Mike Clark looks at some of the nifty parts of Active Record. As an aside, I realize this post happened almost a month ago.
One of the very nice things about AR is the amount of control you can have. If you are only doing CRUD-type queries, AR handles everything for you. If you need something a bit more complex, it allows you to step in and do what you need to. It would be nice to get Hibernate to this level.
Now, don't think I am picking on Hibernate. After using it exclusively on a project, I enjoy it greatly. But I see all of the setup that needs to happen before it can be used. It would seemingly be a very good idea to wrap most of that into a pre-configured package which would read the existing domain model and work accordingly.
My former co-worker, Leonard has ported his Python BeautifulSoup library to Ruby. Very interesting.
I picked up Cold Granite last weekend and finished it yesterday. A good police procedure book which kept my interest and kept the clues coming until the final climax.
I found out about it via the author's blog which was linked from other crime fiction writers.
Here's an excerpt.
C. Max over at The Millions points to an interesting looking upcoming book, In the Province of Saints by Thomas O'Malley. I read the excerpts and it will probably get on my TBR pile once it is released.
Check out the new feature from PubSub. This could be something very useful for fantasy players. I wonder if they'll do it for football as well.
Really, if you love a writer, then do yourself a favor, do them a favor, and say it with me loudly here:Buy. The. Damn. Book.
A look at the events in London through the eyes of someone who grew up during The Troubles...
FB: The sound and the vibrations of the typewriter are virtually gone now, and I realize that since your stroke you may be writing a different way now, but up until that time, was the feel and the sound of the typewriter machine an important part of the writing experience for you?RB: I think it is, but I suppose if you’re used to the computer, it doesn’t make any difference. After all, the pencil and paper, or a pen and paper, are quiet too, so you can write just as well. It doesn’t matter how you write, just as long as you write. So you don’t need the sound, but it’s very nice.
Cubs open up with the Pirates at Wrigley. Prior throws today and Wood tomorrow. Hopefully, both can get into a good rhythm and let the winning streak continue.
The short story, Tony Takitani by Murakami is being made into a movie. It should be interesting to see how Murakami's work transfer from the page to the screen. [ via ]
Interesting article about Old Trafford and Manchester United. Parts of it seem condescending towards fans where other parts show a deep respect for the team and their history.
Maybe things are really different over here, I think. Maybe I had it all wrong. Maybe all sports fans and sports owners are not the same. Maybe it is a big deal that an American tycoon now owns Manchester United. Maybe we're not all the same. Maybe some teams should be above the almighty dollar.
Does anyone else think that there would have been bombs in New York or Paris if they would have been given the 2012 Olympics ? I do.
Dan Wickett asks about how one reads a short story collection.
I generally start from the beginning and follow to the end as if it was a novel. A larger collection will generally cause me to read a couple of stories at a time in the midst of anything else I'm reading.
The feelings are quite mutual...
But it really comes down to me realizing that I haven’t put forth the effort one must to achieve one’s goals. Quite simply, I was lazy. There’s nobody to blame but myself. Maybe it took the rapid approaching milestone of turning three decades old for me to open my eyes and see that my dream of being a successful writer takes effort. There’s no way I’ll wake up one morning with my burgeoning dreams a reality unless I do something about it. Namely, I have to get myself doing the word dance when I have a free moment, rather than taking the easy way out and flipping on some mindless videogames or throwing on a movie.
Jason talks about Snow Crash and the ideas it has inside.
I had this wild idea last year to put together a comparison of the technology in Snow Crash and what we have now. I think Neal Stephenson was pretty close on many, many things.
Gwenda Bond gives the word that Kelly Link's collection of short stories, Stranger Things Happen, has been released under one of the Creative Commons license and is available for download.