Today was the first day of OSCON for me. The keynote was good. Seems like the emphasis is on parallelism this year. Interesting how a theme seems to emerge each conference (and I don’t think it is intentional).Intel’s Threading Building Blocks looks like a great project. I hadn’t seen anything about it until today. I picked up the O’Reilly book as well. I like the idea of thinking in terms of tasks instead of threads. I think it is a much more natural programming model.Microsoft Research’s Simon Peyton Jones had a related presentation on applying transactional concepts to in-memory programming structures. The concepts are very similar to relational database methods. It seemed that this is limited to Haskell right now. Hopefully, MSR will expand it to C/C++ (and open source it).Two talks stood out for me. The first was Google Gears presented by Aaron Boodman. I know this wasn’t news for many out there but it was the first time I saw it in depth. It is much more interesting than I thought. The Javascript worker thread piece alone could be very useful. I think it would be very intriguing on devices like iPhone.The other talk I liked was about Puppet. Puppet is about solving the problem where a command is run in a loop remotely on a collection of servers. The next phase is to establish a repository for sharing configuration recipes. This is a critical piece to reduce the barrier to entry of setting up Puppet.
I’m packing and getting prepared to go to Portland for OSCON 2007. This is probably my favorite conference I regularly attend. Unlike the big corporate sponsored events like Microsoft’s PDC or Apple’s WWDC, I never feel like I am having stuff shoved down my throat. I like that I can walk out a talk and if I am motivated enough, I could be a contributor to that project. Something very cool about that.I wasn’t going to go this year until I looked at the lineup of talks. There were too many I wanted to hear for me not to go. I’m particularly interested in hearing Mark Shuttleworth’s keynote. I’m a fan of Ubuntu but I’ve never heard him speak. Ubuntu is fascinating to me how it did some things differently and achieved so much success so quickly.
I went to hear Grady Booch speak tonight in Bellevue. The topic was development tools and where they are going. He is a good speaker and the talk was enjoyable but I found myself questioning some of his conclusions. He gave a nice history of development environments and how we as developers have been moving up the stack and putting more and more into the tools themselves. His conjecture is that the next round is something he called Collabrative Development Environments (CDE).
I think there are a couple problems with the CDE model he outlined. First, it was nearly entirely composed of elements we can get from elsewhere. These are things like wikis, IM, social networks, and even telepresence like Second Life. These things are not specific to developers and are being absorbed more into our general usage of computers. I don’t know if he is saying these will be merged into a mega product or what. I shudder to think about something like Eclipse or Visual Studio including IM, wikis, and a Second Life window.
Overall, it was a nice enough talk. He played to the Microsofties in the crowd too much and his bias towards Rational heavy tools was there. But he’s a fun speaker and I did agree with his emphasis on solving more of the human communication issues.
So I bought an iPhone. It cost me a lot of money because I had to cancel my T-Mobile contract early. I got sucked into the hype and have an uncontrollable weakness for the latest gadget. In short, Apple has robbed me again.But I love the thing. It’s not without its faults but it changes the game so completely. This past weekend, my wife and I went to Victoria BC for our 13th anniversary. I tend to bring my laptop on all my trips even when I don’t really need it. This time, I just brought the iPhone. It is perfectly suited for use when traveling. I used it on the boat up to Victoria (with Edge connectivity nearly the entire time). It’s much easier to use in tight spaces and frankly is better as a media player than a laptop. We used the map feature to plot out our restaurant reservation from our hotel. Granted, I was trying to find things to use it for but it fit what we were doing. I could stay on top of messages if I had to and surf a little as well.It changes how we will think of computing devices. It advances user interface unlike anything since the Macintosh came out in 1984. Everything on the iPhone feels alive. Animation is used very effectively. Your attention is nearly always focused on the task at hand. I was extremely skeptical of the touch screen. No longer. It just works. Typing will take some getting used to and there are a few tweaks I hope they will add. But it won’t take more than another week to be fluid on it.This is where computing devices are headed - extremely capable appliances instead of general purpose machines. I believe there will be a time when fewer people will want a full featured computer. They will want something that just works. Think Tivo, Xbox, iPod, iPhone. Not Windows, not even OS X. Something tuned to the task they want to do. There will always be the developer/technology aficionado that will be the realm of the general purpose machine. But the rest of the population should really say enough is enough, give me something that works.The iPhone is overpriced and underpowered. It will pale in comparison to what comes next. Just like the 1984 Macintosh. Right now though, it is the first computing device in years to feel like it is pushing us into the future and not repackaging the past. It is going to challenge everyone that has anything to do with software to think a little more about user interface and economy of presentation.I wish I could work on one thing as cool as the iPhone during my career. Most of us will never create something this disruptive or industry altering. To those Apple (and AT&T) employees who created it - this is an amazing achievement. You deserve all the praise that is being given. Ignore the criticism. There is more jealousy in it than anything else. You will be able to look back on this as a pivotal point in computing. Congratulations and thanks for pushing the rest of us into a new line of thinking.
I’ve signed up for my next distance ride - Summit to Surf in Oregon on July 28. This one is a 48 mile ride from Government Camp on Mt. Hood down to Hood River.
It starts with a climb 1852 ft. up Barlow Pass to Bennett Pass then a drop 5744 ft. down to Hood River. At least the climb will be early in the trip this time. I think it will be a blast.
I’ve started to train again with some urgency. I have been riding 15-20 mile rides 3 or 4 times a week for about two weeks now. I have three primary rides I’ve been doing. The first is the Mercer Island loop where most of the ride is a steady climb around the back side of the island. I’ve cut about 3 minutes off the ride in the past two weeks.
Next, I have an easier loop from my house in Sammamish to Beaver Lake and back again. This one has a short steep climb in and out of our neighborhood and a medium climb on the way home. The third regular ride is from my house in Sammamish down Inglewood Hill to East Lake Sammamish and into Redmond. This is about an hour and features a pretty good climb up Inglewood Hill on the way home. The elevation change is about 600 ft so it is about 1/3 of the climb on the Mt. Hood ride.
I was already going to be in Portland for OSCON so extending the stay for the ride was an easy call. Hopefully, the weather isn’t too brutal. Portland is at least 5°C warmer than here. This week is going to be tough on training and not just because of the heat. The pollution this morning was awful. Never thought that would be a factor in Seattle.
