Josh Staiger: April 2006 Archives

April 29, 2006

Silicon Valley

So this is Silicon Valley...

The weather in San Jose is beautiful. The mountain Backdrop is just as I picture it... as are the miles upon miles of strip malls and car dealerships.

Y Combinator held a reception for select Startup School attendees earlier this evening. This included large metal robots. My voice is hoarse from talking with so many interesting people.

It's 1:30AM PDT. I'm so focking tired. Mmm jet lag.

It's been a long, but good day. I'm going to go pass out now.

In General

Posted at 04:41 AM | Permanent link

April 27, 2006

Startup School 2006

Tomorrow I'm catching a plane west for Startup School 2006 at Stanford University. If it's anywhere near as good as it was last fall at Harvard, should be a treat.

Looks like another impressive array of speakers. Looking forward to chatting with a few of them, along with the myriad of other young entrepreneurial types.

It will also be nice to see Vinnie, Martin, and Jason each of whom will be at the conference.

Going to be there? Or have I forgotten you live in the Bay Area? Gimme a call: 216-570-8595. I'll be in town until Tuesday evening.

In Technology and Software

Posted at 11:06 PM | Permanent link

April 17, 2006

Raleigh Bloggers Meetup, Tuesday April 18th

Woah, hey, look at the time. While I was concentrating on not being a good blogger, two weeks passed, and it's time for the next Raleigh meetup.

Come have a beer and enjoy the beautiful weather with us tomorrow.

What: An open meeting to talk about blogging, podcasting & whatever's on your mind
When: Tues @ 6:30 p.m.
Where: Cafe Cyclo, in Cameron Village

2020 Cameron St
Raleigh, NC 27605 (map)
(919) 829-3773

Who: Bloggers, Podcasters, or anyone who is interested in blogging-related conversation.

We meet on the first and third Tuesdays of every month, same place, same time.

I'll probably be the guy sitting outside with a glass of wine and a Macintosh Powerbook.

Maybe a Senator or Natalie Portman will show up... or something...

In Blogging

Posted at 10:47 PM | Permanent link

April 03, 2006

Weekend Wilmington Trip

Headed out to Wilmington this past weekend with friends to visit Ashish during his family med rotation.

Perfect weather, sand, and waves make a great atmosphere for leaving your cares behind... at least for a little while.

As usual, I got a tan (I tan like nobody's business).

A sample exchange from this weekend:

Lisa: "So I'm bringing my Thunder[something] toy and P-Puss to the beach"
"Wait a minute, what was that second thing?"
"P-Puss"
"What's that?"
"I'll show you when we get to the beach."
"Ok, I don't know what that means, but it sounds dirty."
"You boys have dirty minds."

(me, Lisa, Krupal, and P(laty)Pus)

I don't know why, but we somehow decided it would be a good idea to drink over a gallon of Yoohoo amongst the four of us for lunch on Sunday. If I don't taste another drop of Yoohoo for the rest of my life, I think it'll be too soon...

Other photos:

And more on Flickr...

In General

Posted at 10:59 PM | Permanent link

Raleigh Bloggers Meetup, Tuesday April 4th

The Raleigh bloggers are meeting tomorrow evening at Cafe Cyclo. Last time, a US congressman showed up, who knows what this meeting will have in store? :)

At any rate, come have a beer and enjoy the nice weather.

What: An open meeting to talk about blogging, podcasting & whatever's on your mind
When: Tues @ 6:30 p.m.
Where: Cafe Cyclo, in Cameron Village

2020 Cameron St
Raleigh, NC 27605 (map)
(919) 829-3773

Who: Bloggers, Podcasters, or anyone who is interested in blogging-related conversation.

We meet on the first and third Tuesdays of every month, same place, same time.

In Blogging

Posted at 06:41 PM | Permanent link

April 01, 2006

Pretty Printing XML Attributes

Bill poses an interesting question on his blog.

Why is element-based XML easier for humans to read than attribute-based XML?

IE:

<person>
    <firstName>Bill</firstName>
    <lastName>Higgins</lastName>
    <emailAddress>bhiggins@us.ibm.com</emailAddress>
    <city>Durham</city>
    <state>NC</state>
</person>

is easier to read than:

<person firstName="Bill" lastName="Higgins" emailAddress="bhiggins@us.ibm.com" city="Durham" state="NC"/>

I think the answer is that we never learned good formating conventions for long lists of XML attributes. In such cases, most people are content to let the attributes run horizontally off the side of the page (sucks).

If we did the same thing with element-based XML, it would be hard to read as well:

<person><firstName>Bill</firstName><lastName>Higgins</lastName><emailAddress>bhiggins@us.ibm.com</emailAddress><city>Durham</city><state>NC</state></person>

I use the following convention for long attribute lists, which I've kind of borrowed from Lisp (all roads lead to Lisp):

<person firstName="Josh"
        lastName="Staiger"
        emailAddress="joshstaiger@gmail.com"
        city="Durham"
        state="NC" />

Much easier on the eyes, huh?

My algorithm goes something like this:

Write the first attribute on the same line as the tag name. Each consecutive attribute gets its own line and is indented to the level of the first attribute. Write the closing angle bracket on the same line as the last attribute.

I even wrote a SAX-based Python script which slurps XML and pretty prints it in this manner. I can dig it up and post if anyone is interested.