Posts

I have published another literate program on literateprograms.org. This one shows how the Rot13 encoding system can be implemented in Java. However, that is trivial! The real point is to document the basic use of JUnit testing and Apache Ant which are standard tools in the professional Java developer’s toolbox (in fact they make Java just about usable Within 24 hours of the first mention of my program, another literate programmer had documented the altogether more elegant implementation as a sed script....

I am grateful to [Dion Almaer](http://www.almaer.com/blog/archives/001379.html) for pointing me to a new add on for Windows called Enso Launcher which allows you to launch applications right from the keyboard. For example you just hold the Caps Lock key and type Op[tab]Ex release caps lock to open explorer. Not quite as quick as [windows]+E but not far off!. It also does stuff like spell checking any text anywhere. It also has the function I use a lot: changing upper case text to lower case text in any program or text field in programs other than Word!...

I have installed an instance of [DokuWiki](http://wiki.splitbrain.org/wiki:dokuwiki) which I am intending to use as a home page. Its current location is [eehope.swan.ac.uk/~eechris/dokuwiki/index.php](http://eehope.swan.ac.uk/%7Eeechris/dokuwiki/index.php) but eventually I hope to move it to [eehope.swan.ac.uk/~eechris](http://eehope.swan.ac.uk/%7Eeechris). powered by [performancing firefox](http://performancing.com/firefox)

I’m in the process of moving my Bloglines aggregation settings to Google Reader. The features that I like abou Google Reader that prompted this move are: I can add multiple tags to RSS feeds Reader shows you what’s new (and also what’s old) in all feeds or across tagged items: no more navigating complex folder structures the list display is easier to scan when you’re busy it’s easy to share feeds or individual articles...

Mentioned in episode 100 of the Java Posse was a new (to me) open source language for the JVM called Fortress. Using a notation that looks literally more like mathematics than either Mathematica or Matlab, and claiming a place in the application domains that have been Fortran’s province since year dot, this looks like a language and a project that deserves further study.