Microsoft: "Patents are for intimidation, silly."

From Todd Bishop's Seattle PI Microsoft Blog... Microsoft's lawyer on why they will not disclose which patents they believe Linux violates...

That is not something that any other company in our industry does today. And yet, we do find ourselves as a company repeatedly getting requests from other companies to license their patents, to pay them royalties. We believe that, especially as long as there are other companies in our industry that come to us, asking us to take a license and pay a royalty, that it is important for us to work on a reciprocal basis -- and that means providing information on our patents in a forum where they are providing information to us on their patents. We're not comfortable being the only company in our industry, certainly, to take a unilateral step, especially when that step could change the dynamic, subsequently, for discussions with other companies.

Software patent portfolios are for intimidation, silly. The murkier the better.

Smalltalk -> Seaside -> Startup -> Cash

James Robertson points to another startup success using Smalltalk and Seaside.

Holy Cr... It's Snowing Again?

A lot of snow again this morning, and it is sticking at 500 ft. above sea level.

The gods must be crazy. Don't they know April 1st isn't until Tuesday??

Snow

In the midwest this week I gave folks a hard time because it was cold
and sleeting for a bit. Back in Oregon this morning I brought a curse
or two with me: huge snow flakes. On March 28? Are you kidding me? I
know.

Gilad Bracha, Anti-Monkeypatcher

Gilad Bracha writes...

So far, I have no firm conclusions about how to best address the problems monkey patching is trying to solve. I don’t deny that it is expedient and tempting. Much of the appeal of dynamic languages is of course the freedom to do such things...

Regardless, given my flattering portrayals of primate practices, you may deduce that my main comment on monkey patching is “just say no”. The problems it induces far outweigh its benefits. If you feel tempted, think hard about design alternatives. One can do better.

Gilad captures the essence of truly dynamic languages: freedom. Get out my way with your type theories. I am squarely in this camp for the time being.

I've not run into all the problems Gilad apparently attributes to dynamic languages. (And I assert your language is *not* dynamic if it does not allow these kinds of extensions.) I will welcome Gilad's solution as long as it preserves all the value. Generally though we should favor fewer language mechanisms, embrace those simple mechanism that work, and rely on good programming practices.

His Newspeak could be the rare exception, but I've not seen many whole language advances that really improve things as much as programmers can improve their own practices. I wonder if Gilad is expecting his Newspeak to appeal to the developers he refers to as "baboons"? It seems that distrust of developers is alive and well.