As a followup to "Simplifying XML Manipulation", here is the Fedex Rate Requester that motivated me to make xmlnode in the first place. Because xmlnode got the XML-creation code noise out of the way, I was able to bash this together very quickly.

I've been having some good collaboration experiences lately with a coauthor in another state, working on a book project together.

A quick introduction where I come from and what led up to Scala.

Every time someone creates a new XML-based language, God (performs some unspeakable act).

My head was stuffed with things Ruby, and it exploded... All over the web. Bits everywhere. I just couldn't stop writing until I got it all out of my system.

Not by angry customers suing for damages after security breaches, or by governments breaking up monopolies, but by open source developers and security professionals accusing them of being obsessed by security.

There are several different things about desktop drag and drop that are interesting. I've been using several things in my JiniDesktop class in my http://startnow.dev.java.net project. Here's an extracted example of all the pieces.

Sometimes it seems that the true value of something in our business is inversely proportional to the hype. When programmers come up with a good idea, they don't seem very good at hyping it.

There is now a downloadable interpreter with source for the Cat programming language written in C#.

In a recent blog post, Ron Jeffries extols the XP virtue of sustainable effort, including limiting a developer’s work day to eight hours. While a laudable objective, it is also unrealistic. Trusting the process and visions of success are more important for a sustainable project than shorter work hours.

How long have you used Python? 10 years or longer? Please tell us how you first heard of the language, how you first used it, and how you helped develop it (if you did). More recent reminiscences are welcome too!

Many people imply that 'final' in Java aids security. I don't think I buy that.

The ICT security community is suspicious of agile processes. "They do not produce formal documentation" is an often-heard complaint. Agile developers, on the other hand, blithely ignore security concerns.

NetBeans has come a long way, and has a lot of features that can help you improve productivity, especially when you want to use Java standards. When do you use a standard, and when do you go it alone?

What if you could write Python code with an alternate interpreter/preprocessor that allowed you to use different keywords in your native tongue, including ideogrammic languages? This proposition comes from a thought that Python semantics may be flexible enough to act as a VM for the new CEDSimply language.