Graham Wheeler's Random Forest

There’s been some weird synchronicity going on recently. It started a few weeks back at work. Earlier this year I wrote a compiler for Javascript, and this resulted in a conversation with a workmate about virtual machines. I mentioned the SECD machine and Henderson’s seminal book from 1980 on functional programming. My workmate was interested enough to order a copy, and we’ve had a number of conversations about functional programming (which I haven’t done in 20 years).

I got bitten today with a nasty deadlock in my code. It took a while to unravel as this particular code involves large numbers of threads making parallel web service requests. I thought I’d share the particular gotcha that tripped me up. For performance reasons, all my calls are aynchronous. I have a callback for reading HTTP response data, which included the following (grossly simplified here to just show enough to illustrate the problem):

Bob Walsh has just discussed an interesting approach to planning called Accelerated Planning Technique from a New Zealand management consultant. Its worth going through the mini online seminar. It seems pretty woolly and wordy at first, but the example at the end of the business plan for a restaurant is pretty good.

I tend to be one of those people who accumulates vast amounts of clutter on my desk, in my room, and in my life, and then every couple of months has a big cleanout, vowing to maintain the new uncluttered state, but the cycle just begins again (I blame the laws of thermodynamics). In an effort to break that cycle I’ve recently started paying some attention to David Allen’s Getting Things Done approach.

Check out this spoof video about if Microsoft designed the iPod packaging. It is very funny, particularly as it is so spot on! Probably because it comes from Microsoft marketing people. Even though I personally wouldn’t buy an iPod (I have an 8Gb Zen Micro, and can’t wait for the 12Gb version - I want small on the outside but big on the inside).

I’ve been going through old CD-R discs of mine with a view to reburning them on DVD-R to safe some space and generally clean them up. It’s amazing what I’m finding - things that I had totally forgotten having written. For example, I found a SNMPv1/v2 MIB compiler and browser that I wrote back in 1995. Until I saw it I had no recollection that I even did that! After some reflection it all came back.

Archive of historical posts.