software

I seem to have a recurring conversation these days about C++, and how badly designed it is. Despite knowing the language quite well I cannot defend it, I’ve been programming long enough to have used pre-template compilers and to remember when compilers went through the “C with objects” phase. However any programmer might feel about the language it is damming is that is has never really supplanted C as a replacement language. New C projects are still being started despite it’s lack of OO. Many a major project is still being written in C.

Dutch artist Theo Jansen creates creatures powered by the wind that are able to react to their environment. These amazing creatures are built to live on the beach and are able to store up wind energy and detect when the tide is in. He uses genetic algorithms to evolve new breeds of these animals before building them.

Like many I cannot wait for a better configuration management tool. Possibly the most widely used tool up until recently was CVS (on UNIX at least) and the even worse SourceSafe (on windows). You cannot be overly critical of CVS--- to my mind anyway, it is a child of the eighties, and as so is more than a grandfather to most systems out there. Its popularity has remained because it's free and relatively easy/maintain. Also there is a large body of knowledge from people who have been using it for all these years. In the last few years Subversion has arrived as a CVS replacement--- why subversion should be considered a CVS replacement when no other is is anyone's guess. Little is similar to CVS. There are notable improvements like atomic commits and versioned directories. All make people who have used it not want to convert back to CVS. However, it looks like a product of the 90's. Current research and other systems are much better at handling change and are more suited the way modern teams work. There have been some interesting developments in recent years, that might mean that Subversion will either have to adapt or it will be supplanted by a newer system--- one more suitable to how development is performed now. Two of the most interesting developments are:

Fredrick Brookes Jr, notable for his contributions to Computer Science. Presented a lecture in 2000, just before the publication of Kent Beck's White Book, on interative development. He called it the Design of Design.