Tuesday, October 01, 2002

On TCL I'm rewriting the OpenACS stack to run from the tcl interpreter,  andI've been pretty psyched by how easy everything has been.  In TCL,  the only meaningful language construct you need to deal with is the command. You have no interfaces to implement,  no base classes to worryabout.  Just redefine a command,  and you've completely overloaded all the times that command is called in the application.  This makesa huge difference when taking on a large-scale code-base like OpenACS.  To reimplement a keyword,  I just need to worry about what it returns. It's tempting in other languages to factor functionality into a hierarchy, and TCL has a similar paradigm,  but one that's much simpler especially with respect to implementing stub classes.  Everywhere you look things are very flat architecturally,  and you don't have to scratch very far to understand what's going on.   [I'm looking this over thinking ("Hey,aren't I just describing a functional language?")] Anyway,  the missing link in making my job still easier would be regression tests for the commands I'm re-implementing. Without them, all this flat hierarchy means that it's really easy to break a lot of things without trying very hard, especially given TCL's everything-is-a-string paradigm.  I would love to be able to run a script and _know_ that what I had done was "correct".  Somework has been done on this for OpenACS,  but it seems like most people are more interested in developing frameworks than actually writing tests. I'm going to try to avoid reimplementing a framework and go with tcltest, which is included in the core distribution. I've got the auto-installer working and am going to work on writing up installation instructions so that other people can play with what I've done.   5:31:19 PM      comment []  trackback []

Open Source Insecurity? There is an article on the cover of this week's eWeek with the above title. It talks about how recent vulnerabilities in OSS call into question it's reputation as being more secure than non-OSS. That seems like quite a leap in logic. I have had to update my e-smith/mitel firewall appliciance with exactly one security vulnerability this year, compared to about 8-15 different Windows critical updates on the many different VMs I've got running. I think it's important not to forget that even in the fantasy world where Red Hat or any other open source company becomes on par with Microsoft in terms of relative market share, you will not have the current monoculture vulnerabilities because hundreds of companies like Mitel (and now HP and Sun) will still come in and tweak the software for a narrow purpose, be it firewall, intr*net server, Digital VCR/jukebox etc. 5:14:55 PM      comment []  trackback []

LandLine Woes I'm getting a huge amount of static on my land line. My condominium is ina turn-of-the-century triple decker in Cambridge, MA and the friendly telephone-repair person who just visited said that the wiring is much older than me or him.I've been messing around with net2phone as a temporary replacement until my electrician buddy can come over and help me run a new line to the junction box While I know this would be a good opportunity to use a cellphone, but I've maxxed out my #$! "anytime" minutes this month and now pay $0.40/minute. grrrr. I was surprised how well it sounded.  I would love to move over to IP telephony completely - integration with my PIM, auto-forwarding calls to different numbers based on schedule,  logging/transcribing calls based on whether it's legal,  IM-notifying me when important messages come in, filtering out spammers (!) and/or auto-unsubscribing me from call lists etc. but I think my list of IP Telephony features is still a dream for theSOHO-user.  net2phone can dial and doesn't sound horrible,  butthat's about it.  It's only other 'feature' beyond voice calling is stealth-installing lots of adware (double grrrrr).  Not recommended unless you call overseas or your landline and cell phones die simultaneously. 5:05:48 PM      comment []  trackback []

Mondrian - Java-based OLAP Mondrian is a java-based, open source olap server that aims to support MS's MDX. What a combination! 3:58:24 PM      comment []  trackback []

*The sweet nirvana of UPnP* [Link ] /E.g., your UPnP PVR is on a net with your UPnP phone (they're both coming). They know about each other, thanks to UPnP. Phone rings, PVR pauses automatically and puts up caller ID. You pick up the phone, talk, hang up, PVR starts again. Your washing machine tells you it's time to switch the load over, not only on the TV, but on your UPnP Zaurus or iPaq (reality today), or perhaps your electronic picture frame. You want to listen to your MP3 library from your home server. Easy. Your iPaq, Zaurus, stereo receiver, anything, knows in advance how to search for media sources, get a list of titles available, and start spooling it down. Click and go./ I know it's coming, but is it coming like video-on-demand and fuel-cell cars? Or like smaller digital cameras with greater resolution? 3:58:22 PM      comment []  trackback []