Programming in 2015

My current developer platform is:

1. CSS.
2. HTML. (Bootstrap)
3. JavaScript.
4. Node.js Server.

Think of how much you have to learn to become really useful in this world. At least four different syntaxes, and a CSS preprocessor.

HTML is XML, JavaScript is like C or Pascal. The server could be written in any number of different languages. And JSON. None of them are going away.
I've been working with software for many years, and right now would be at a loss to write a simple "Hello World" app. What a Tower of Babel we have once again today.

Systems grow when they are simple. The big strides in technologie happen when the platform gets reduced to simplicity. Examples include:

COBOL, UNIX
Superbrain with CP/M and Basic.
MS-DOS with Wordstar and Quickbasic.
Turbo Pascal
Superbase
The Web with a plain text editor.

With all these systems, getting started was relatively easy. Typing and modifying "Hello World" was easy. From there, there were no huge cliffs in the way of becoming proficient and useful.

How to proceed? I am starting again, this time from Node.js and building out with Bootstrap on Amazon S3.

And once again I am confronted with the big gap between ideas and implementation. Wish me luck!

Climate Change 1978

I also remember the newspaper articles and expert warnings from the late 70's. It's difficult to foretell the future, even for Mr. Spock.

And also as I'm here, Happy Birthday to Reggie today.

New York 1590 - 2015

The elevators to the observatory at the top of the new World Trade Centre show an animated time lapse that recreates the development of New York City’s skyline, from the 1500s to today. From a swamp to a city in 60 seconds.



Perhaps someone will do the same for Dublin some day. (Dublin celebrated its 'official' millennium in 1988, meaning that the Irish government recognised 988 as the year in which the city was settled and that this first settlement would later become the city of Dublin.)

12 days in Ireland

At Easter and one of the highlights was two days in Killaloe, what a great place when the sun shines. Vicky and Philip are lucky to live there. Here are Joyce and I at the lake house, 

And Silke and Joyce after a game of football,

And drinks before dinner on the banks of the Shannon.

Acrobat revived

On holiday in Dublin over Easter Marlon asked me what my favourite U2 song was. There are so many it took me a while to sort them in my mind but after mentioning Bad as an all-time favourite for many years -especially live, and then leaving out songs specific to a particular year or special occasion ("Stay" in Cologne 2001, "Streets" in Mannheim in the rain 1997 and the version with the introduction von Hamish Hamilton on the 2001 Elevation DVD, or "Kite" while driving under a full moon on an October night to collect Steve from the train in Rottweil... I could go on!) I said Acrobat. He immediately played it on his iPhone and wasn't too impressed by my choice. However, not only has it a great instrumental part, the lyrics manage to juggle 3 parallel meanings: the disgrace of Ireland and IRA; a woman, her falling apart and rise from that; and the hypocrisy in each of us. So once again for Marlon, here it is the way I've heard it in my head for years. (Many Thanks to Bartek for the video,)



And coincidentally this week on atU2:

Results from the worldwide #U2Request campaign are in, and U2 fans on Twitter have voted "Acrobat" as the U2 song they most want to hear during the upcoming Innocence + Experience tour. The event, organized by Italian fan Angelo D'Arezzo, took place on April 14 with fans naming a song they want to hear.

The results? No surprise, really. "Acrobat" was the top vote-getter by a landslide, with almost three times as many votes as the No. 2 song, "A Sort Of Homecoming," and more votes than the next three songs combined.
Here are the top 10 songs with their vote counts:

1. "Acrobat" - 3,592 
2. "A Sort Of Homecoming" - 1,289
3. "Exit" - 1,195
4. "So Cruel" - 1,062
5. "Please" - 823
6. "Lemon" - 648
7. "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses" - 643
8. "Gone" - 610
9. "Heartland" - 603
10. "Kite" - 601