Internet Alchemy

BT launches WLAN trial.
Only a few nodes as yet, but they’re looking to expand to 70 by the
end of the year. No real pricing info yet but there will probably be
both subscription and pay as you go plans.

RSS Workshop.
A short tutorial on creating and using RSS feeds.

The Little Black Book of Test First Design.
Still work in progress, but some interesting insights into test first
design.

.NET Memory Profiler [via Sam]:

.NET Memory Profiler is a tool for the .NET Common Language Runtime
that allows the user to track all objects that are allocated on the GC
heap. The user can collect snapshots of the GC heap and get
information about the instances allocated on the heap. The information
includes all classes, all instances of classes, the call stacks of the
instance allocations, the path to the root from each instance and a
comparison of consecutive snapshots. Comparing heap snapshots is a
very convenient and efficient way of detecting memory leaks in a
program.

The DrawBack browser project.
An idea from Jorn Barger for a bare-bones web browser that give back a
lot of control to the user, rather than the page designer.

The way I hope it will evolve is towards smart local stylesheets
(maintained on your local drive) that allow you great flexibility in
re-formatting others’ page- designs, while automatically learning how
to generalise those formatting choices to other pages on the same
site.

These may use simple pattern-recognition (eg regular expressions) to
distinguish the useful parts of a page from the annoying parts,
hopefully even if the page is considerably revised.

Search and Replication in Unstructured Peer-to-Peer Networks [pdf]:

Decentralized and unstructured peer-to-peer networks such as Gnutella are attractive for certain applications because they require no centralized directories and no precise control over network topology or data placement. However, the flooding-based query algorithm used in Gnutella does not scale; each individual query generates a large
amount of traffic and large systems quickly become overwhelmed by the
query-induced load. This paper explores, through simulation, various
alternatives to Gnutella’s query algorithm, data replication strategy,
and network topology. We propose a query algorithm based on multiple
random walks that resolves queries almost as quickly as Gnutella’s
flooding method while reducing the network traffic by two orders of
magnitude in many cases. We also present a distributed replication
strategy that yields close-to-optimal performance. Finally, we find
that among the various network topologies we consider, uniform random
graphs yield the best performance.

HP Labs Report on Peer-to-Peer Computing:

With the pervasive deployment of computers, P2P is increasingly
receiving attention in research, product development, and investment
circles. This interest ranges from enthusiasm, through hype, to
disbelief in its potential. Some of the benefits of a P2P approach
include: improving scalability by avoiding dependency on centralized
points; eliminating the need for costly infrastructure by enabling
direct communication among clients; and enabling resource aggregation.
This survey reviews the field of P2P systems and applications by
summarizing the key concepts and giving an overview of the most
important systems.

AmphetaDesk and the Adventures of Morbus Iff.
Morbus Iff shares his thoughts on the development of AmphetaDesk and
the current state of syndicated news

For developers, this creates a wonderful perplexity. Developers can
support RSS 1.0 and know that the format won’t change – the primary
means of development are in extended modules (which typically fill a
small niche and are not widely used). Supporting 1.0, however, may be
more difficult than supporting the easier v0.9x versions. The downside
of supporting v0.9x is that you can’t be sure a new version won’t come
out while you sleep the weekend away.

The .NET Cost: Who Pays?
The final part of Bertrand Meyer’s run of articles on .NET and Eiffel.
Strangely, the overall tone of the article is positive towards the
CLS despite virtually every section describing some flaw in the rules
required for CLS compatibility. At the end Meyer predicts a Language
Renaissance which certainly seems imminent considering the plethora of
new and old languages announcing .NET versions over the past couple of
weeks. [via Sam]

CLS compliance matters only for software elements that you wish to
export to modules written in other languages, or import from them. So
as long as you’re talking to your own friends on your own team, you
can indulge in whatever pleasures you’ve enjoyed in the past. It’s
only when other teams join the game that you must start thinking about
maintaining proper appearance.

Even then, it’s still only about appearance. What you really do is
between you and your conscience; CLS compliance matters only for what
you reveal to the rest of the world. As long as the view you present
is CLS compliant, it’s no one’s business that it might serve as a
cover to non-CLS politically correct games. Don’t ask, don’t tell.

Dave Winer is in hospital for the week..
I hope it’s not too serious.