Boys need toys

Since Tuesday I've got a new toy - a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18. A really fine camera. OK, it's no DSLR but I wanted an easy to use full featured bridge camera. 8.1 megapixels are currently enough for me, the camera is light, the handling is easy, and the 18x zoom from 28mm to 504mm is great. It is fast and the image quality up to ISO 400 is really good. After that the image gets more and more noisy.

I've already had much fun with my old camera but this camera may be my entrance into a new hobby.

How to not sell cars

Last weekend my family and I went to the car fair here in Oldenburg. It's not the we want to buy a new car but I wanted to take a look at the new Jaguar XF and our little daughter Vanessa at the Mini. Another interesting car has been the Gumpert Apollo - an extreme machine where I never would have the chance to get out if I ever can climb in. As some of you may know I'm interested in buying a Land Rover Defender 110 in a few years when the kids are older. So I went to the booth of HIRO, our local Land Rover dealer. The first disappointment has been that all cars have been closed. Other exhibitors opened their cars - Jaguar, Porsche, Mercedes, Audi, BMW, all. But those have been closed. So we went away. Later, on our way back through the hall, I saw that now the Range Rover Sport has been opened. So I took a seat and tested some switches. Immediately a clerk opened the co-drivers door and pointed out that this makes no sense when the car is turned off. His intonation has been extreme patronizing. This is annoying! I know I'll never buy my Land Rover - or any other car - at this dealer.

Please stop the complaining

This time it started with Damien Katz's comments abouts the Erlang syntax and Yariv Sadan's answer. And, like every time, a long discussion started in their blog comments and on the Erlang mailing list. Oh no! Please not another time.

I'm now developing software since more than 20 years. And I've learned a lot of languages and their environments. Some of them more, some of them less. Basic, Pascal, Modula-2, C, C++, Scheme, Prolog, ReXX, Java (SE, EE), Perl, Python, Smalltalk, Ruby, C#, and now Erlang. All of them have their strengths, their weaknesses, their own characteristics, their paradigms. All of them have only two things in common: they are individual and there are always people complaining about them. *sigh* I ask myself how often I've read those discussions about Python or Smalltalk or Lisp/Scheme.

Every time the languages are compared to other languages. "Hey, I', coming from C and I want curly braces." and "Oh, Lisp is by far cooler." and "Oh, I'm missing the clean syntax of Smalltalk." Why? Why do you ask allways the same? It doesn't change anything. The languages are grown under specific circumstances with a specific background of their developers and a specific goal. And most of them are not invented to satisfy users of all other existing languages.

Since I'm developing Erlang - and before each time I've started to explore a new language - I'm productive after some first days of testing, exploring, reading, sometimes damning, and then working.

So please, just stop complaining and simply use a system or leave it.

Co-moderator of Software Architecture group at Xing

Since yesterday I'm co-moderator of the Software Architecture group at Xing. You're all welcome to participate to discuss interesting topics like modeling and model-driven engineering, technologies, and patterns.

For those of you who don't know Xing: it's a more business-driven networking platform like Facebook. I'm here since almost 4 years with lots of interesting contacts in in many groups. In march 2005 I've created the Smalltalk group, a still growing community of loyal and new fans.

CMMI training impressions

Today I've had the second day of a three day CMMI training. After a more general training about software process improvement last year this is a basic course helping to establish CMMI in a company. Currently we are not planning to do so, but we're discussing it and maybe we'll trying to achieve the levels 2 and then 3 in future. My first impressions are really good. CMMI contains lots of helpful and well organized process areas with useful goals and practices. And it is no bloated model that forces to use every part. In fact it emphasizes that there has to be a good business motivation for each activity. So an introduction can easily be tailored to the own needs.

Additionally the CMMI training has influences to the Tideland projects. Not that we'll introduce CMMI for our small team, but the TOT project will be extended, the existing RMS project will be integrated, and features supporting software development teams will be added. The feature set is inspired through my main job leading a software development team, experiences made during lots of projects, and last but not least this training. I'll create an outline in our wiki and inform you here.

Stormy walk

After the storm Emma visited Germany on Saturday the weather today has been a bit more calm. But still it has been windy, especially at the sea. So we decided to make a walk with the whole family on the beach at Dangast, a small city south of the Jadebusen here at the North Sea. We've really enjoyed it to walk with the wind during the first half and fight against the headwind on our walk back. Some boys played with a ball pitching it between them. With the wind they've got real good distances, against the wind the ball dropped after a few metres. Really funny.

New malt in collection after first 2008 tasting

On Friday we had our first 2008 whisky tasting at Kottkamp. Once again about 150 friends of this golden water of life met to select between 70 single malts of Schottland and Ireland. Many of them have been the same as always - like me - and also new guests joined and enjoyed the evening. So I've started at the Speyside bar with an extraordinary Benromach Peat Smoke. It is young (6 years), it is cheap, and it is real good. As the name already implies it has a note of peat together with the typical warm Speyside character. This one will definitely find its way into my collection.

But this time ist has been a different one. My next malt has been the Edradour "Straight from the Cask" Chardonnay Finish. And wow, it's a warm, long lasting malt. The nose contains much of the wine and the cask and the taste has notes of pepper. So this is now the second Edradour in my collection, together with an Edradour tasting glass. 

The third malt this evening has been a Teaninich 1983 which is more expensive than the first ones and has also cask strength. But for me it is to mild, there's nothing noteworthy about it. So I tried my first Islay this evening, a Port Charlotte PC6. Not too bad, a cask strength with 61.6% and lots of peat and smoke. It's better than the Teaninich, but also not worth the money. In contrast to my second Islay, a Coal Ila 1995 Destillers Edition. Peat, smoke, spices, a complex malt for a fair price.

My last malt has once again been the Benromach, while standing behind the Speyside bar and talking with friends about the Edinburgh Military Tattoo. Yes, as you can read this time I've had the opportunity to be part of the team behind the bar from time to time. It has really be a great fun to talk with more guests than usual and giving tips which whisky matches best to their individual preferences. Now I really look forward to the next tasting on March, 28th.