Joel on programming efficiency:

I’ll go out on a limb here. In my years of experience, I have seen many language and programming fads come and go. But there’s only ONE, that’s right, ONE language feature I’ve ever seen that actually improves your productivity significantly. No, it’s not object oriented programming; no, it’s not intentional programming or assertions or programming by example or CASE or UML or XML or Java. The only thing that improves your programming productivity is using managed code – that is, using a language in which memory management is automatic. Java and .NET languages do this with garbage collection; VB does this with reference counting; I don’t care how you do it, just let me concatenate strings without thinking about where the new bigger string will go and I’ll be happy.

Matt Haughey’s thoughts on Windows XP jibe pretty squarely with my own (posted back in July, when I first installed it). Here’s the relevant excerpt from Matt’s post:

When you go to the store and buy a box with a CD in it, you figure you own those 1’s and 0’s that make up the OS, right? When I was testing out XP earlier this year, I couldn’t help but feel I was leasing or renting the code from Microsoft. Their Passport system hooks into their instant messenger and hotmail in outlook express, the photo printing is done through their online partners, and the activation process and their periodic monitoring of my system seem to be a bit much.

If I buy the digital bits that compose a program, I expect that to be the end of the relationship with the company. When I want an update, I’ll contact the company, otherwise our transaction is over. XP doesn’t allow for that, and instead I’m forced to maintain an ongoing relationship with the company, whether I want to or not.

Another fun quiz: The Bible, the Quran or “Mein Kampf”?

Well, now that the FBI has released pictures of the Anthrax-laced letters (link via Now This) received by Tom Daschle, Tom Brokaw, and the New York Post, I understand why they are pinning this on Islamic terrorists rather than on some rednecks.

I’ve updated my weblogging application so that it notifies weblogs.com whenever I add or update an item, so if you’re a weblogs.com user, you won’t need to worry about this site being left behind in the transition over there. (I’m using an adaptation of Bill Humphries’ PHP script to do the notifying.)

Even as the Taliban condemn the United States for killing civilians with our bombs, they are hiding amongst civilians themselves. It’s interesting that the Taliban accuse us of intentionally targetting civilians, but at the same time hide amongst them for protection. If the US intentionally targetted civilians, or even selected targets without regard for civilians in the area, what good would it do to put troops and supplies in residential areas?

In Ireland, the IRA has put some quantity of arms beyond use in compliance with an agreement reached in August in order to preserve the ongoing peace process there. In any conflict, a meaningful unilateral action is the best first step toward reaching a positive resolution. In the meantime, Israel launched another armored assault on a West Bank town last night.

NewsForge has an SSSCA, update. The hearings have been cancelled, at least for the time being.

Salon has an excellent article today on Islam in America (Premium only). The article makes the point that the Nation of Islam, a small group which has beliefs that are completely outside standard Muslim orthodoxy, is not the same as standard Koranic Islam. Here’s the relevant excerpt:

At the same time, some African-American Muslims have serious questions not only about the racist rhetoric on which the Nation of Islam was founded (i.e. white people are “blond blue-eyed devils,” created in a genetic experiment 6,000 years ago), but also about the type of faith being preached. Although Farrakhan has worked hard in recent years to bring his teachings more in line with the Sunni orthodoxy, the Nation of Islam still insists, for instance, that its former leader Elijah Muhammad was a messenger, or prophet, sent by Allah, and that in 1930 Allah appeared in the person of Nation of Islam founder W. Fard Muhammad, a messiah on earth. Both tenets, and particularly the second, are considered blasphemy among mainstream Muslims.

I discovered this for myself by buying The Final Call, the NOI newspaper, whenever I saw people selling it in the neighborhood around the university that I atteneded.

It’s a music player called the iPod. Here’s the official site.