Category Archives: uncategorized

A bit late, but here’s my post about the third and final day of REAL World 2007.

I started the day with “Unit Testing and Test-Driven Development” by Paul Lefebvre. It was a good session, and I always feel like I should be using unit testing more than I currently do (which is to say, not a lot), but I have trouble thinking up good unit tests for my apps. Oh, well, something to think about, I suppose.

I followed that session with “Data Mining and Content Management Techniques” by Jarvis Joyce. To be quite honest, I didn’t get a lot of new information out of the session, but then that’s the kind of stuff I do all the time. I guess I was hoping for more specific tips and tricks that I could use. But Jarvis did a good job of providing an overview of data mining techniques, and I don’t want to sound like the session wasn’t full of good information.

Lunch was comprised of barbecued beef brisket and warm peach cobbler. There was some other stuff available, but I didn’t care because the brisket and the cobbler rocked.

After lunch, the first session I took in was “Planning, Implementing and Supporting Cross-Platform Business Applications” by John Callis. John has a lot of experience in that realm, and he gave us some really good info. His presentation ended early, however, and the remaining time was filled with a demo of the Monkey Bread plugins by Christian Schmitz. That was interesting, as I ‘ve never invested in the Monkey Bread plugin suite. I’m not sure why. I guess I’ve found another way to do everything I’ve needed to do, despite their huge feature list and impressive capabilities. Maybe someday when I hit a wall.

The final session I attended was “Building a Web Application in REALbasic” by Joe Strout. One word review: wow. The demo gave me the same tingly feeling I got the first time I tried REALbasic. Joe really developed a wonderful framework, and then went and released it to the public domain. Brilliant and altruistic. I’ll likely be spending quite a bit of time with his sample project in the coming weeks and months.

After all the sessions had ended, most of us gathered for the final feedback session with Geoff and the other REAL Software employees. I’m constantly impressed at their willingness to stand in front of a crowd and solicit feedback, both positive and negative. And believe me, they get both every year!

Lastly, a dozen or so of us who didn’t have planes to catch until the morning wandered down to the Iron Cactus for one final meal together. We spoke of a great many things until we parted ways for another year.

All in all, this was the best REAL World yet. Maybe I’m just biased because I got to do three sessions, but it was a blast. Looking forward to next year already.

And Day Two is at an end.

Dave and I woke up to two pleasant surprises this morning. First, the sessions didn’t begin until 10:00, giving us an extra hour to catch up with some other conference attendees. Second, they served a hot breakfast this morning (normally, it’s just danish and fruit, which is also great, but today they added eggs, potatoes, sausage, and bacon).

Anyway, I was running pretty ragged this morning. There were two sessions before lunch, and I was presenting for both of them. I started with my database session, which I thought went really well. My biggest problem was that I had so much information to share that I ended up rushing at the end to squeeze everything in. But it was still a lot of fun. The people who attended asked lots of great of questions and I had a great time. But then, I could talk for weeks on end about databases and not get bored. Next year, I’m going to pitch it as two separate sessions. There’s more than enough material for that.

“Cross-Platform Interface Tricks” was my second session. To be totally honest, I was extremely nervous going into it, even more so when I saw some of the REALbasic community’s heavy hitters in the crowd. But it turned out great. I wasn’t too sure about how it went, but afterward, I got a lot of compliments on the session and some people told me they really learned a lot. My favorite comment was from someone who told me that I was the first conference presenter he’d ever heard who pronounced Gnome (the window manager) correctly.

Then we broke for lunch: cold sandwiches. Conversation topics at our table included computer forensics, solid state drives, computer-generated music, DNA-generated music, and school security.

After lunch I was going to sit in on Marco’s REAL SQL Server session, but the room was so crowded that I headed over to Bryan Lunduke’s session on Designing for Linux instead, which turned out to be really interesting. I don’t know if Tangelo has a future on Linux, but I’m pretty sure Kodiak could. After that, I sat in on Keith DeLong’s most excellent session on report printing. Unfortunately, I couldn’t stay for the second half, because I was scheduled to teach my third session of the day.

That session was on open source licensing. I blazed through my slides in about thirty minutes, which was way faster than I’d expected, but we ended up having some really good discussions about various open source and copyright issues, including some talk about the upcoming GPL 3.

I wrapped up the day with Mike Woodworth’s session on optimization, which was also very good. Mike is a really smart guy and an engaging presenter.

After a break, we all gathered for dinner here at the Omni, then we had a trivia contest and a time for socializing. I snuck away for a while to video chat with my family, but we kept getting messages about not having enough bandwidth. Stupid wireless. Anyway, Dave and I got to spend some time chatting with Geoff Perlman and Matt Quagliana. I’m always amazed at what down-to-earth people REAL Software is made up of.

Speaking of Geoff, I forgot to mention one very important thing in last night’s post. After Trish Murphy’s band finished their set, they brough Geoff up on stage to play drums for a rockin’ cover of “You Really Got Me” by The Kinks (one of my all-time favorite bands, of course). Geoff was really great on the kit. The best part is that you can watch the whole thing on YouTube (please excuse the weird sculpture of the naked blue chick behind the drumset).

I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s sessions, especially Joe Strout’s session on developing web apps. I’m kinda sad the conference will be ending tomorrow, since it’s such fun, but at the same time, I’m really looking forward to getting home to my family.

Getting ready to teach my three sessions at REAL World today. Wish me luck!

Nah, look forget the luck. Wish me skill.

The first complete of day REAL World 2007 is drawing to a close. The morning opened with Geoff’s keynote, some customer keynotes, and a keynote from Paul MacKay of Novell. Rather than rehash everything here, I’ll direct you to the transcript that Joe Strout wrote up. You can find it Stubb’s for some good old Texas BBQ and entertainment from Trish Murphy. Should be a fun evening!

Well, I’m back from Stubb’s and I have this to report:
1) The BBQ was excellent.
2) Trish Murphy and her band were fantastic.

That is all.

This has to be one of the best headlines ever:
Skywalkers in Korea Cross Han Solo
Especially for a story that has nothing at all to do with Star Wars. I mean, ambulance wow. Somebody really put some thought into one.

And so it has begun again. This morning I woke up in Lancaster, rode to Harrisburg (courtesy of Tom), flew to Pittsburgh (who has free wifi in the airport), flew to Newark, and finally flew to Austin. All for REAL World 2007.

Not much to report so far. My flights were quiet and uneventful, which, incidentally, is exactly how I prefer them.

I did the early registration tonight and hung to chat with Stephen, Norman, Aaron, Bill, Jon, Asher, and a few other guys. Dave finally got in from his flight around 9:00, at which point we walked around 6th Street for a while before getting pizza, since neither of us had had supper).

Then we watched a couple episodes of The Office and now I’m about to go to bed.

Tomorrow starts off with Geoff’s keynote, followed by a customer keynote (not sure what that’s about), and then another keynote by some dude from Novell (almost certainly about Linux). Should be interesting.

I’m not sure quite sure what to expect from the announcements this year, although there are a few things I’m hoping for, namely Cocoa and Swordfish. Swordfish was supposed to ship in 2005 and Cocoa was supposed to ship in 2006. I understand things change, and I know RS got pounded pretty hard by Apple’s Intel switch. But I could really use both of these technologies.

I imagine Geoff will really drive home the fact that REALbasic 2007 R2 was built with REALbasic 2007 R1. That’s great news, and certainly worth bragging about.

Otherwise, I’m not sure what we’ll hear tomorrow, but I’ll post here when I know more.

You know, I really like my iPod. I like listening to it, and playing games on it, and managing my contacts and appointments with it.

And you know, I really like my George Foreman Grill. I’m into low-carb, so the GFG is a very convenient way to cook up some leftover steak or chicken at lunch.

I can’t say I’ve ever felt like the two belonged together.

But then I suppose I’m not as innovative as some people.

Introducing the iGrill: ten whole watts of audio goodness for $150, including a grill.

For the discerning fan of both meat and music.

From Browser Wars IV: A New Hope

Luke Spyglass: “How did my father die?”

NCSA Mosaic: “A young web browser named Internet Explorer, who was a derivative of mine until he turned to evil, helped the Emporer hunt down and destroy the W3C standards. He betrayed and murdered your father. IE was seduced by the Dark Side of the internet.”

I’m such a nerd that this is one of the funniest things I’ve read in a while.

No matter which side of the debate you’re on, this is an interesting read: Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church and author of The Purpose Driven Life, and Sam Harris, well-known atheist and author of The End Of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, sit down for a friendly chat about whether or not God exists.

Some choice quotes, taken completely out of context:

Sam Harris: There’s no evidence for such a God, and it’s instructive to notice that we’re all atheists with respect to Zeus and the thousands of other dead gods whom now nobody worships.

Rick Warren: I see the fingerprints of God everywhere. I see them in culture. I see them in law. I see them in literature. I see them in nature. I see them in my own life.

Sam Harris: How is it fair for God to have designed a world which gives such ambiguous testimony to his existence? How is it fair to have created a system where belief is the crucial piece, rather than being a good person?

Rick Warren: We’re both betting. He’s betting his life that he’s right. I’m betting my life that Jesus was not a liar. When we die, if he’s right, I’ve lost nothing. If I’m right, he’s lost everything. I’m not willing to make that gamble.

Sam Harris: I think you could use your time and attention better than organizing your life around a belief that the Bible is the inerrant word of God and the best book we’re ever going to have on every relevant subject.

Rick Warren: You’re more spiritual than you think. You just don’t want a boss. You don’t want a God who tells you what to do.

They both make good points, and they remain civil throughout their dialogue, which is a refreshing change from so much that you see and hear these days.