impatient book review

I couldn't be bothered to wait the year(s?) for the U.S. release of Steven Erikson's newest Malazan book, Reaper's Gale.

After comparing the Canada/UK prices on the respective Amazon sites, and plugging in the conversion rate, it was cheaper to order from the UK and have it shipped across the Atlantic. Odd.

It was very good. Heartbreaking (and other not-so-heartbreaking) deaths of main characters. Resolution of plot lines. Very enjoyable.

I also picked up Night of Knives, by Ian Cameron Esslemont. Also set in the Malazan universe. It was pretty good, but not great. It could have used another round of editing -- typos and a couple confusing sections. But, it was fast-paced and fun.

roller derby -- violence, short skirts, beer -- what's not to like?

The lovely wife and I went to the roller derby last night. Lots of fun. Lots of violence. Lots of hot chicks in short skirts zooming around the track and knocking each other down. And beer! Mmm... Beer.

It was an All Star match between the local league and their opponents from Idaho.

Salt Lake Software Symposium, day #2

Last day. Still pretty good, but didn't rock as much as the first.

Attended a couple more of Jared Richardson's sessions: "Agile Testing Strategies", and "Software Development Techniques". Lots of good real-world examples, and lots of inspiration for changing our processes. Definitely thinking of picking up Ship It!

Neal Ford's "Pragmatic Extreme Programming" was good. But, I think it'll be easier to work in lessons from Jared's sessions (on days 1 and 2) into our existing process.

I wasn't going to attend Brian Sam-Bodden's "Complex Builds with Ant" session. From the slides, it appeared like I'd already knew the major tips on my own. But, I was wiped out by the last session. Decided it was worth going to a topic I was familiar with in order to pick an expert's brain. Only three attendees, so the session went fast and I was able to ask a lot of questions.

More sour-grapes today over all the Ruby rah-rah-rah. Again, Neal Ford declared Ruby the winner in the dynamic language race on the JVM. Neal is a very smart guy, a great presenter, and also great to talk to one-on-one. I don't have any issue with him advocating Ruby. Any language that makes developers more productive is a good thing. But, it seems disingenuous to declare a victor in a wide open race to a room full of people who have little to no experience with dynamic languages.

Personally, I prefer Python over Ruby. Others can and should disagree. Here's a fair, but slightly biased (since the author is familiar with Python), comparison of Python vs. Ruby.

I'm not sure who to blame for lack of Python excitement in the Java world (or at least at this conference). Maybe with the recent revitalization of the Jython project, it will get more Java developer's attention.

Microsoft's CLR (and the new DLR and Silverlight) seems very exciting. See here and here and here. The second link is a screencast showing interoperation between Ruby, JavaScript, Python, and VB.

All in all, the conference was very good. I'll definitely plan on going next year.