When starting a new blog it is customary to begin with a brief introduction to ourselves, with the reason why we are starting the blog, and with a note about the topics of the blog. Here it goes.

I believe I've tracked down the origin of the term Benevolent Dictator For Life (BDFL) to a Python meeting in 1995. It's a blast from the past!

My wife saved two important SD cards from her camera to a faulty USB disk I'd given her. The images got corrupted and she'd deleted the files from her cards. Could Open Source come to the rescue? Let's hope so because divorces are expensive!

If so, this is a call to action.

A list of what & why. Mostly tech-oriented 'casts, with the odd, odd exception.

Microsoft announced a 300 million marketing campaign to stand up to the competitors and critics of Vista. They're going to make Vista good by saying it's good.

The video and slides from last December in Belgium.

Doing the simplest thing that could possibly work is a frequent advice of the agile development movement. But how applicable is that advice in different kinds of development contexts?

A great deal of commentary followed Apple's announcement that it would use the Sproutcore JavaScript framework for its upcoming online offerings. Most of the debate centers around the question of whether a virtual machine-based environment or reliance on browser standards are preferable when developing rich Web apps.

The Jython team has been working furiously on this; we may see a 2.5 alpha available for experimentation in mid-July.

I recently had to figure out how to post some videos of locally-written 10-minute plays (including my own) and ran into YouTube's 10-minute limit.

During last week's The Server Side Java Symposium in Prague, it looks like scaling is the biggest issue. I've collected some pointers from presentations on the topic and will certainly return to it when we start doing this sort of stuff.

I am conducting a research survey with Dr. Abdelwahab Hamou-Lhadj at Concordia University concerning the role of diagrams in UML. I am inviting software development professionals with any level of experience in UML to participate.

Report from the Bay Area Scala Enthusiasts meeting.

Our parents were wrong when they told us not to be lazy. Laziness is a vital characteristic for success, and something we should strive for.