I've been concerned about the current government's stance on many things, but today Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate was defending the National DNA Database, used by Police to log and search through DNA samples when investigating crimes.
I've been interested in how to recruit really good people for a long time. I started helping in interviews and assessments in my first job after graduating and have been involved heavily in most of my roles since. So this book has been on my reading list for a while and finally made it to the top this holidays - I confess I was looking for some puzzles to counteract the alcohol intake...
This trilogy by Jonathan Stroud consists of The Amulet of Samarkand, The Golem's Eye and Ptolemy's Gate. They chronicle the adventures of a talented young magician called Nathaniel and the witty Djinni Bartimaeus whom Natahaniel has, just, managed to control. The books are set in a magical version of London run by magicians and travels a little to other countries. The other main character who features is Kitty, part of a resistance movement working against the rule of the magicians. Along with the human inhabitants are a suitable number and variety of creatures from the tiny and snivelling ??? to the living clay monster Golems.
I found the first of these book, The Amulet of Samarkand, while looking for something less vacuous than Harry Potter. This trilogy falls into the category of children's fiction also, which sits nicely with my attention span. I waited anxiously for the second and found it well worth the wait - not a copy of the first with different monsters as the Harry Potter series has been so far.
I was introduced to this book several years ago by some Thoughtworkers I had the luck to be working with. After a bit of a dip in my passion for writing software this book really brought back my interest in being professional about writing great stuff.
I was chuffed when the Geek Book Club I started a few months ago decided on it as the first book we should read as a group. It was a second reading for me and I can say that it's just as good second time around. The book is full of sensible explanations of practical tips. Many of them are things that we all know we should do, but somehow don't like "The Cat Ate My Source Code". But other aspects challenge our thinking about some stuff more deeply; like the discussion that ensued around Domain Specific Languages and their good (and bad) uses that our group had while reading Chapter 2.
Ok/Cancel has a great comic this week that I feel points at something more fundamental.
Who "owns" the design. The design, in this posting, being what the application must do and how it should do it. Now, many would say that requirements are written by Analysts, and I would agree, but requirements aren't a design.
I'm at Talis' Insight Conference (I work for Talis) today and tomorrow and so far I'm having a great time.
Our CEO Dave Errington put on a fantastic keynote...
So, each week sometimes I'm posting one of my own photos, sized for use on your desktop. Join in by blogging your own photos and include the phrase [grid::blogpaper] in your post - then everyone can google for them.
This week's BlogPaper is called Peacock and was taken at Warwick Castle:
I've just been catching up on Bruce Schneier's blog and this article on Security following hurricane Katrina made me think about some stuff.
Firstly, he's spot on about security spending. I hope we have time in the UK to change our tack and spend the 3 billion+ planned on ID cards on something more worthwhile.
So, each week sometimes I'm posting one of my own photos, sized for use on your desktop. Join in by blogging your own photos and include the phrase [grid::blogpaper] in your post - then everyone can google for them.
I took this one, along with a good handful more, on a private beach near Lyme Regis. The fossils down there are amazing, but gettig harder and harder to find as they get hunted down and taken home by holiday makers :-(
For a long time I believed what most people in the industry seem to believe - that code re-use is a good thing.
I'm not sure that's the right message any more. Of course I still believe that code re-use is a good thing to aim for, but...