[Mon May 31 20:26:20 CEST 2010]

BBC publishes a graphic illustrating the world of supercomputers that is quite telling, especially in the section organized by country. As you can see, the US has about half the supercomputers deployed in the world. Not so surprising, I think, is to see that the vast majority of them are running Linux. Finally, as an SGI employee, I love to see my company up there figthing with all the biggies. {link to this story}

[Wed May 19 20:09:50 CEST 2010]

What a wonderful irony that the same politician who rode the coattails of the new technologies and social networking to make it to the White House is now warning us about the perils of these evil devices! As I read on The Economist, Barack Obama ranted against technology during a recent speech:

"With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations —none of which I know how to work— information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment." In a speech to students at Hampton University on May 9th, Mr. Obama did not just name-check some big brands; he also joined a long tradition of grumbling about new technologies and new forms of media.

The journalist who writes for The Economist goes on to argue that Obama is wrong. Of course he is. Like any other tool, these new technological devices can be used for good as well as evil, to further the progress of humanity as well as to enslave it and dumb it down. We all know that. Obama sure knows that. He is a smart guy. Contrary to what many critics have pointed out, I do not think Obama was "ranting against technology". He was just emphasizing its perils, warning us against the "other side" of the story, the part that we often forget about in our hyper-technical, cybernetic world. In other words, he was just trying to counter the techno-utopianism that Wired magazine and others have been spreading for almost two decades now. Who can deny that the spread of RSS feeds and media aimed at niche markets a la Fox News and talk radio in general didn't have the side-effect of isolating us all in our tiny (but safe) cocoons where we can rarely be exposed to other points of views but the ones we already agree with? Well, that is precisely what Obama is "ranting" about. I don't think it's so out there, to be honest. As a matter of fact, there is a clear danger that by stressing the tools (i.e., the technologies) that will cater to our every need, we will undermine the very institutions of representative democracy (dialogue, negotiation, bargaining, coexistence with people who believe in values other than our own, etc.) and will build a new jungle where raw power to impose one's own values will be key. One doesn't need to be strongly opposed to technology to see this danger. {link to this story}

[Mon May 17 17:06:43 CEST 2010]

eWeek publishes a slideshow explaining the 25 reasons why Perl is still rising in the enterprise although, truth be told, it amounts to less than the advertised 25 reasons when one subtracts the slides dedicated just to introduce the programming language to the uninitiated. In any case, the reasons that still make Perl important are, I think, difficult to argue against: it still serves as "the duct tape of the Internet" after all these years; it does not enforce any particular programming paradigm (procedural, object-oriented, functional, etc.), or even requires the programmer to choose among them; it is solidly multiplatform (included by default with most UNIX and UNIX-like operating systems, but also easy to install on a system running Windows thanks to the excellent distributions put together by the folks at Active State); it is highly versatile; and, finally, it consistently shows up among the top ten programming languages in the TIOBE index. All in all, Perl comes to prove how programming languages have a much longer life than most people would even imagine. Sure, there are younger, cooler kids on the block (Python, PHP, Ruby...), but Perl is still around so many years later and it still makes sense to use it as a first choice for certain things. If nothing else, it goes to prove that when it comes to programming languages, as with so many other things in life, it is never a good idea to be dogmatic. A pragmatic approach will always serve you better. Programming languages are nothing but tools, come to think of it. It's only certain people who tend to see them as a matter of life and death. {link to this story}