Here are the slides from my 2006 Beantown .NET talk on ASP.NET Ajax.

beantown_ajax.ppt (636.5 KB)

Every once in a while I find myself reading a book that makes me feel stupid. As I try to internalize the prose I can’t help but feel a strong sense of regret for not being more adequately prepared.

Then I learn that the book has long been the basis for an “Intro to Programming” course at some college. Did you say intro to programming!? This is usually the part where I start to feel a strong sense of inferiority. :-(

Is the feeling of inferiority enough to make me want to put the book down? Hell no. If anything I’m finding SICP to be one of the most compelling computer books I have ever read. Like the Scheme language itself, SICP is incredibly dense. No reading on autopilot here, folks. You need to be paying attention or you’re going to get nothing out of it. The code examples draw almost exclusively from math. In the first chapter alone the following mathematical concepts are used to “help” teach the reader about computer programming (in general) and Scheme (in particular):

• Newton’s Method
• Fibonacci
• The Golden Ratio
• Euclid’s Algorithm
• Lamé's Theorem
• The Fermat Test (Primes)
• Miller-Rabin Test
• Summation (Sigma)
• Integrals
• Simpson’s Rule
• Fixed Points (Functions)
• Lambda Calculus

The other thing that seems strange at first is that Scheme uses recursion for nearly all processing. I’ve only completed the first chapter, but I have yet to see a “for” or a “while” construct in any of the code.

I know that that some fellow .NET developers might ask “Why are you wasting your time with that?” or “Why aren’t you spending your time learning about Silverlight?” Well I couldn’t really say for sure. I’m a big fan of Paul Graham’s essays, so those are certainly what motivated me to have a look at a Lisp dialect. What’s keeping my interest is the richness and depth of the content. There’s just so much there.

I plan to post more about SICP as I wade my way through it over the next several weeks… or months. I’m going to take my time and savor every head scratching moment. 

If you are Java or C# programmer who is looking for something to expand your mind, you should certainly have a look.

After being dormant for years my blog is finally being resurrected. Wish me luck!

Right now I’m running VS.NET 2003 and Whidbey side by side for some projects that I am working on.  When I popped back into VS.NET 2003 to do some ASP.NET 1.1 stuff the other day I was met with these rather daunting errors.

 

 

 VS.NET output:

 

Auto-attach to process '[3544] aspnet_wp.exe' on machine 'XXXXX' failed. Error code 0x8013134b.

 

Assuming that it had something to do with the fact that I had Framework 2.0 installed, I quickly brought up ASP.NET Version Switcher.  Surely enough the virtual directories for my newly created VS.NET 2003 projects were using version 2.0 of the framework.  Not sure exactly why this was happening or why it was preventing the debugger from attaching, but switching framework versions seemed to do the trick.   Sweet!!!

I’ve been following the writings of Stanford Law professor Lawrence Lessig for many years now.  A copy of his book Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace rests comfortably on my book shelf.  While I don’t always agree with him, I usually will take the time to read his latest blog post or article.  In his latest article for Wired, Dr. Lessig takes aim at a familiar theme.  Namely, how the government is mortgaging the long term future of the country in exchange for short term political gain.  He cites examples ranging from the environment to deficit financing to Iraq.  Lessig takes a pretty tough shot at the “Me Generation” in this excerpt.   

 

The Me Generation - which elected the first two presidents to have actively avoided military service (Clinton and Bush) and which will decide this election, too - is in charge, but it has taken its name much too seriously. Gone is the sense of duty that made so compelling Kennedy's demand "ask what you can do for your country." We don't even ask what we, as a nation, can do for our kids. The rhetoric of self-interest so deeply pervades politics that an ideal as fundamental as building a better future has been lost.

 

The crux of the article is that politicians have no accountability to the future because children (and the not yet born) do not have the power to hold them responsible for decisions that will adversely affect our country in the decades ahead.

 

The article seems to have a anti-Bush slant, but it’s not overt.  I think it’s safe to say that there are compelling counter-points for his arguments…but they’re worth checking out nonetheless.