Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

-Robert Frost

Miles to go before I sleep indeed...
This is one of my favorite ones. Rhythmic usage of words without making it sound odd/obvious, the way he has built a plot, and kind of impact it has on you after you finish reading the last line... Its just too good of a feeling!

Moxie

No... this is not about some food item, some pop start or a description of fancy new motorbike. This is the code name for flex 3.0.

Got a chance to attend a seminar by Prayank Swaroop the other day. He is a java coder turned flex evangelist. Its really amazing to see the newer technologies coming up. There is ActionScript 3.0, AIR(Adobe Integrated Runtime, formerly known as Apollo), Advanced datagrid, improved charting and a lot more.

ActionScript 3.0 is a set of open source libraries now. Just download flash SDK and you will be ready to go along with notepad. At last people understand importance of open source for money making. But they are smart enough to charge IDE. AIR will enable you to run your programs as exe by just changing one property. Advanced datagrid makes the stuff so easy, those kind of things are a nightmare in .NET. This is just some of the new stuff.

My two pennies worth experience so far in flex tells me, it is a frikking hard language to code in. There is no good documentation available. No API so that method details will pop up when u code. I wonder why are they even charging their builder. This is the basic thing that a developer will ask for! On top of that FDS is so fussy about everything. It expects everything in very disciplined fashion. And sometimes it is so not obvious that you just wonder WHY. Agreed, I am just a rookie in flex. But trust me, it is irritating at times.

The only real problem with these upcoming RIA technologies is that the content is not supported by search engines. I guess the way these technologies are getting better and popular, they will make search engines change their way. Though there are some hacky ways to deal with this. I have even seen people putting the intended content in commented HTML tags just to appear in search results!

In spite of all the ranting, I have to agree, this has the coolest GUI available in market. Besides, when you know it well, you know it all.
Here is some flashy stuff...
Check out http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/
Looks Adobe has long way to go with flex.

Every Second Counts... indeed

I have been reading Lance Armstrong's biography 'Every Second Counts'. Reading it is a wonderful experience not just for a sport person or a cancer patient. Its an awe inspiring story for every being, and very well written I would say. The book is about the challenges of living in aftermath of the killing disease and emerging out as winner. Its all about making the most of every breath you take. Now I want to read 'Its not about the bike' as well, which people say is better than this one.

I know Lance Armstrong is no brand ambassador for Adidas. But reading the book reminds me of one of those Adidas ad campaigns...

Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men
who find it easier to live in a world that they have been given
than to explore the power they have to change it.
Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion.
Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare.
Impossible is potential.
Impossible is temporary.
Impossible is nothing...

Sigh....

Very scary. Was just holding on. Thank god nothing went terribly wrong. Dunno why I am such a chicken.
I guess sometimes the ground can shift beneath your feet. Sometimes your footing slips - you stumble. And then, you grab what's closest to you and hold on... as tight as you can... Feeling like never letting it go...

Thanks for being there...