At FOSDEM, during one of the Web 2.0 talks, Dean and I started to try to guess which Web 2.0 buzzword the speaker would use next. Although we found this amusing nothing we heard gave us any real indication as to the meaning of Web 2.0. I really lliked Tim Bray’s description of Web 2.0 that I came across on Robert Kaye’s blog article – What is Web 2.0.

Web 2.0 is the writable web and the Web 1.0 was the read-only web.

I was pleased to see that the Belfast Telegraph has picked up the story about the FOSS Means Business event. I wouldn’t have said that Google is behind the event or that Open Source is a new approach to software development but if it gets more people to attend the event I know it will make the organisers happy.

After reading about JavaScript last night I was amused that it was the first thing I came across this morning. There seems to be some buzz around Simon Willison’s E-tech tutorial on JavaScript. By now everyone knows that JavaScript is cool again but it’s going to take me a while to get used to seeing it being listed as a hot topic everywhere. I haven’t read through Simon’s slides yet but I did quickly read through his notes which are well worth a look.

Because of the Winter Olympics and the recent ITV Dancing on Ice show it’s getting harder to find a time to practice on the ice without having to maneuver through a crowd.  But today I managed to pass the ice skating exam I had to miss through illness.  I wasn’t sure that I was going to manage all the elements as I thought that my mohawks were a bit ropey but once my coach told me to stop thinking about it and just do it I had no more problems.

FOSDEM had a Web 2.0 track which I decided to sit through on the Sunday morning. By far the best talk in this track was given by Alex Russell. I didn’t have a computer with me so the only information I had before I heard the talk was that he is the project leader of the Dojo Toolkit. I was expecting his talk to be about the project but instead he gave a talk called “Functional Programming and AOP in a JavaScript Environment”. After a brief introduction to JavaScript Alex gave examples of how to implement a variety of object oriented patterns and advanced functional programming idioms such as closures and monads.

I have attended JavaScript tutorials in the past but these did not present me with a language that I would ever have wanted to use. They mainly focused on browser incompatibilities and horrible hacks to get round these. The language looked ugly. But after hearing Alex I realise that it’s not that you can’t write good code in JavaScript it’s just that lots of people choose not to or don’t know how to.

I am glad that the slides are available as not only did I not take a computer to FOSDEM but I also managed to forget to bring a notebook with me on Sunday morning.

The Belfast Perl Mongers will be meeting next Wednesday. It’s been nearly a year since the last meeting and I’m not even sure it counted as it was in Birmingham.

We still haven’t decided whether this will be a technical or social meeting. I was hoping that Marty would speak but he’s going to be too busy with the FOSS event. If I don’t manage to find a speaker we will just have to get by with eating and going out to a bar. A few of the guys from Birmingham.pm will be over – maybe I should get them to speak…

If you are interested in Free Software and are going to be in Belfast on the 16th I would recommend that you attend the FOSS Means Business event. I haven’t heard all the speakers but I did get the opportunity to hear Richard Stallman speaking at FOSDEM at the end of February. This was the first time I’d heard Stallman and he wasn’t quite what I expected. A lot of people, when discussing Stallman, focus on the eccentricities of his personality. But he is a very articulate speaker and the passion he has for his subject is well presented without him sounding like a raving fanatic.

The only thing I didn’t enjoy was the way that he handles questions. He had no problems giving answers but he isn’t always pleasant to the people asking them. So if you do go along and decide to take part in the Q&A session I would recommend that you use the phrase Free Software and not Open Source.

I haven’t written much in my blog this year. I’m going to blame this on the fact that I was ill for most of January and February. Now that I feel like blogging again I am going to have to learn to use new blogging software. I have been using Moveable Type for nearly four years but whilst I was ill Marty and Tony decided to move all our blogs to WordPress. I had asked Marty not to move my blog as I don’t really like change but he ignored me.

WordPress must be fairly easy to use as the only problem I’ve had so far has been getting the password out of Marty. Well I did manage to mess up. It seems that I published a blank entry by mistake. I’ll need to work out how to get rid of that and see if I can publish this instead!

I’m confused. Marty has tried to explain this to me but really I switched off after the first five minutes. It all sounds much too complicated. But Richard Stallman is coming to town and I’m told that he’s a wee bit sensitive about this topic.

(I was going to categorise this as open source but Marty noticed so I called the category Free Software)

After a rather hectic December I’m just about to leave the office until New Year. The next couple of days will be busy with family and friends to visit. I also have an ice skating exam in the morning which I’m not looking forward to. But after that I’m planning on spending a few days reading and watching all the films I meant to see during the year.

Merry Christmas!