Regular Expressions Cookbook

The Regular Expressions Cookbook looks like a good addition to any programmers bookshelf

It is well written and concise and has lots of very useful receipes - such as URL/Paths/Addresses manipulators (getting host, frame, email address etc), and some very useful ones for specific formats, such as date formats, phones numbers, zip and UK postocdes. What's really impressive is the book provides useful links to reference materials (RFCs, Telecoms standards, British and ISO standards).

~socket(); // death of socket programming?

~socket(); // death of socket programming?

Interesting article on sockets, a technology created in 1982. It shows how some of the limitations that were around in 1982 are expressed in the sockets architecture and how we are still being affected by the design decisions in this stack.

It talks about the need for multihoming, but I also wonder on the implications for moving away from a client/server model, and the transistion to SOA/ESB/Cloud type technologies - do we need to rethink some of the lower level stack?

David Cameron resigns over expense claims

How long before we see a big name fall?

7 ± 2 rule of diagrams

Reading "The Elements of UML(TM) 2.0 Style" by Scott W. Ambler I came across the 7 ± 2 rule of diagrams:

"16. Reorganize Large Diagrams into Several Smaller Ones

It is often better to have several diagrams showing various degrees of detail than one complex diagram that shows everything. A good rule of thumb is that a diagram shouldn’t have more than nine symbols on it, based on the 7 ± 2 rule (Miller 1957), because there is a limit on the amount of information that someone can deal with at once. “Wallpaper” diagrams, particularly enterprise data models or enterprise object models, may look interesting but they’re too information-dense to be effective. When you are reorganizing a large diagram into several smaller ones, you may choose to introduce a high-level UML package diagram (Chapter 6)."

which is based on The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information by George A. Miller in 1956

Scott's book is full of useful tips, and some nice links like this one!