Google Tech Talks

by Zef Hemel

I think this is not really widely known as of yet. At least I wasn’t really aware of it. Google, on Google Video has a nice collection of Tech Talks. Talks (on video) by people working on interesting software projects. Of course there are a number of Python talks from Guido van Rossum (who works for Google right now), but there’s many others. Each of them is about an hour to an hour and a half. You can find the list here.

A selection of ones I watched or intend to watch:

Actually I’m only on page 3 out of 11 of these tech talks. I suggest you have a look yourself for more interesting ones ;)

Talking Code: vraptor

by Zef Hemel

Talking CodeI’ve been thinking for a while about doing some podcasting/netcasting again. After an e-mail I got from one of the vraptor guys I thought doing interviews with people involved with the development of programming languages and frameworks might be interesting. There are plenty of these that are not very well known but that people might be interested in. And I always like to hear the authors talk about their own creation.

vraptor logoSo I started the Talking Code netcast. February 8th I talked to Guilherme Silveira and Nico Steppat of vraptor. Vraptor is a Java webframework that favours convention over configuration. It borrows ideas from different JBoss projects and frameworks like Ruby on Rails. It took me a while to find time to edit the interview, but it’s up!

It was the first time in my life that I did an interview, so I still have to get the hang of it. Any feedback is appreciated. If you know of any interesting projects to talk about, or run one yourself, drop me a line.

You can download the first episode here. You can also subscribe to the feed (for example in iTunes).

Digg to Support OpenID

by Zef Hemel

OpenID LogoTechCrunch:

Kevin Rose, speaking here at the Future of Web Apps conference in London, just announced that Digg will adopt the OpenID decentralized digital identity platform. Don’t expect this right away though - adoption will begin “later this year” according to Rose.

This is great news. OpenID becomes more and more of a safe bet for single sign-on systems. Recently Microsoft and AOL have also announced they are going to support it. I have just been thinking if it’s understandable for “normal” people. With OpenID you login with an URL which seems counter-intuitive. You are not a website right?

A service like FreeYourID could be a solution to this. They decided to use the .name top-level domain extension for this purpose. So that your OpenID URL would become firstname.lastname.name. That would be zef.hemel.name in my case (actually works). This is fairly intuitive name, the problem is that this service will cost you after 90 days. Not much, but still.

I’m becoming more and more convinced for OpenID’s opportunity. I’ve finally updated my Advocacy page and OpenID is up there.

If you’re a web application developer, have a look at OpenID libraries for your language, they are generally simple to use and make the sign-up process a lot more attractive to your prospective customers. I’m much more tempted to try some new service if all I have to do is type in my OpenID and not go through a sign-up process.

Here you can find libraries to use OpenID in Python, Perl, PHP, Ruby, .NET, Coldfusion and Java

Beatbox Fame Game

by Zef Hemel

Ok, and now for something completely different. And quite amazing…

Through Jeffrey.

Another Change in Direction

by Zef Hemel

After studying English for half a year (with great results by the way) I know and realize that I really enjoy it, but that it is not my future. The question then becomes whether to finish (by studying another 3-4 years) or quit and do something more “compliant” with your future. After my girlfriend applied for a Ph.D. position in the west of Holland (I currently live in the north), I started to think about this more. I considered finding a job in the west as well, but after talking to some people I reconsidered the option of doing a Ph.D.

I started looking around in the country to see if there were any interesting projects going on. Then I found this. And it reminded me of what I posted almost 2.5 years ago in The Importance of Laziness:

This is what I’m passionate about: being lazy, err, tools that make developers more productive. I like playing with them, promoting them and creating them. It’s what I want to do. Not only tools, but also development paradigms and everything that improves the development experience, getting rid of the boring stuff and reducing it to the essentials.

That’s why I like languages like Python and C#. That’s why I like IDEs like Eclipse and Visual Studio. That’s why I like paradigms like object oriented programming and code generation. That’s why I like application frameworks like ASP.NET and Ruby On Rails (which I’ll be looking into soon).

When I get my master(s), we’ll see where I can work on stuff like that. Having programmers only working one hour per day, yet doing the same amount of work they did in a day before, that’s my goal.

When I read the research project’s full project plan I found this:

The aim in development is to produce a high-quality system with the least possible effort. The aim in maintenance is to apply improvements and extensions with the least possible effort.

When you set your goals so much in line with what I wrote about 2.5 years ago, how could I not apply for this position? So I did. And they were interested and invited me for a day of interviews American style.

Yesterday morning I got up at 5.30 in the morning, took two trains and two busses and arrived at the TU Delft around 11. First I did an (almost) hour long presentation for their group (slides in PDF, 14 MB) about my M.Sc. dissertation project, I think it went well. They had some valid remarks.

After lunch I had interviews with four of their group members. First the project leader Eelco Visser, then the professor, Arie van Deursen, then two of the current Ph.D. students: Martin Bravenboer and Ali Mesbah. They all turned out to be really great people working on interesting projects. At the end of the day I was offered the job. This morning I accepted.

So, starting September 1st I will be a Ph.D. student at the TU Delft! I’m very excited and looking forward to it. I will have to move of course, so I have to find a place to live somewhere around there for me and Justyna, but I’m sure it will be fine.

If you think: hey, that is really interesting, I would want to do something like that, maybe you can. If you have a M.Sc. in computer science and interested in this have a look at this page. They are still looking for one or two PhDs and a PostDoc. So if you have your Ph.D. already you can also apply. You will be working closely with a great group of people, among who will be… me. And honestly, who wouldn’t want to work with me ;)

I am not quitting my English studies yet though. I intend to more-or-less finish this year. I probably won’t take all classes (I also teach myself this semester which takes time), but I’m still studying.

4 Years of Blogging

by Zef Hemel

Today is my fourth blogging anniversary, hooray! :)

Microsoft to Support OpenID

by Zef Hemel

OpenID LogoSixApart blog:

You see, OpenID was originally created by Brad Fitzpatrick, who created LiveJournal (along with a ton of other open source platform software) and is one of the chief geeks here at Six Apart. Yesterday was Brad’s birthday, but today is when he really gets the best present: Microsoft is supporting OpenID. Brad posted a bit about the news in his journal.

Now, since we’re a company that releases tons of open source code and lives in the Web 2.0 world, we were a little skeptical, just like you might be. But the most reassuring sign of Microsoft’s endorsement is that they’re integrating OpenID with their CardSpace initiative. As Johannes Ernst, one of the leading advocates of OpenID said, it’s a little bit like OpenID and CardSpace got married.

And just as important was the way that Microsoft told the story. Though there’s a traditional press release as part of Microsoft’s presence in the RSA Conference, it’s reassuring to see Bill Gates himself speaking at length and in detail about OpenID in a way that shows he truly understands the technology.

Great news. I think it’s really time for people to adopt OpenID for their services. I’ve been working on another (secret) service and I built OpenID support into that. You’ll see, if it ever gets released (i.e. if it doesn’t turn out I have been reinventing the wheel again, and I don’t get bored with it before). It’s really quite easy to do, and great for me, because it take a lot of account management stuff out of my hands.

I also just installed the OpenID plugin for wordpress, you can just type your OpenID url into the comment form and post away. A use will be created which you don’t have to enter your details every time, plus you get a cool OpenID icon next to your name. So get a free OpenID account, for example at MyOpenID and try it out!

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