A quote...

"Retirement is a sick thing. When you give up your life to sit around and grow old... I don't see that." --- Buddy Rich

Proxies

So, I am writing about proxies and I just found how to implement them without instance variables. This allows thread safety and a single Proxy class. This is a discovery I didn't expect at all. Wonderful, wonderful.

Update: I just finished the section on proxies. The draft is 314 pages, even though it lost 8 pages' worth of chapter headings that belong to volume 2. Now, the rather large section on class based polymorphism.

Finally, lots of RAM for a good reason

I realized I need to study the structure of Z^*_{2^32} in detail. In particular, Carmichael's function shows there are at least 2 multiplicative subgroups within Z^*_{2^32}. I have to partition Z^*_{2^32} into all such subgroups and study them further.

At last, a reasonable way to put more than 4 gb of RAM to good use...

Open mouth, insert foot, chew

I was recently on a tour of Latin America, and the only regret I have was that I didn't study Latin harder in school so I could converse with those people. --- Dan Quayle

(source)

But, apparently, that's just a joke that was taken out of context. Here you can see allegedly actual Quayle quotes, such as:

I love California, I practically grew up in Phoenix.

For NASA, space is still a priority.

The future will be better tomorrow.

Another reason to do your own thinking

Check this out: people are "famous" because others talk about them... the status of celebrity exists only in the eye of the beholders.

See? Ten is a good number!

Here's a new Smalltalk consulting firm called 10 Pines. How about that!

Look Ma, no WinVICE!

Aha! Somebody took a photo of the C64 emulator running in VisualWorks (here's the context). Erm, you're going to ESUG, right? I am telling you right now:

YOU CANNOT MISS IT

Moving along, slower...

For the Fundamentals book, I managed to finish the section on object identity tests for the polymorphism chapter. I think it's pretty clear that things like isKindOf:, respondsTo: and includesBehavior: are a terrible idea for the vast majority of applications. Now I just have to write about proxies, and then there's a large section on class side polymorphism.

Also, the draft is growing again... after slimming down to 302 pages, it's up to 312 pages now. Maybe I should cut down the page estimate to about 400 pages...

New VisualWorks forum!

There is a new VisualWorks forum here. I think this is a great addition to the VisualWorks community resources. Join in (then you get to see all the sub forums)!

FTP server back in business

I just restored service at ftp://sqrmax.homeip.net. The user changed to 'smalltalk'. The password is still 'now'. Enjoy!

Another day, another burst

In the past couple hours, I rewrote over 20 pages. I just have 11 pages to rewrite. Also, I dropped another 2 pages' worth of unnecessary stuff. Things are moving along... I should be done in a while.

Update: I am done rewriting. 54 pages in 2 days, with time to spare. I really need to switch contexts though...

Burst mode

I rewrote 17 pages in 2 hours. Just 36 pages to go. I need a little break.

Rewriting with a two finger algorithm

I rewrote the tail of the draft, and therefore I just have to get to page 279. The left finger progressed to page 226. Just 54 pages to rewrite.

More rewrite progress

Alright, I just finished rewriting chapter 4 of the first Fundamentals book volume. I am at page 221 of 306. A bit of additional patience, and I should be working on the yet unwritten rest of chapter 5. I need to start thinking about the cover for the two volumes, too...

Rewriting...

The Fundamentals rewriting effort has progressed substantially. I am currently at page 195 out of 306. The leading edge is within reach. Just 111 more pages of rewriting, and it's time for new material.

Let's see, last time I wrote it was May 10th, and at that point I was at page 97. Thus, I rewrote 98 pages in 23 days, at an average rate of ~4.23 pages a day. Thus, I should be done with the rewrite by the end of June. That's unacceptable. I need to go much faster than that. We'll see...

Update: 3.5 hours later, I am at page 204.