So, I've managed a few commits to the Github project already then. Not that I have a great deal to write home about, but it's actually nice and easy to get the hang of. And the nice folks there have produced a great little Windows app to help skin over the Git interface: takes a lot of the pain out of standard tasks, though I haven't really had the pleasure (?) of dealing with multiple branches and revisions yet, so I'll reserve judgement till then.
Still in very early days of implementation yet, but there's a very basic dicebag there now, with an API that is (hopefully) easy to follow. Should also be a simple case to check it out, build it as a maven artefact and then chuck it into a project. Honestly, there are loads more updates to come. Honest.
Monday, 16 July 2012
Sunday, 15 July 2012
Getting to the party. Late as usual.
So, I'm going to starting experimenting over at GitHub - I've always used SVN / CVS previously, so I've resisted Git for a while: inertia is a hard thing to overcome!
Still, I like to think that I've a relatively open mind, so I gave Git a go, and I've been generally pleasantly surprised that it's not nearly as difficult to work with as I'd feared. Plus, there's GitHub.
So there's going to be a new repository going up there at some point, just so that I can noodle around with it for a while. For those who know me, it won't be a surprise that it's going to be a dice roller (some people write 'Hello World!'; I write dice rollers - don't ask me why, it's a habit.) I'd quite like this one to be a bit more generic and useful, though, so it's also planned to be a standalone jar file that can be included in damned near anything that might need a randomiser at some point.
For those interested, the repository is up at: https://github.com/nihilogist/dicebag
Currently there's very little up there, but hopefully the thing should be filled out sooner rather than later.
Still, I like to think that I've a relatively open mind, so I gave Git a go, and I've been generally pleasantly surprised that it's not nearly as difficult to work with as I'd feared. Plus, there's GitHub.
So there's going to be a new repository going up there at some point, just so that I can noodle around with it for a while. For those who know me, it won't be a surprise that it's going to be a dice roller (some people write 'Hello World!'; I write dice rollers - don't ask me why, it's a habit.) I'd quite like this one to be a bit more generic and useful, though, so it's also planned to be a standalone jar file that can be included in damned near anything that might need a randomiser at some point.
For those interested, the repository is up at: https://github.com/nihilogist/dicebag
Currently there's very little up there, but hopefully the thing should be filled out sooner rather than later.
Tuesday, 24 January 2012
If you can't find someone to blame, then blame everybody...
I'm going to start this post by going off on a tangent. I promise I'll lead you back to the point :-)
But first: if you're not interesting in reading this long and occasionally rambling post, then at least go to http://stopsopaireland.com/, have a read, and then think about signing. If you do want to read the post, then I'll give you the link again at the end: it's important.
When I was back in school - and I'm sure this happened to most of the rest of you as well - there was one particular teacher known for being tough on pupils. Any minor infringement saw the offender punished to the full extent of the law. And this was fine: everyone knew where they stood. Until the day came when a paper aeroplane landed on his desk, and the perpetrator was nowhere to be seen.
"Who threw that?" came the cry from the front of the room. "Who threw that?" A stony silence filled the classroom as the entire class clammed up. "If you don't own up, the whole class will be in detention, all week." No one owned up.
We spent the rest of the week in detention, writing out, time after time, "I will not throw paper aeroplanes in class."
And you know, I think that's an important lesson. If you can't find someone to blame, then blame everyone.
OK. The point, then.
By reports, on the 26th January, the Irish government is due to pass legislation that is known as "The Irish SOPA", potentially forcing ISPs to block entire sites from the internet if a copyright holder alleges that the hosting site has content which breaches their copyright. So - in theory - if a website has a single copyright infringement on it then the entire site can be brought to court by the copyright holder and blocked by ISPs. Fantastic: copyright holders no longer need to find out who was to blame for uploading an illegal file, or even who downloaded an illegal file: they just blame everyone, and suddenly everyone is in detention, writing out a million times: I will not upload pirated content to the Internet.
OK, quick notice: uploading material to which you do not own the copyright is wrong. Pirating music is wrong. But that doesn't mean we should shut down YouTube because some people upload pirated music there. (And, you know, the only thing worse that having your music pirated onto YouTube is not having your music pirated onto YouTube...)
You know, this could turn into a really long ranty post, but I'm going to try and keep things brief: it's late, you know... I'll stick to the most concerning parts:
1) The bill is due to be passed by a statutory instrument, meaning that it is not to be debated in the parliament (tjmcintyre.com)
We've just seen online the outpouring of support against this type of law when it was brought up for debate in the United States. Protests saw, amongst other events, Google placing links to the debate on their homepage and Wikipedia going dark for a day. The level of reporting and engagement with this bill at the moment is miniscule: it's only two days before it's due to be passed and there is still (to my knowledge) no specific wording of the bill released, only the fact that it will be passed. It may not have been intended this way, but it feels like legislation passed by stealth, and passed by force, bypassing the usual democratic safeguards.
2) The rushed nature and vague wording
I'm writing this on the 24th January. The earliest reference to this I've found has been the statement release by the chief instigator of the bill, Sean Sherlock TD, on his website at: http://www.labour.ie/press/listing/13245642324974.html. That was released on the 22nd December. So let's say a month. I'd be very happy to know that this had been announced earlier, and that we'd all just missed it, rather than the whole thing being rushed from end to end within a month, but so far, not much evidence. An earlier draft had been around since June last year, but reports indicate that this new bill may go further.
I've been looking around for specifics of the bill, and the best I've found has been the summary on TJ McIntyre's blog, as linked above. That references the early draft, and goes into the implications of the vague wording far better than I can.
3) The legal implications and potential challenges
Other reading I've done suggests that the legal implications of these amendments haven't been properly considered. A reply from ALTO to the Deparment of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation on the subject of the proposed changes to the copyright act points out some of the potential problems the new law may face; including the fact that previous, similar, acts in other European countries have been overturned by the courts. Likewise, in November last year the European Court of Justice ruled that it is not legal to force ISPs to block specific sites, a rule which should be in force throughout Europe.
What would happen if the ruling were to be challenged by a large organisation? A humiliating backtrack or a confrontation?
Don't take my word for it: go to http://stopsopaireland.com/ and have a read. It's worth it. If you agree with me, sign the petition there. Write to your TD. Do something.
But first: if you're not interesting in reading this long and occasionally rambling post, then at least go to http://stopsopaireland.com/, have a read, and then think about signing. If you do want to read the post, then I'll give you the link again at the end: it's important.
When I was back in school - and I'm sure this happened to most of the rest of you as well - there was one particular teacher known for being tough on pupils. Any minor infringement saw the offender punished to the full extent of the law. And this was fine: everyone knew where they stood. Until the day came when a paper aeroplane landed on his desk, and the perpetrator was nowhere to be seen.
"Who threw that?" came the cry from the front of the room. "Who threw that?" A stony silence filled the classroom as the entire class clammed up. "If you don't own up, the whole class will be in detention, all week." No one owned up.
We spent the rest of the week in detention, writing out, time after time, "I will not throw paper aeroplanes in class."
And you know, I think that's an important lesson. If you can't find someone to blame, then blame everyone.
OK. The point, then.
By reports, on the 26th January, the Irish government is due to pass legislation that is known as "The Irish SOPA", potentially forcing ISPs to block entire sites from the internet if a copyright holder alleges that the hosting site has content which breaches their copyright. So - in theory - if a website has a single copyright infringement on it then the entire site can be brought to court by the copyright holder and blocked by ISPs. Fantastic: copyright holders no longer need to find out who was to blame for uploading an illegal file, or even who downloaded an illegal file: they just blame everyone, and suddenly everyone is in detention, writing out a million times: I will not upload pirated content to the Internet.
OK, quick notice: uploading material to which you do not own the copyright is wrong. Pirating music is wrong. But that doesn't mean we should shut down YouTube because some people upload pirated music there. (And, you know, the only thing worse that having your music pirated onto YouTube is not having your music pirated onto YouTube...)
You know, this could turn into a really long ranty post, but I'm going to try and keep things brief: it's late, you know... I'll stick to the most concerning parts:
- The method of bringing the bill into law
- The rushed nature of the bill and the vague wording of it
- The legal implications of the bill and the potential for challenges to it
1) The bill is due to be passed by a statutory instrument, meaning that it is not to be debated in the parliament (tjmcintyre.com)
We've just seen online the outpouring of support against this type of law when it was brought up for debate in the United States. Protests saw, amongst other events, Google placing links to the debate on their homepage and Wikipedia going dark for a day. The level of reporting and engagement with this bill at the moment is miniscule: it's only two days before it's due to be passed and there is still (to my knowledge) no specific wording of the bill released, only the fact that it will be passed. It may not have been intended this way, but it feels like legislation passed by stealth, and passed by force, bypassing the usual democratic safeguards.
2) The rushed nature and vague wording
I'm writing this on the 24th January. The earliest reference to this I've found has been the statement release by the chief instigator of the bill, Sean Sherlock TD, on his website at: http://www.labour.ie/press/listing/13245642324974.html. That was released on the 22nd December. So let's say a month. I'd be very happy to know that this had been announced earlier, and that we'd all just missed it, rather than the whole thing being rushed from end to end within a month, but so far, not much evidence. An earlier draft had been around since June last year, but reports indicate that this new bill may go further.
I've been looking around for specifics of the bill, and the best I've found has been the summary on TJ McIntyre's blog, as linked above. That references the early draft, and goes into the implications of the vague wording far better than I can.
3) The legal implications and potential challenges
Other reading I've done suggests that the legal implications of these amendments haven't been properly considered. A reply from ALTO to the Deparment of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation on the subject of the proposed changes to the copyright act points out some of the potential problems the new law may face; including the fact that previous, similar, acts in other European countries have been overturned by the courts. Likewise, in November last year the European Court of Justice ruled that it is not legal to force ISPs to block specific sites, a rule which should be in force throughout Europe.
What would happen if the ruling were to be challenged by a large organisation? A humiliating backtrack or a confrontation?
Don't take my word for it: go to http://stopsopaireland.com/ and have a read. It's worth it. If you agree with me, sign the petition there. Write to your TD. Do something.
Tuesday, 10 January 2012
Two lines of code can change your life
I've written about this before (and I'll most likely write about it again), so apologies in advance if I bore people to death with it. It's the issue of education and computing. There have been a few reports recently indicating that computing courses in the UK are failing their students, the worst examples being some of the specialist games development courses: just 12% of graduates having found a job in recent times.
I write code for a living, and I enjoy my job. I'm very lucky to be doing something that I really want to do, and I think that I'm doubly lucky because it's taken me a long and improbable route to get here. And fundamentally, that route started when I was about seven or eight, and I first wrote the lines:
10 PRINT "My name is David"
20 GOTO 10
RUN
Suddenly, my television screen was filled with an endlessly repeating filler of My name is David. I'd managed to get a computer to do something that I had told it to. I was hooked. Over the next few years I would often be found hunched over the beige keyboard of my trusty Acorn Electron, typing in programs and trying to get them to work. By the time I was fourteen, just typing in other people's code wasn't enough, and I began to try and write my own from scratch, starting an epic quest to produce a text adventure game.
I don't know what it was that really spurred me on, whether it was getting to hang around with some seriously talented young developers (I kid you not, these guys had clubbed together and written an email application for the school network while I was still working on drawing a circle on the screen), or that I was very much supported by the school I was in, but despite a long time not working in the IT industry, I came back to college, and picked up Java again. And it was almost like I'd never left.
The thing is, when I was younger, it seemed so much easier to start programming. The languages were so much closer to you - heck, the Electron started up with a BASIC prompt. I can well see someone these days enrolling on a programming course and being slightly taken aback when presented with their first view of an IDE or a command line.
Now, I'm not living in the UK at the moment, so I guess I'm not really qualified to talk about the way that ICT is taught there, and I'm not well enough acquainted with the details of ICT eduction in Ireland, either. But the reports that more and more computing lessons are heading towards teaching basic office skills are a little worrying. It's not that people don't need the ability to use the word processor / spreadsheet / office suite du jour, but it would be great to see other classes available for people who really do want to stretch themselves. There are plenty of resources on the web these days - with many kids it might just take a small push in the right direction, and boom - we have another killer app developer in the running.
It sounds like we might be moving in the right direction at last though, with a few new initiatives kicking around to try and get children interested in the reality of computer science from a younger age, and I really do believe that one of the ways to do that is to show them how easy it is to get started. Show how quickly you can put together a web page. Write a little java program to print stuff out on screen or a simple game. Try and get hold of some of the old computer controlled Lego Technic, or - better yet - the new Mindstorms NXT. Given the choice between working on a spreadsheet and teaching a robot to walk? I know which one I'd choose.
People keep talking about the knowledge economy. We've got to make sure that we create a generation who are going to be up to creating that knowledge, not just using the fruits of it.
Remember, sometimes all it takes to spark an interest is two lines of code. (Though next time, please don't use GOTO. Bad habits and all that ;-) )
I write code for a living, and I enjoy my job. I'm very lucky to be doing something that I really want to do, and I think that I'm doubly lucky because it's taken me a long and improbable route to get here. And fundamentally, that route started when I was about seven or eight, and I first wrote the lines:
10 PRINT "My name is David"
20 GOTO 10
RUN
Suddenly, my television screen was filled with an endlessly repeating filler of My name is David. I'd managed to get a computer to do something that I had told it to. I was hooked. Over the next few years I would often be found hunched over the beige keyboard of my trusty Acorn Electron, typing in programs and trying to get them to work. By the time I was fourteen, just typing in other people's code wasn't enough, and I began to try and write my own from scratch, starting an epic quest to produce a text adventure game.
I don't know what it was that really spurred me on, whether it was getting to hang around with some seriously talented young developers (I kid you not, these guys had clubbed together and written an email application for the school network while I was still working on drawing a circle on the screen), or that I was very much supported by the school I was in, but despite a long time not working in the IT industry, I came back to college, and picked up Java again. And it was almost like I'd never left.
The thing is, when I was younger, it seemed so much easier to start programming. The languages were so much closer to you - heck, the Electron started up with a BASIC prompt. I can well see someone these days enrolling on a programming course and being slightly taken aback when presented with their first view of an IDE or a command line.
Now, I'm not living in the UK at the moment, so I guess I'm not really qualified to talk about the way that ICT is taught there, and I'm not well enough acquainted with the details of ICT eduction in Ireland, either. But the reports that more and more computing lessons are heading towards teaching basic office skills are a little worrying. It's not that people don't need the ability to use the word processor / spreadsheet / office suite du jour, but it would be great to see other classes available for people who really do want to stretch themselves. There are plenty of resources on the web these days - with many kids it might just take a small push in the right direction, and boom - we have another killer app developer in the running.
It sounds like we might be moving in the right direction at last though, with a few new initiatives kicking around to try and get children interested in the reality of computer science from a younger age, and I really do believe that one of the ways to do that is to show them how easy it is to get started. Show how quickly you can put together a web page. Write a little java program to print stuff out on screen or a simple game. Try and get hold of some of the old computer controlled Lego Technic, or - better yet - the new Mindstorms NXT. Given the choice between working on a spreadsheet and teaching a robot to walk? I know which one I'd choose.
People keep talking about the knowledge economy. We've got to make sure that we create a generation who are going to be up to creating that knowledge, not just using the fruits of it.
Remember, sometimes all it takes to spark an interest is two lines of code. (Though next time, please don't use GOTO. Bad habits and all that ;-) )
Tuesday, 3 January 2012
Resolutions or revolutions
So, like everyone else in the world (approximately), I made a resolution over New Year's to keep this blog more up to date with exciting new things that I find out over the year.
However, I'm going to be realistic about this one: there are a whole load of other things that really need to be sorted out before I can get on with any projects that might interest people reading a technology and coding blog. It's going to be at least a month before any real work gets done on the great big board game project and --
Look! It's a distraction!
Maybe a photograph of a shark will keep people happy enough while I get round to writing a real post. In the mean time, feel free to not watch this space till the end of January ;-)
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