These videos are made of win        

It has long been my opinion that good software designers should understand the basic economics of trade. Ours is a highly specialized practice, and it produces an absolutely staggering surplus when we trade. But this can be very difficult to understand unless you grasp the concept of Comparative Advantage. (Understanding Asymmetrical Information is also a good idea, but let's save that for another day.)

Because of the absolutely marvelous title, I stumbled upon these videos from Professor Art Carden today. They are one of the clearest and simplest explanations of the incredibly counter-intuitive notion of Comparative Advantage. I cannot recommend them for IT specialists enough. THIS is why what we do is so damned valuable for the people that buy from us.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Side note: the characters of Fritz and Lou are a marvelous inside joke for students of Austrian economics. 10 points to the first commenter to explain why.

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 You just can't make this stuff up        

Just noticed on Planetlotus.org that IBM has a new Redbook out on WebSphere Transaction Cluster Facility.

WebSphere TCF must have been so-named by someone leaving for a new job at Microsoft that week.

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 Lotusphere 2012 OGS        

Special guest: Michael J. Fox

Frankly, I think that sums it up. No point in staying...

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 RAAWWWWRRRR!!!        

There's some tuning left to do, but I wanted to get this out to the world before Lotusphere.

I've created an XPages SDK for Eclipse RCP, so you can install the latest version of Eclipse and easily set up Notes or Domino as your target platform for your Java code. I assigned myself the task of documenting this internally for GBS in January, and I realized that I could spend a day documenting it, or spend two days writing a program that would do it automatically.
It was really no contest.

I'll add some documentation to the project soon (unless someone else wants to do it,) but the really short version is that once you install the plugin, you go to your Eclipse preferences and point to your Notes and/or Domino installations, and it automatically configures your JREs. It also provides Plugin Target Platform templates, so you can create target platforms for either Notes (and Designer) or Domino. The whole process takes about 30 seconds.

There's still some tuning to do on the platform settings for Domino installs. That's why it's not version 1.0 yet.

I can easily use this baseline to create a Domino Designer SDK as well. In fact, I'll definitely do that internally -- but I've yet to see anyone outside GBS asking for this. Is there demand?

Eventually, I'd like to add project wizard support so that creating your own XPages library (like the Extension Library) is as simple as New - XPages - Library. I haven't explored the wizard templates for this yet, so I don't yet know how big a task it is. But if I can make it work, I might link it to the XPages Starter Kit project so that you could select what base XPages concepts you'd like to implement, and it would automatically set up the context for you.

If you're unfamiliar with all this stuff -- well, I would simply encourage you to go to OpenNTF, grab the projects, and dive in.  If you have been historically resistant to using Java as your language of choice as a Domino developer, I strongly suggest that you re-evaluate that position.

I'm 90% sure that you could use this SDK natively on a Mac. It should be the case that if you copy an installation of Designer or Domino on to your Mac environment, then if you install the Mac version of Eclipse 3.7, you can point it to the proper installation folder. If that doesn't "just work" it's probably because I messed up the directory separators. At any rate, those with Apple platforms should try it out and see!

Thanks so much for your time. Happy coding!

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 A thought experiment        

In this time of vibrant political debate in the US, I am frequently confronted by the notion of the social contract.  I find this idea very challenging; both to accept or to refute. So I created a thought experiment that sums up the issue for me...

Let us hypothesize for a moment that you are a slave. In your captivity, you are permitted to procreate. Your owner proposes the following:

"I will buy your unborn child in exchange for an extra meal for you and your spouse each day."

There are two questions: 1) what is the moral quality of accepting or rejecting such an offer?; and 2) is your child bound by your agreement if you accept?

Discuss.

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 Do not settle        

Forget what you know about Apple products. Learn from Apple's founder. "You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

You will be missed, Steve.

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 Welcoming our newest colleagues        

If you read this blog, you've probably heard by now that Synaptris is part of GBS. I'm very pleased to welcome our new colleagues.

As it happens, my team has been working closely with Synaptris engineers for several months now. We tapped them to work on our Dojo Grid control for surfacing Domino views presented in Transformer apps. They have done a spectacular job. We're looking forward to deepening the integration even further to leverage their expertise in content searching and email integration into the Transformer. Imagine having the power, flexibility and speed of FewClix in EVERY ONE of your XPages applications! You won't have to just imagine for long.

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 The ultimate Domino Designer performance improvement for XPages developers        

If you're an experienced XPages developer, chances are you live in the Source tab of the XPages editor. But even if you live in that editor, you'll notice that various things seem to slow down Designer with mysterious causes.

If you're willing to give up some of the bells & whistles, like drag/drop from the Controls Palette, custom editors for Properties, or icon cues on the Outline, you can switch from the XSP editor to the native XML editor using the following preference setting. Just go to the File Associations list and select the XML Editor, and click "Default.."

A picture named M2

Read on for more...

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 True then, true now        

Economic reality hasn't changed.

We'll miss you, Mary Beth. But the world needs a serious UX effort put into 3D modelling software. When you leave it to code slingers, you get this. Please end the suffering.

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 April 24, 2002        

Name that speaker....

The congress and the president will shift radically towards expanding the size and scope of the federal government. This will satisfy both the liberals and the conservatives.

Military and police powers will grow satisfying the conservatives.

The weflare state, both domestic and international, will expand, satisfying the liberals.

Both sides will endorse military adventurism overseas. This is the most important of my predictions.

Policy changes could prevent all of the previous predicitions from occuring. Unfortunately, that will not occur. In due course, the Constitution will continue to be steadily undermined, and the American republic further weakened. During the next decade, the American people will become poorer and less free, while they become more dependent on the government for economic security.

The war will prove to be divisive, with emotions and hatred growing between the various factions and special interests that drive our policies in the Middle East. Agitations for more class warfare will succeed in dividing us domestically. And believe it or not, I expect lobbyists will thrive more than ever during the dangerous period of chaos.

I have no timetable for these predictions. but just in case, keep them around and look at them in 5 to 10 years. Let's hope and pray that I'm wrong on all accounts. If so, I will be very pleased.

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