Joe Oldham: SMP

Spring 08 I tried using this blog to manage courses. Semi-painless semi-flop. Too many static pages, which will only grow worse and worse over time. It would be great if I could use webCT, since that is supposedly designed for the task. But I find the interface so awful I will only use webCT for material that needs to have access restricted to a specific class. Static web pages had the growth problem — the archive is a mess. I’m not going to try to roll my own. So this time around I’ll rely more on the wiki. Here are the hopes:

• The interface is decent.
• Students can watch a page, so they can get email when things change. SHould help with “keep up” — maybe better than an RSS feed here.
• Part of the role of the wiki is archiving communal knowledge. As it pertains to a course, that iterates over semesters, the wiki seems to make sense. There will be an end-of-semester winnowing burden; separating the parts that need to persist from parts that need to be archived.
• Archiving may be manageable. Wikis hold lots of static pages. The course article can link to its own archive kind of naturally.
• Heavier use of the wiki for courses may promote use of the wiki, which is something we want to see happen.

Wonder what the approach will be next time…

So Heathrow’s new shining terminal is beset with woes at least in part due to baggage handling software. Remember the Denver baggage handling disatser — a famous failure? Now we have the heathrow repeat… because evidently we do not pay attention. (Of course someone will be explaining why this is quite different in the minutae…)

This term CSC 343 is using the Minix book, and Tanenbaum is “the minix guy.” Minix is a microkernel architecture as is (so I thought / still think) OS X. Seeing The Great Microkernel Debate Continues on slashdot I had to look. The end-point article by Tanenbaum is actually not new by its date. But it’s a good read. (And it is assigned reading for CSC 343.) Here are the trailer quotes:

• If you are wondering why microkernels aren’t even more widely used, well, there is a lot of inertia in the system. Why haven’t Linux or Mac OS X replaced Windows? Well, there is a lot of inertia in the system. Most cars in Brazil can run on home-grown ethanol so Brazil uses relatively little oil for vehicle fuel. Why doesn’t the U.S. do that and reduce its dependence on the volatile Middle East? Well, there is a lot of inertia in the system. Getting people to change, even to superior practices, is very hard.

• I will consider the job finished when no manufacturer anywhere makes a PC with a reset button. TVs don’t have reset buttons. Stereos don’t have reset buttons. Cars don’t have reset buttons. They are full of software but don’t need them. Computers need reset buttons because their software crashes a lot.

Sometimes you have to just Pollyanna-up and try, huh? Suck it up, have a good attitude, try. This has not been my natural proclivity, but I think I will Pollyanna-up and make it so.