Donald Knuth Interview
I came across this fascinating Donald Knuth interview via Artima. A couple of snippets to pique your interest, one on the subject of open source software:
[...] I think that a few programs, such as Adobe Photoshop, will always be superior to competitors like the Gimp—for some reason, I really don’t know why! I’m quite willing to pay good money for really good software [...]
And his opinon of reuse, with which I wholeheartedly agree:
I also must confess to a strong bias against the fashion for reusable code. To me, "re-editable code" is much, much better than an untouchable black box or toolkit. I could go on and on about this. If you’re totally convinced that reusable code is wonderful, I probably won’t be able to sway you anyway, but you’ll never convince me that reusable code isn’t mostly a menace.
Other interesting topics he touches on include multi-core processor architectures and XP. Happy reading!
Fresh Xbox 360 Blu-ray Rumors
Various news sites have been reporting on new information about a possible Blu-ray console from Microsoft. Quote from Tom's Hardware (my emphasis):
The PS3 had the ability to draw both gamers and audio/video enthusiast, and this was proving to be a major advantage over its XBOX rival. It is estimated that 85% of Blu-ray players in use are PS3s.
Many expected the death of HD-DVD would trigger a growth in Blu-ray hardware sales. However, to the dismay of the industry, acceptance and adoption of Blu-ray has been dismal.
In a previous post I speculated that it is unlikely for the Xbox to get a Blu-ray add-on. But the recent spike in PS3 sales might have convinced Microsoft to update their optical drives.
The trouble with Blu-ray right now is that it is still of marginal benefit to the majority of consumers out there, thus prices of both hardware and software (well, physical media really) will remain high for some time. The only serious buyers right now are the home theater enthusiasts and Microsoft will have to address quite a few issues to please this group of people.
The biggest issue with the current Xbox 360 in the context of home theater is the amount of noise generated. A transition to a newer chip fabrication process could do a lot to reduce the need for active cooling; a potential Blu-ray transport mechanism would also have to be quieter than the current DVD drives. Another issue I see with the HT crowd is the Xbox remote - it is nowhere near as slick as the Sony Blu-ray remote. And that's before we even consider the substantially bigger pull of the Sony brand when it comes to home electronics.
It remains to be seen whether the entire range will be updated or if only a high-end model will get the Blu-ray treatment. Xbox 360 games are released on regular DVD, so I suspect Microsoft will want to keep their price advantage at the low end and stick to DVD drives for the Arcade/Core consoles.
The big question, is are there enough HD afficionados out there who have been holding out for a Blu-ray Xbox that don't already have a PS3? (Or at least would be keen to trade their existing 360 for a Blu-ray model?)
Update: Taiwanese trade press reports on an updated 65nm Xbox GPU being manufactured on behalf of Microsoft. With last year's 65nm CPU revision, this should finally make the Xbox 360 a cooler (and hopefully quieter) beast.
Uncle Bob’s upcoming book: Clean Code
Awesome - finally something to bash people on the head with when they write ugly code! 
(Ok, the "code smells" from Refactoring are a good start too but this seems more pedagogic in nature.) There are a lot of technical books out there, but few focus on good general practices. One of my favourites is Effective Java by Joshua Bloch, but it's focus is slightly more architectural and less on day-to-day coding. I love Bob Martin's writing so I didn't have to look long at the table of contents to order my copy as soon as it's available!
Office Open XML Standardised; Does It Matter Anymore?
Many might wish that this was a bad April Fools joke, but Microsoft has at last managed to push OOXML through as an ISO standard. The New York Times reports that an overwhelming majority of voters supported the notion with only 10 countries' standards bodies voting against (Brazil, Canada, China, Cuba, Ecuador, India, Iran, New Zealand, South Africa, and Venezuela).
The main problem with OOXML is that it is a hugely complicated specification (the document is nearly 10 times bigger than ODF and there are doubts as to whether it is complete); aside from the fact that it is riddled with bugs, legacy workarounds and potential patent traps for competitors, not even Microsoft currently ships a working implementation of the standard. So it is hard to imagine anyone writing new OOXML-compatible software just for the fun of it.
As Joel Spolsky explains, the reason why Microsoft's binary Office formats are so complicated to start with is that they are just binary serialized forms of Microsoft's proprietary OLE object model. The OOXML standard describes how to store the same structures but this time serialized in XML instead. Sometimes a fresh start is the best course of action.
The benefit of open interfaces in computer systems is much the same the same as in real life. Take the common electrical plug for instance - it allows for a multitude of devices to be plugged into a multitude of sockets to draw power. You can be fairly certain that any one device will operate correctly plugged into any one of the vast numbers of sockets out there. And this is where the plug analogy becomes relevant - your valuable data becomes locked in, and only available via Microsoft's proprietary and commercial sockets.
From a developer's point of view, I think the standard is largely irrelevant. There are few incentives to support the format besides the creation of conversion tools. Simplicity has always been key in ICT and there is no reason to select OOXML in places where previously a custom format might have been used.
The danger of having OOXML accepted as an ISO standard is that Microsoft can and will use it as an argument in favor of selling Office into governments and companies concerned about the portability of their data. Of course in practice, with Microsoft being the only supplier of OOXML tools, the data is no better off than it was stored in their undocumented binary formats. Undoubtedly, Microsoft will also try to use its new-found standards compliance as a defense against monopoly accusations.
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 Beta Now Publically Available
It was only a matter of time - Adobe Systems has countered Apple's release of Aperture 2 by offering a beta version of its upcoming competitor for anyone to download. The original beta testing program leading up to the release of Photoshop Lightroom 1.0 was a huge success by gathering useful user feedback while introducing digital photographers to a new breed of image processing tools.
Although it carries the Photoshop branding, Lightroom is mostly clean-room a implementation borrowing some concepts from Adobe Bridge and reusing the Camera Raw engine. The original beta release of Photoshop Lightroom (called just Lightroom at the time) also trailed the first release of Apple's Aperture. Both have completely redefined the "digital darkroom" by offering a streamlined solution for digital photographers, although arguably Lightroom has had a bigger impact by reaching both Mac and Windows users.
Notably, the Lightroom 2.0 beta adds two much-requested capabilities: multi-monitor support and localized adjustments. The former has always been present in Apple's offering, while the latter was recently introduced in Aperture 2.1. Apple still has an important advantage in that it offers 3rd party plugin SDK which allows independent developers to offer their image processing add-ons. For virtually all photographers, this would mean that the need to occasionally switch to a more powerful program such as Adobe's Photoshop CS3 for a small subset of retouching features is now eliminated.
So have a look at the release notes, and get downloading! More impressions to follow soon.
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