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Linkdump for January 15th

by Rob Friesel
  • Filling in Python’s gaps in statistics packages with Rmagic
    Randal S. Olson on Rmagic, a tool that allows you to execute R code more/less from within your Python scripts:

    Rmagic lets me pass my data to R, run the R function on the data, then seamlessly return the data back to Python before I start having nightmares about using R again.

    I think he may be a little hard on R here, but there's a strong case for using a library like Rmagic to bridge the gaps between these two languages depending on what your toolkit's needs are.

    (tagged: R Python Rmagic )
  • Groovy style and language feature guidelines for Java developers
    If you want to write idiomatic Groovy, this here is a treat. (Would have liked a little table of contents at the top, but that's just me.)
    (tagged: Groovy )
  • Web Developer Checklist
    Looks like a pretty good checklist.
    (tagged: webdev )
  • Make tests read like a book
    By Wolfram Kriesing, writing at the uxebu blog. A details post about using custom matchers in Jasmine, and a good case study in why, if you're already going to the effort of writing the tests, that you should go all the way and write sensible test names, and have those test reports make sensible reports when things go wrong.
    (tagged: JavaScript testing Jasmine )
  • A gentle & conceptual introduction to Node.js
    By Ben Sheldon. Not the first blog post to take on this discussion, but a good one. He gets into enough of the technical details to make it worthwhile, and I appreciated his points around "why not".
    (tagged: JavaScript Node.js )

Linkdump for January 7th

by Rob Friesel

books of 2012

by Rob Friesel

See also: the 2012 reading timeline.

2012

Where the Sidewalk Ends: Poems and Drawings
Cloud Atlas
Martin the Warrior
Bash Cookbook: Solutions and Examples for Bash Users
We are in a Book!
Hadoop: The Definitive Guide
The Lord of the Rings
Beginning Java 7
Wastelands
Federations
Neanderthal
The Cardinal of the Kremlin
Animal Farm
Grendel
Embassytown
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
The Intuitionist
Against a Dark Background
The Joy of Clojure



Rob’s favorite books »

Linkdump for January 3rd

by Rob Friesel
  • Testing Grails – A Collection of Useful Resources
    Compiled by Tomás Lin. Some familiar, some new, some practically useless, some awesome.
    (tagged: testing Grails )
  • What We’ve Really Lost to the Fiscal Cliff: A Sense of Form
    Nancy Scola, writing for The Atlantic:

    But the approval of the Sunday-night resolution suggests that, no matter what happens in the next few days, Congress can't succeed — that, in fact, it has already failed. Congress now operates in a such a state of continual chaos that transparency has become an impossibility and success is defined only by the endpoint — reaching a deal. Lost in the frantic, last-minute cramming of legislation onto the calendar is the notion that successful legislating might require that members of Congress show their work.

    Sobering.

    Also: I'm not totally sure where she was going w/r/t/ likening Congress to a software API; it's an interesting thought experiment, but it distracts from her original point–that the system has become opaque to the detriment of all.

    That they've come together on a sucky deal at the last minute and need to retroactively apply it… These are not heroic measures.

    (tagged: politics )
  • bootup.js
    I haven't tried this out yet, but the idea is interesting and seems simple enough: cache and load static resources from localStorage. (Not that this is really what localStorage is "for", but if nothing else an intriguing hack.)
    (tagged: bootup.js static assets localStorage JavaScript )
  • Low-stress Inbox
    Good advice from Tim Bray. I have a pretty similar system: ruthless deletion, immediate (if terse) replies wherever possible, then mark everything else read and "flag" anything left over that still needs to be dealt with. (Bet you forgot all about your email client's "flag" feature, didn't you?)
    (tagged: productivity email )
  • Don’t Make Your Code "More Testable"
    Gregory Moeck:

    We've become focused on our making things "testable" rather than using our tests to learn about our design.

    tl;dr: "More testable" is not better if everywhere you turn, someone else is looking at you saying "this is really confusing".

    (tagged: testable code )

review: JavaScript Enlightenment

by Rob Friesel

JavaScript Enlightenmenttl;dr: It’s a 150 page essay on auto-boxing, full of dangerous code examples and anti-patterns and soft warnings to “not do what I just did”, and some of the wording is not-wrong-but-not-quite-right, but hey there are some decent parts, I guess.

Cody Lindley’s JavaScript Enlightenment (O’Reilly, 2012) has an awesome title, and I wanted very much to like it–but I think I’m going to have a hard time recommending it to anyone. Maybe.

Lindley states that the target audience for his book is (effectively) JavaScript dilettantes. In his words:

…it is my hope that the material in this book will transform you from a JavaScript library user into a JavaScript developer.

I interpretted that statement to mean that he is looking at the designers and the junior developers and the programmers coming at JavaScript from other languages–all the ones out there that have been using jQuery and/or ExtJS and/or Dojo with effectiveness (or at least competence) and now they’re interested in digging into the guts of their favorite library, and perhaps even getting their heads around that thorny beast called JavaScript. Continue reading →

2013 Goals

by Rob Friesel

After six years, 1 I’m comfortable calling this a tradition: setting some personal goals (“not resolutions”) for the new year. Call me weird, but it makes me feel more comfortable going into the year–like having a map by which to steer.

Looking back over the past couple of years, I’ve noticed that there are a couple of items that always turn up on these lists. Some are about reading, or else writing, or else exercise. Reflecting on them, I realize that they are turning up there for a reason — these are places where I need to be motivated. 2 And/but: I’m going to try to shoe-horn some other items onto the list this year. That’s what it means to push yourself, right? Continue reading →

  1. See also: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012.[↩]
  2. Translation: “publicly shamed if I fall down”.[↩]

search term haiku: December 2012

by Rob Friesel

define “trophy wife”
headless JavaScript testing
ultra paradox!

“Search Term Haiku” is a series wherein I examine this site’s log files and construct one or more haiku poems from search terms and phrases that led visitors to the site. Where possible, I attempt to keep the search phrases intact. However, as these are haiku poems, I do need to follow the rules.

2012 Personal Goals: year end wrap-up

by Rob Friesel

2012: that’s a wrap!

In a personal tradition going back to 2007, I set goals (“not resolutions”) for myself for the year, trying to stick to so-called “SMART” goals. The original 2012 goals post was here, and yes: I’ve been keeping track. 1 As the year closes, it is time to reflect upon those goals once again, and to see how much I’ve managed to accomplish. Continue reading →

  1. Check-in posts: Q1, Q2, and Q3.[↩]

Linkdump for December 27th

by Rob Friesel

Linkdump for December 24th

by Rob Friesel
  • Huddle/PhantomCSS
    More awesome stuff you can do with PhantomJS:

    CSS regression testing. An integration of js-imagediff with PhantomJS and CasperJS for automating visual regression testing and test coverage of Website styling to support refactoring of CSS.

    (tagged: testing CSS PhantomJS JavaScript )
  • Complexity Analysis of JavaScript Code
    Ariya Hidayat, on the JSComplexity tool. The briefest of overviews, but it sounds worth checking out.
    (tagged: JSComplexity Ariya Hidayat JavaScript )
  • using javascript templates
    Garann Means on JavaScript templates. I feel like it's pretty safe to say at this point that she's become one of the field's experts on the subject. I don't agree with every point (sometimes it is totally appropriate to just return some mark-up to your XHR (and/but she's arguing in the comment thread that she "didn’t exactly say that" but anyway…)) but it's a great post. And I think it certainly accomplishes the stated goal: to provide a semi-canonical front-to-back post on how to use JavaScript templates.
    (tagged: Garann Means templates JavaScript )
  • Highly Available Real Time Push Notifications and You
    Joshua Cohen (writing at the Flickr dev blog) breaks down some of the details about the new push notification services for the new Flickr mobile app. I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise that they're using Node.js to power the service. It's a pretty long post, but it's worthwhile for the details.
    (tagged: Node.js Flickr )
  • Alien Planets 2012: Year’s Most Exciting Exoplanet Discoveries
    By Nola Taylor Redd, writing at Huff Post Science. The funny thing is: I remember when they announced the discovery of the first exoplanet and how big of a deal that was. And now it's like… "How *weird* is the exoplanet?" and/or "OK great — but is it at all like Earth?"
    (tagged: exoplanet astronomy )