focus.

A quick googleage would’ve uncovered that in the 3rd quarter of 2007, Apple sold 1.1 million Mac units in the US. Dell sold 5 million PC units in that period. I’m going on the assumption the difference is similar on the worldwide scale, but perhaps it’s not. Dell’s worldwide figures might be much larger in comparison.

In any case, if I’m buying 1 million items from you, it seems likely I’m going to get a much larger discount than someone who’s only purchasing around a fifth of that amount. Which might account for at least a percentage of the difference. It might not as well, but surely the possibility invites more than 3 words in a conclusion…?

On one hand:

In particular, households are being squeezed by higher fuel prices since the budget, he said. Gasoline prices have surged 14 percent the past three months

and then on the other:

…workers needed to be aware of the outlook for the economy when they made wage claims… …Wage expectations in the public sector haven’t caught up with the changing economic environment. Some have lost a bit of contact with reality.

The word that jumps to mind starts with T and ends with WIT.

Two wrongs making a right? Only time will tell.

Again.

My carbon footprint must be of obscene proportions, given this is now the 5th time I’ve made a move from NZ to the UK.

A couple of immediate impressions after arriving back in the Mother Country:

1. I’d forgotten how dang cold this part of the northern hemisphere is. Even after leaving a rather average start of summer (well it was pretty average in Dec).

2. Getting longer-term accommodation is a nightmare — particularly the referencing process. We’re (hopefully) moving out to Rickmansworth next week (that’s Hertfordshire for the uninitiated), but it hasn’t been straightforward. Touch wood, cross fingers, etc, etc, etc.

3. Mobile phones are so much cheaper than back home. Even prepay. 15p for the first minute and 5p after. That’s about $NZ0.41c per minute followed by 0.14c per min. Plus free mobile phones with an 18 months plan, and in some cases free gifts like Sony PS3s, Nintendo Wiis, iPods, etc. Of course, those are for the crappier models.

4. Dang it’s cold here.

In Rainbows.

Register.

Decide what I want to pay.

Pay.

Download.

Instant gratification in less than 4 mins. First track sounds good as well.

I couldn’t agree more. I have no idea about any of the candidates for the Auckland mayoralty, other than the current encumbent and the previous. Neither of whom I have any interest in voting for. Oh yeah, and the guy who started that horrible excuse for gratuitous nudity on Auckland’s Queen street. Skanks-on-bikes, or whatever it’s called.

The other half dozen or more candidates are unknowns. The paragraph on each person in the voting documents, is hardly enough to make a decision on who should be running the city for the next few years.

It seems to me, there’s an easy, web-based answer to fix a lack of interest in local-body elections. How about a simple form which asks a bunch of questions about relevant topics and, based on the answers given, presents the list of candidates who match the recipient’s answers. Questions like:

Would you increase rates to build more parks: Yes/No/Undecided
Do you believe rates are being used properly in [some area]: Yes/No
Which are do you think the council should focus on for the next term: [topic 1], [topic 2], [topic 3], [topic 4]…
Rank these issues in order of importance: [topic 1], [topic 2], [topic 3], [topic 4], [topic 5]…

etc

There could be a 2 minute form (short list of questions), 5 minute and 10 minute form (long list of questions), depending upon how much effort you wanted to put into your selection. The list of candidates at the end would be sorted by the percentage match to the recipient’s answers, and contain links to more information about their candidacy. It’s just a quick jump from there to adding online voting. Tick boxes next to the candidates in your list who you want to vote for.

Doesn’t seem like rocket science, and wouldn’t necessarily have to cost as much money as the Government throws into other projects. And at least there’d be more chance I’ll be choosing the right set of candidates, based on what I think is important. At the moment, I’ve got no idea.

To be honest, I really have no argument with Orcon otherwise. It just seems like false advertising to call something “Zero Shock”, when I find myself damn shocked at how slow it is.

The other ISP I have experience with is IHUG, who, if they reduce their prices for some reason, will keep quiet about it… “it’s your responsibility to check our website”. I’ve experienced this and so, more recently, has my father. Seems you should focus on keeping your current customers happy, rather than just attracting new ones.

That’s two of NZ’s larger ISPs, and I know the largest (Xtra) has had problems in the past.

I wonder if the issue is industry wide?

When my daughter was about 2 and a half years old, we got a long piece of string, poked it through holes in a pair of yogurt containers, pulled the string tight and used it as a telephone. It was difficult to get the concept across to a 2 year old; of talking into the container, then listening for the response. It was also difficult keep the string taut enough, so that sound waves were transmitted properly.

Somehow, Orcon have managed not only to keep a piece of string tight over thousands of kilometres, they have also managed to connect the yogurt container to the local internet loop. An extremely impressive piece of engineering. Even if it does mean my international traffic is slower than a 28K modem. Just think of the science!

So it’s now almost a month since I first noticed the problem, and over 3 weeks since I reported it — and there is still no resolution in sight. At least a couple of emails have gone unanswered in the last few weeks, although the initial response from their support department (instructions on how to provide all the data their technicians would need) was positive. Last night I finally gave up waiting and decided to sit on hold for 10 minutes or so. Their helpdesk, while nice enough (and local), were unable to shed any light and would need to pass on the details to technicians. But…

“…we have had reports from other customers of similar problems… it may have something to do with the traffic shaping…”

Yes. I’m blimmin’ well aware that it’s traffic shaping. I could’ve told you that a month ago.

“…a quick fix might be to upgrade your plan…”

Where’s the sound of screeching tyres when you want it?

Upgrade my plan?

I must remember that if I ever get a complaint about software I’ve developed…

“I’m sorry you’re having problems sir. Other people have also experienced problems with that version of our software. I invite you to upgrade to a more expensive version, in which we have fixed that issue.”

PS. Unsurprisingly, still no response from technical support.

UPDATE: it helps if you check the menu options properly…

I don’t tend to waste my time investigating all the nooks and crannies of an IDE (Integrated Development Environment, for the non-developer-types). I typically just use the basics. Some might say I’m wasting time by not using those features, but it works for me.

So when the Eclipse & IntelliJ users on the team opened a dialog box and jumped straight to a source file by typing the first few letters of the filename, I just shrugged and went back to navigating through the project tree…. that is, until someone pointed out that Netbeans had the exact same feature — “Go To File” (so obviously a little investigation of menu options wouldn’t have gone astray).

Then, lo and behold, I discovered shortly after, that Netbeans’ “Go To File” function actually did more than Eclipse (and was at least equivalent to Intelli). You could type the capital letters of the class and it would list the matching classes. For two glorious months (or so), I had a feature that was at least as good as my colleagues. The months of enduring taunts, because of my obscure choice in IDEs, faded from memory as I jumped from file to file with a flick of a few (less) fingers… at least, until the latest version of Eclipse arrived with that feature.

Now Netbeans 6 beta 1 has been released. I’ve been burnt in the past by NB early releases — but this is a brand-spanking-new beta. Spit-polished with the glean of months of development effort, since then. Gosling is talking about it. The general consensus elsewhere appears to be that it’s good.

And, after upgrading, it does look good. Not a huge amount of visible difference from NB5. A few burrs here and there have been filed off the sharp edges. There are some things I don’t find attractive, but it’s bearable. Integration with source control doesn’t seem to thrash the CPU, which is a major improvement.

But then… Alt+Shift+O…

My most-used feature.

The only thing I could (until recently) hold above the Eclipse users on the team, and say confidently (and maturely), “Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah”.

One thousand curses on the perpetrator, for violating the perfection of the Alt+Shift+O! Yes, they’ve indeed extended it to search all filenames instead of just classes, but at the same time they’ve rendered it unuseable. Not only is it slower, it is s…l……o………w……………e……………………r.

It is grindingly slow.

If the phrase that immediately pops to mind to describe the fastest thing you’ve ever seen is “blazingly fast”, then a snail would be described as “blazingly fast” by this feature. A tortoise would have the opportunity to perform a full circuit around my desk, and execute a perfect pirouette, before this abysmal piece of code decided that it should return some results.

Slowness I could’ve forgiven if they hadn’t removed the only thing that (until recently — and yes, I know I keep saying that) made me better than the Eclipsers. The feature-in-the-feature that made me as good as the Intellis. Searching, via the capital letters of a class.

MCGF would find MyCrazyGeneratorFactory.java and MyCrazyGeneratorFactoryImpl.java. WDMCHSLN would find WhyDoMyClassesHaveSuchLongNames.java. As it is, I now have to type My (then wait an inordinately long amount of time) to find all files starting with “My”. Carry on typing if I want to narrow the results. With a bit more waiting…

Netbeans 6.

The upgrade that is actually a downgrade.

Now I have to endure the snickers of both the IntelliJ AND the Eclipse users.

Sigh.

Footnote: Welcome back NB5.5.1!

It’s nothing to do with my connection, as far as I can tell, since a speedtest within the country reports an acceptable (relatively speaking) 3300kbps.

Word from the responsive (<– sarcasm alert) technical support department of my ISP? Nothing, nada, zip, zilch. Official word on the system status page is “no known issues”.

So is the fact that I appear to be attached to the rest of the world via a small yogurt container and a piece of string, an “unknown issue”?

Erm… sorry?

How about fresh fruit and vegetables? Anything preprocessed misses out, but I would’ve thought fresh fruit and vege was a no brainer. Doesn’t seem too hard to “enforce” to me.

Idiocy.

The article has been written with just the right amount of skew to the facts, that it comes across as the worst kind of turf protectionism. And since it is somewhat broadly aimed in my direction, I feel qualified to make a few comments.

To provide a bit of background, for the click-lazy, the basic premise is that contractors are -not- the answer to an IT skills shortage. On the hypothesis, I make no immediate comment. But I disagree with the evidence Stewart uses to arrive at his conclusion:

Why can’t I employ someone for less than $X an hour? The answer to that one is that demand has created contractors and contractors have created soaring rates that then elevate hourly rates in the IT sector across the board.

Demand may have created contractors, but it’s a bit rich to blame the freelance industry for soaring rates. Particularly without a good deal of statistical evidence to back it up.

In the past, I’ve worked as a permanent employee of an IT services/development company. I now work as a contractor for an IT services/development company. My external rate as a permie was about 50% higher than my current external rate as a contractor (the former company had vastly inflated ideas about the value of its services). This is one, albeit anecdotal, example that contracting has not unnecessarily driven up rates — in fact, from the client’s perspective, my being a contractor has arguably had little impact on the overall dollar figure for the project, if you compare the cost of doing business with the other company.

When an IT worker steps out on their own and becomes a contractor, they are stepping out of the mainstream and out of the fold where, more often than not, their learning curve diminishes to a horizontal path since they are generally no longer in a realm where they experience ongoing training, mentoring and the opportunity to learn.

This is trite to the point of being insulting. The idea that the mainstream, permanently employed “fold” holds some mystical ability to aid in the career path and ongoing education of the worker is nothing short of hyperbole. My personal experience as both a permie and a contractor (in both NZ and the UK) holds that there is -no- difference between permanent employment and freelance positions offering the opportunity to learn. In fact, I think I may have learned more in contract positions than I have elsewhere.

As a contractor, you are expected to be a self-starter, able to jump straight in and be immediately productive. In-depth knowledge of every aspect of software development is impossible (I defy anyone to cover the entire Java API set, all the external/3rd party libraries and packages that are available, without burning out a good percentage of brain cells in the process) so the dilligent contractor learns what he/she needs to know on the spot, or after hours. Chances are, you’ve done something similar before, so you draw on that knowledge in a new area. Or you burn the midnight oil and figure it out at home.

This is not to mention the long-term ‘tenured’ employees, so rooted in their knowledge that they’ll spend years without learning something new, and the legacy support tasks given to junior employees, whom are left with little opportunity for personal growth.
There are plenty of other examples on both the contract and permanent sides of the fence.

It’s these very people that we have invested time and resources into in the hope that they will be around to mentor the next generation of IT workers moving through the ranks. It’s for this reason that we invest so heavily and believe so strongly in a graduate programme. But without a pool of experienced mentors to take the graduates under their wings, the value of such programmes is devalued and the quality of training is diluted.

This, of course, assumes that a contractor, jealous of his/her skills, and resentful of those in permanent employ, will thus hoard said knowledge, perform only the task at hand, and reject communication with the ‘unworthy’. Quite the opposite is true in reality. Contractors are just as suitable a mentor from a technical perspective. I can think of a number of cases in my career where mentoring has come from both permanent and contract sources. But perhaps Stewart is justifiably worried that one of the lessons the naive employee may learn from an evil contractor, is that freelancing is a good career choice.

Some vendors have endeavoured to combat the skill shortage by jumping on the contractor bandwagon themselves and employing contractors, or even outsourcing overseas. While this is a financially practical solution in the here and now, it does nothing to invest in the ICT sector in New Zealand or help pave the way for a robust and leading edge pool of IT talent in the future.

I agree that outsourcing overseas does little to invest in the ICT sector in NZ. But to use that flimsy argument to cover his contractor angst is a bit of a stretch. The assumption, once again, is that the nasty contractor clasps their hard-won knowledge to their bosom like Gollum with the One Ring, and thus contributes nothing to the overall pool of IT talent.

Finally, Stewart lists a number of pros and cons comparing vendor delivery with, I assume, a project staffed entirely by contractors (which is, in itself, contrary to every project I’ve worked on where there has been a modicum of freelance involvement). He chooses this point to descend into almost complete fantasy.

The first benefit of a vendor sourced solution over contractors, is that with one you get a team “with one unified purpose and clearly delineated roles working towards agreed objectives and timeframes“, and the other, “a collection of individuals with no common purpose“.

We’re all milling around like a headless chickens, I suppose?

I couldn’t disagree more. Commonality of purpose for a contractor team who, by his own admission, are more senior in experience (and thus, less likely to be milling around in purposeless confusion) is that of product delivery. Purpose is driven by strong leadership and stronger vision, which can be found both in permanent and freelance staff.

I also disagree that somehow a vendor “ensures you are getting the best, most suitable and up-to-date technology for your solution“. This may be true of some vendors — but not all. In the past, I’ve had the misfortune to see technology solutions promoted because of the most base financial reasons, and out of political (in the business sense) expediency. Stewart provides no evidence that there is any difference between vendors and a team of contractors, in this regard. Oh yes, we can read between the lines here, but his intent is so blatant, it seems churlish to point it out.

I also find myself disagreeing with a number of the “cons” he lists for the use of a contract team. That they somehow “strip the ICT sector of mentors for graduates and juniors” — which I’ve mentioned earlier has never been the case in my experience — and that the “hourly rate often means that there is no urgency for deadline“. As to deadlines, I personally have never felt any less pressure to meet a deadline as a contractor. Agile methodologies may have helped, but much as I’d prefer a contract to continue longer, I certainly don’t drag my feet to ensure that longevity.

His poorly thought out missive aside, I agree with the fundamental premise. Contractors are not the answer to a skills shortage. They are but one of the answers. A healthy market requires a variety of different sources: vendors, contract, internal IT departments with graduates moving through the ranks, etc.

The problem is that Stewart draws a picture villifying the freelance IT worker as both cause and effect. Some kind of vicious circle that must be broken free of for the greater good of the industry. He paints for us a stereotypical contractor that is more caricature than portait… and tars companies that use contract staff (be they IT service vendors, or otherwise) with the same brush, as he does so.

Conveniently forgetting the fact that some contractors use the freedom this career choice offers, to start their own businesses, some band together into partnerships, and many put just as much effort into a project as might the permanent employee of an IT vendor.

In many different ways, contract staff can contribute just as much to the ICT sector as a whole.

You should take the time to read his response to Angus & Robertson’s blatant extortion attempt. It truly is the literary equivalent of flaying them alive.

(Source: Boing Boing and Making Light’s excellent detailed breakdown)