Sunday, July 30, 2006
Quite a week...
Tuesday and Wednesday: teaching Win32 and Windows CE System Programming.
Thursday and Friday: consulting on early design of a PDA application. One day went into architectural issues, the next was mostly about user interface. It's hard to make a PDA application truly usable. I think we did a pretty good job.
It's boring to have dinner alone :-), so I filled some time reading a few more papers. Got a reference from the paper above: "N Degrees of Separation: Multi-Dimensional Separation of Concerns" (Proceedings of ICSEE 1999). Quite interesting, and some of the concepts reach beyond AOP. I've been thinking for a while about design guidelines for partial classes and extension methods in .NET, and this paper has given me a few interesting ideas. One of the authors (Harold Ossher) also wrote the very first paper I read (back in 1995, I think) that was somehow related to AOP ("Subject Oriented Programming", Proceedings of OOPSLA 1993). While looking for that paper on my notebook, somehow I ended up re-reading an old article ("Integrating Independently Developed Components in Object Oriented Languages" by Urs Holzle, Proceedings of ECOOP 93). It's funny how a paper that is 13 years old can be so actual. Most of the problems identified by Holzle are still true today, and AOP is only a partial step toward a solution. Again, I couldn't help thinking that AOP is somewhat too ambitious, and that a simpler paradigm should be sought, borrowing from the many good ideas that AOP is bringing forward.
Saturday: I've been in Reggio Emilia to see an exhibit of one of my favorite artists, Arnaldo Pomodoro. Only a few works were shown, but the man is always amazing. Got a gift, a book that I've been skimming more than once :-) in bookstores: "Ultramarathon Man" by Dean Karnazes. It's a nice read, and the first 150 pages flew by in the evening.
Sunday: I had to finish the book :-). I only had another 150 pages left, so it didn't take long. Every now and then, I had a short break to answer some emails and write a little C++ code for a meta-programmed (aka compile-time) balanced search tree, which should end up in an article sooner or later (I'm writing all this with another author, and we're definitely not in a hurry :-). Shortly before lunch, the book was over, and I really wanted to get out and run :-). However, I had some work to do after lunch: the final review of the copyedited version of my IEEE paper is due soon. I spent a couple of hours going over the text, trying to find a good reason not to get out and run :-). I did have good reasons:
1) it was hot as hell
2) I wasn't in a known place, I didn't know the surrounding, so I would probably end up running in some unpleasant place with cars racing around
3) I didn't have the right shoes with me
4) I didn't have anything to bring some water with me - see also reason 1 :-)).
Must have been the book :-), but in the end I decided those were pretty lame excuses :-) and went out for a short run (about 10Km). Well, all the above was so true :-), but I was happy anyway. Despite some smog, the shoes, the heat, etc, I managed to run at about twice my usual pace. Of course, I usually run over hills, and I was in flatland :-) today, which explains why.
Came back happy anyway, and after a good shower I gave the finishing touch to that C++ metaprogramming code.
OK, now I guess I'll take Monday morning off :-)))
