Few things in a professional environment are more important than a lasting impression; be it for building trust or conveying unappreciated quality, it is often what kills any system: people lose confidence in it. Imagine seeing something always faulty; a stakeholder sees a failed commitment. They do not see, and cannot see, the distinction between the feature that failed and the foundation it…
Preamble There exists a peculiar amnesia in software engineering regarding XML. Mention it in most circles and you will receive knowing smiles, dismissive waves, the sort of patronizing acknowledgment reserved for technologies deemed passé. "Oh, XML," they say, as if the very syllables carry the weight of obsolescence. "We use JSON now. Much cleaner." This is nonsense. XML was not abandoned…
On Discovering the Machinery of MSBuild SDKs While working on Chimelisp , my (not so serious) Lisp implementation for .NET, I stumbled upon something that felt like finding a hidden room in a manor you've lived in for years: you somewhat expect it to be there, after all, a ghost has to live somewhere. The discovery was simple in retrospect, almost trivial even, yet it opened a door for something…
Chess was a constant in Marcel Duchamp's life. A logical endeavor, or a Cartesian one, he said. It's about logic and mechanics rather than mathematics -- "Mechanics in the sense that pieces move, interact, destroy each other. They are in constant motion, and that's what attracts me". This is a customary assertion that invites us to contemplate what irradiates from having a constant in our lives:…
Leveraging the Relational Model I am part of a group of relational theory aficionados (yes, we exist, and most of us are under 30), and with that a talk about storing files in a relational DBMS showed up. I wanted a place to store a snapshot of my mind; a place where I can simply catalog what I have read in an obscure book -- or saw in a video -- and retrieve the information relationally. I wanted…
I decided to come up with a poem while I was enraged with a recent bug I faced and drove me to the virge of madness. Here are the results in Portuguese and English. The original poem Dia-a-dia, desvanecem minhas alegrias, No Emacs, outrora refúgio, falhas agora são guias. O LSP, luz orientadora, titubeia no desespero, Microserviços desvendam-se, fardo de difícil aforo. Postgres, fortaleza minha,…
A foreword My dearest friend Victor invited me to write one of this after he compiled his . Not shortly after, my other friend, Lemos, also approached me with the same intent. Upon such requests I cannot deny, I also found it to be an useful activity I should adule the habit of doing yearly. With that said, here we go with a list of events that I deem to mark as important when I reflect over the…
I write to share my frustrations. The frustrations of someone who does not find any appetite for discussing anything, at anytime. With an ode I say and I believe, docks ahead and a strait to be crossed; but only with hymns and a hope that never faded. That alone is intolerable of course. The ability to be more haughty than it mirrors, and the desire to be correct -- that so often fails me! It so…
This is the first article in a series of disputes I have with my friends every month or so. This time, it is a argument that I heard from a priest, so we decided to investigate it. This time we did not have all the time of the world to develop it fully, but I believe we reached a good draft for the first session. Proposed Argument Every good citizen pays their taxes; Every good christian ought to…
Just a few weeks ago I could afford indulging the leisure required to appreciate an excerpt of history that aged like wine. The Holy Roman Empire (which was Holy, Roman and an Empire) hosted the known Diet of Augsburg in 1530. Despite worthy of a well recounted historical description, which would provide little to the apparent novelty of collaborating with the felonious side of life. One of my…