Month: December 2018

Programming Languages

I was chatting with a friend about forgotten programming languages and how many we had learned and forgotten. During a quick Google search for "hundreds of frameworks and languages," I stumbled upon this intriguing list of computer programming languages. The way Bradley broke his list into categories caught my attention, and I couldn’t help but feel nostalgic.

Over the years, I've encountered and dabbled with several languages. I coded in Commodore BASIC, Pascal, and Motorola 68xx assembly language in high school and university. Later, I extensively used C, Perl, PHP, and JavaScript during my professional journey.

While I did learn languages like C++, Java, Objective-C, and Python, I must admit that I haven't had the chance to create anything meaningful with them. And thanks to my Linux and web development background, I can claim to know scripting languages like Awk and Tcl, along with markup languages such as HTML, XML, and XHTML. It's a pretty diverse list, to say the least!

Though I might have forgotten how to use some of these languages due to lack of practice, I could quickly brush up on my Perl, PHP, and JavaScript skills for web development and systems management if a project came my way. Of all the languages I've encountered, Perl has always held a special place in my heart. It allowed me to express myself freely without enforcing rigid computer science rules. As they say in the programming community, "there is more than one way to do it" with Perl, and I love its philosophy, as highlighted in the book Learning Perl "Making Easy Things Easy and Hard Things Possible."

Looking back at this diverse list of languages, I can't help but marvel at the incredible journey I've had with programming. Each language brought its unique charm and possibilities, making my experience in the world of coding truly memorable.

Flounder Brewing Co Off Center IPA

I am in drinking Off Center IPA by Flounder Brewing Co, a Nano Brewery in Hillsborough. Off Center IPA is an IPA - Brut, with an ABV of 6 and IBU of 0. I gave this beer a 3.75 on Untappd’s 5 point rating system.

BREWER’S NOTES

Hopped with Wakatu, Amarillo, and Huell Melon, this fizzy brew tickles the nose with aromas of honeydew melon and mild apricot. With a complex interplay of delicate citrus and floral flavors, our Brut IPA is complemented by a sparkling yet extra dry finish.

Local network services for IoT devices

Local network services for IoT devices could be a game changer by Johannes Ernst

The next question then becomes: just what local network services? What’s the architecture going to look like so we can grow a big industry ecosystem around it, all without screwing the users? I don’t think anybody has all the answers yet, but this is going in the right direction! I will have some more thoughts in a future post.

Sounds great. Currently, poor security is the bane of IoT devices. I would suggest the industry put all effort into efforts to improved security and privacy features of their products. Security is the number one reason I am reluctant to have internet accessible devices in my home.

Does restricting IoT traffic to the local network mean we lose the ability to leverage the analytics or the analytics become too simplistic to be useful? Will the majority of consumers, the mass market of consumers who we need to make any product category viable, want or need to have a mini data centre in the home to manage all of this? I don't know.