blog/archives/2008/04zack's home pagehttp://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/archives/2008/04/zack's home pageikiwiki2009-11-28T12:00:16Zpts testing transitionshttp://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2008/04/pts_testing_transitions/2009-11-28T12:00:16Z2008-04-28T13:25:32Z
<h1>PTS bit of the day: show testing transitions</h1>
<p>Tiny teeny <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org">PTS</a> bit
of the day: the PTS now provides information about <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-release/2008/04/msg00282.html">testing
transitions</a>.</p>
<p>If your package is part of an ongoing transition its uploads to
unstable will be blocked by DAK. The PTS informs you about that and
points to extra information and upload alternatives.</p>
<p>At the time of writing a couple of examples are: <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/a/aubio.html">aubio</a> and <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/dballe.html">dballe</a>. Though
now that we have such powerful tools, Debian will be so fast at
completing the <code>python2.5</code> transition that you won't
have time to see the new PTS messages <img src=
"http://upsilon.cc/~zack/smileys/smile4.png" alt=";-)" /></p>
unexpected kudos from TBLhttp://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2008/04/unexpected_kudos_from_TBL/2009-11-28T12:00:16Z2008-04-24T13:49:52Z
<h1>Sir Tim Berners-Lee kudos the Debian packaging system</h1>
<p>I'm currently in <a href=
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing">Beijing</a> to deliver a
talk at the <a href="http://www2008.org">WWW2008</a> conference,
and I just came back from the usual magnificent banquet of big
conferences. Before the banquet it was scheduled a <a href=
"http://www2008.org/keynote/TimBL.html">keynote talk</a> by
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_berners-lee">Sir Tim
Berners-Lee</a>.</p>
<p>What is the least thing you expect to hear from Sir Tim mouth in
such a talk? I for sure hadn't expected to hear <strong>kudos to
the Debian packaging system</strong>! But in fact I did hear that
and apparently I was not the only one (though probably I was the
only one who got excited about it, attracting the attention of my
table-mates).</p>
<p>He was talking about various shortcoming to be addressed in the
future of the Web, and one was the hackish way in which
Javascript/AJAX applications are deployed on the web, with no
encapsulation/packaging of libraries. Well, as an example to tend
to he then mentioned the packaging system of <a href=
"http://www.debian.org">our beloved distribution</a>.</p>
<p>It is really the time to say: we are just one step away from the
<em>total world (wide web) domination</em>.</p>
forge.ocamlcore.org unleashedhttp://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2008/04/forge.ocamlcore.org_unleashed/2009-11-28T12:00:16Z2008-04-18T06:58:43Z
<h1>introducing forge.ocamlcore.org</h1>
<p>It is my pleasure to mention that finally <a href=
"http://forge.ocamlcore.org">http://forge.ocamlcore.org</a> has
completed beta testing and <a href=
"http://caml.inria.fr/pub/ml-archives/caml-list/2008/04/cbede9e9ab77ca4fd1fc11823c52c60a.en.html">
is now ready</a> to serve the OCaml community.</p>
<p>Happy coding.</p>
not my presidenthttp://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2008/04/not_my_president/2009-11-28T12:00:16Z2008-04-15T08:33:08Z
<h1><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvio_Berlusconi" rel=
"nofollow">he</a> is not my president</h1>
<p>I hereby declare that <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvio_Berlusconi" rel=
"nofollow">he</a> is <strong>not my president</strong>, no matter
of <em>what</em> (country, largest television group, football team,
...).</p>
<p>While I'm at it, I also declare myself SABDPTIC (<em>Self
Appointed Benevolent Dictator Pro Tempore of the (Debian) Italian
Cabal</em>). Empowered by this charge I also declare that <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvio_Berlusconi" rel=
"nofollow">he</a> is not the president of the various members of
the (Debian) Italian Cabal either. I will not accept any counter
statement, as I'm now the dictator.</p>
<p>Now that I've declared this, I can happily resign from my role
of dictator.</p>
<p><small>Thanks for all the support messages I've received today
by fellows around the world.</small></p>
<p>Saddened.</p>
<p><strong>PS</strong> (ikiwiki permitting) the hyperlinks to my
new non-president in this post are a good example of the usage of
the <a href=
"http://microformats.org/wiki/rel-nofollow"><code>rel="nofollow"</code></a>
<a href="http://microformats.org">microformat</a>.</p>
land of lisphttp://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2008/04/land_of_lisp/2009-11-28T12:00:16Z2008-04-08T07:06:01Z
<h1>land of lisp</h1>
<p><a href="http://www.lisperati.com/landoflisp/">land of lisp</a>
is a really nice strip about the evils of <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Side_effect_%28computer_science%29">side
effects</a>. It's made of 72 panels, ... it takes about 10 minutes
to read, but is worth.</p>
<p>As a bonus for Italian readers: the domain name hosting the
strip rimes in between "lisp" and "desperate"; is there a hidden
message?</p>
moving well movedhttp://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2008/04/moving_well_moved/2009-11-28T12:00:16Z2008-04-03T12:13:47Z
<h1>/me has moved to Paris</h1>
<p>Well, this is not really an "I'm moving" post, but rather a
"I've moved" post: starting from past Tuesday <strong>I'm now
living in <a href=
"http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris">Paris</a></strong>. I will be
working as a <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-doc">post-doc</a> in the
<a href="http://www.mancoosi.org">mancoosi</a> project, which is a
wonderful occasion to merge my research work with my free software
enthusiasm. I've also submitted a talk proposal about mancoosi for
DebConf8, ... it will be a good occasion to chat about it if you
are interested.</p>
<p>My office is in the <a href="http://www.pps.jussieu.fr/">PPS</a>
lab, which was already quite packed of Debianers, /me is just one
more, happy to join the crowd!</p>
<p>The first day of shopping in Paris forces me to post a picture
on the very same lines of Enrico's "<a href=
"http://www.enricozini.org/2008/cazzeggio/champagne.html">how to
freak out a French person</a>". Mine below can be titled
<strong>how to freak out an inhabitant of <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modena">Modena</a></strong>:</p>
<p><a href=
"http://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2008/04/moving_well_moved/vinegar-with.jpg"><img src="http://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2008/04/moving_well_moved/350x350-vinegar-with.jpg"
width="263" height="350" alt="fake balsamic vinegar" class=
"img" /></a></p>
<p>Here you are: <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balsamic_vinegar">balsamic
vinegar</a> flavoured with figs or honey ..., tasty eh?
<small>(dedicated to gareuselesinge)</small></p>
<p><strong>PS</strong> unfortunately at home I'm still <em>without
network connectivity</em> (unless you count poorly working, up 1
random hour per day, stolen wi-fi as connectivity), so I won't be
able to work on Debian et al. a lot from home in the next few
weeks.</p>