Justplain

O’reilly published a Short Cut pdf document on opml: “Getting Acquainted with OPML” by Amy Bellinger

I just bought and downloaded a copy, and took a look at it. I think it serves it purpose: it is a short cut and will save you a lot of time if you are new to OPML and want to get acquainted fast. Thats what it is, a starting point for learning more about opml, if you want to go in deeper you can start from there.

One thing, in my copy the links (or what i think are links, bold, grey) do not work. Am i doing something wrong? Or are those not links??? If those are not links then all the time one has saved is lost on searching all things mentioned in the document in google.

Other then that, i think it is great that someone has collected all things opml into one document. It would have be nicer if the document was published for free (i understand that is not o’reilly’s trade, but since Amy is sort of an OPML-evangelist) , specially if you want to share the opml experience with the rest of the world… I think this info should be on wikipedia or opml.org

I’ve started reading The mythical man-month, a book on software project management written by Frederick P. Brooks jr. in 1975. I have a copy of the 20th aniversary edition (1995) which has some extra’s. It is considered a must read for software engineers and is still relevant because the focus of the book is not on the technology but on people working with technology.

If only read the first essay, the tar pit, so far. Brooks makes a great analyses why programming is fun:

1. The sheer joy of making things, children (lego) and adults (programs) like creating things.
2. The pleasure of making things that are useful to other people
3. The fascination of fashioning complex puzzle-like objects of interlocking moving parts and watching them work in subtle cycles, playing out the consequences of principles built in from the beginning.
4. The joy of always learning, which springs from the nonrepeating nature of the task.
5. The delight of working in such a tractable medium. The programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff.

So, thats why we are such a happy bunch Brooks also describes a few woes, but i won’t spoil the mood right now. If you haven’t got a clue what i’m talking about, you should watch the interview Robert Scoble did with Dori Smith, a javascript programmer and writer of several books, and of course a blogger, on this subject. She’s the proof for Brooks analyses!