After a long absence, I'm back. With some explanations about why I've been gone so long...

The traditional J2EE approach to authentication sessions is placing identity information in the servlets Session object. The memory used by the Sessions, and potential need to replicate them, places a drag on scalability. In this article, I propose a different approach that is more scalable because it requires less shared state.

I'm developing a stack based functional language, inspired by the Joy programming language called Cat. What is particularly interesting about Cat is that it is particularly well-suited to optimization.

I recently had reason to work on some code a few years old and used Object Master and an older CodeWarrior IDE. I'd forgotten how much more productive coding could be with the assistance of a Smalltalk-style 3-pane browser. Here are a few points I've picked from my revisit.

The last decade witnessed the rise of the three-tier enterprise architecture. The experience learned and the need to process increasing amounts of data increasingly fast, are now leading some to rethink the wisdom of three-tier design. One alternative solution moves business logic and data management into a data grid.

HD DVD not only offers high-definition video playback, it also uses JavaScript and XML for authoring menus, interactive content, persistant storage, and network connectivity.

If you don't speak English, what programming languages are the best fit and does this radically change how you develop Domain-Specific Languages?

Imagine a hypothetical language that compiles to assembly only once all input arrives. It would be ridiculously fast, but somewhat limited since it could only be used as a filter. Is this a worthwhile trade-off?

Another plug for Django.

This is a series of interviews that I did a few years back, before podcasting became commonplace. My original intent was to turn them into a CD, but I had a few release issues and it got put on the back burner and forgotten for awhile.

Introducing the CEDSimply project and some thoughts on a clean way to assign pointers using safe multiple dereferences of possibly nil pointers: CurrentLogger = gRS.runner.UI.LogTo unless nil

Simon Phipps blogs about the marriage of Java applets and AJAX, suggesting that AJAX applications could benefit from having access to the rich Java APIs. But would the marriage of AJAX and Java applets turn out harmonious, or end in divorce?

When you design a system, you have to decide how many compromises to make in the name of future scalability. One scalability strategy is to partition data into multiple databases. When do you think the tradeoffs involved are worth the scalability gained?

Business Object Notation, the analysis and design method from the Eiffel community, has its own graphic language. The BON Dynamic Diagrams can be easily represented in a UML diagram or with any simple Visio-like tool and provide a succinct way to document system interactions that appeals to both visual and verbal thinkers.

I still don't quite get it, shouldn't every new language support a primitive Reduce() operation in anticipation of the brave new parallel world?