Toluu

Knowing.NET

Software development industry analysis by Larry O'Brien, the former editor of Software Development and Computer Language

A Word To Big Island BloggersJanuary 6

I've been writing this blog since 2002, which I'm fairly sure makes me the graybeard among the Big Island's small blogging family. For what it's worth, I also was a magazine editor for 7 years (and won a few awards). So I'm going to shake my finger at the trio of Big Island bloggers who have been spending the past week time criticizing each other: Stop it right now. Don't make me stop this car!

D: You had every right to take those photographs in a public place and you had every right to write what you did. Don't let anyone tell you differently.

T: As a journalist yourself, you should know to be extra careful about labeling someone's writing as "irresponsible" on the basis of a differing account coming from a government official.

A: Don't get caught up between D&T.

Lance Armstrong SightingJanuary 5

Look who’s getting in shape on the Big Island of Hawai’i! Kick ass…

ResolverOne: Best Spreadsheet Wins $17KDecember 18 2008

ResolverOne is one of my favorite applications in the past few years. It's a spreadsheet powered by IronPython. Spreadsheets are among the most powerful intellectual tools ever developed: if you can solve your problem with a spreadsheet, a spreadsheet is probably the fastest way to solve it. Yet there are certain things that spreadsheets don't do well: recursion, branching, etc.

Python is a clean, modern programming language with a large and still-growing community. It's a language which works well for writing 10 lines of code or 1,000 lines of code. (ResolverOne itself is more than 100K of Python, so I guess it works at that level, too!)

From now (Dec 2008) to May 2009, Resolver Systems is giving away $2K per month to the best spreadsheet built in ResolverOne. The best spreadsheet received during the competition gets the grand prize of an additional $15K.

Personally, it seems to me that the great advantage of the spreadsheet paradigm is a very screen-dense way of visualizing a large amount of data and very easy access to input parameters. Meanwhile, Python can be used to create arbitrarily-complex core algorithms. The combination seems ideal for tinkering in areas such as machine learning and simulation.

I try to do some recreational programming every year between Christmas and New Year. I'm

Inference for .NET: Another Option for Python-Based InferenceDecember 14 2008

Inference for .NET is an alternative to Infer.NET & IronPython.

Bonus: Inference for .NET integrates with ResolverOne.

IronPython 2.0 & Microsoft Research Infer.NET 2.2December 12 2008

import sys import clr sys.path.append("c:\\program files\\Microsoft Research\\Infer.NET 2.2\\bin\\debug") clr.AddReferenceToFile("Infer.Compiler.dll") clr.AddReferenceToFile("Infer.Runtime.dll") from MicrosoftResearch.Infer import * from MicrosoftResearch.Infer.Models import * from MicrosoftResearch.Infer.Distributions import * firstCoin = Variable[bool].Bernoulli(0.5) secondCoin = Variable[bool].Bernoulli(0.5) bothHeads = firstCoin & secondCoin ie = InferenceEngine() print ie.Infer(bothHeads) --> c:\Users\Larry O'Brien\Documents\Infer.NET 2.2>ipy InferNetTest1.py Compiling model...done. Initialising...done. Iterating: .........|.........|.........|.........|.........| 50 Bernoulli(0.25)

Sweet