Quiero verte yo:.

I've made my mind, this will be my last month of rest!. 

I've spent the last three months learning French, and though it's been interesting, now I need another motivation in my life. Historically, the only thing that has really mattered to me, besides my family, is programming, so that would be the natural choice. The plan of studying a PhD abroad is also open, but I hate just staying still, waiting for things to happen. I've already started looking for some positions in the industry, we'll see how that goes. 

I'm in no rush, I value my time =):.

No importa lo que digas,
no importa lo que vea,
yo creeré en mi sueño!

For reasons unknown:.

The year is coming to an end, which is great because it also means I'm about to finish my master's degree. To be honest, I enjoyed most of this year and a half at school, though there are many things I'd change. Anyway, I think this is an excellent opportunity to stop for a moment and make some comments about things that have been in my mind for sometime now.

When I graduated from college five years ago, most of my generation was interested in software engineering and solving problems at a high abstraction level. Yesterday I went to a small conference at school, where the best projects of the computer department courses where presented, and you know what?, 80% of these projects were games!. I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, but I kind of disagree in giving such an emphasis in these kind of topics, and not so much on server side technologies and stuff like that.

Another thing, maybe related, we really need better programmers!. People who can dig into problems, manage the abstractions and come up with innovative solutions. Sadly, most of the programmers I've come across don't do that. And what's more, when you point out that their work is not good enough, instead of trying to improve it, they resent it and take it as a personal matter. The truth is I've also done that, maybe it's the huge ego inside every programmer =). The lesson here is to accept you're not always right, even if it takes you sometime to realize that.

I pack my case, I check my face
I look a little bit older,
I look a little bit colder.

Give me freedom:.

Back in college I met this guy that claimed you could get to know someone just by looking at their code. Back then I thought this was nonsense, but with time I've come to realize he wasn't so wrong after all. You obviously can't learn everything worth knowing about someone just by the quality of their code, but you can certainly watch out for patterns that can give you a better idea of the maturity and programming level that person is in right now. You can always brag about how many design patterns you know, your popularity in dzone.com, maybe even about the TV series and movies you've watched, but the truth is that when you show your code to someone else, there's no way to hide the real programmer in you!

I'm telling all this because today I came across some code programmed by a so-called leader of the Java community in Mexico, needless to say I was really disappointed:.

You define us,
Make us feel proud.

Alterando la tranquilidad en mí:.

For the next couple of months I'll be giving some Java courses on Saturdays. Yesterday I started with the very basics and I'm planning on covering some interesting things about web development in general, and frameworks like Spring and Hibernate in detail, let us hope it all go as planned!!:.

As part of the final project for the Intelligent Systems course I'm proposing a maintainability analyzer for Java classes. The idea is to use the metrics from projects such as Dependometer and JDepend, along with change information between tags from SVN repositories, to train a Naïve Bayes classifier. Then, for a new project I'll use this classifier to predict those classes where the maintainability efforts should be focused.

I already programmed the SVN data collector in Scala, and the intent is to keep using this language. I truly recommend you give it a try, it certainly has room for improvement, but its functional features are more than welcome!!:.

Estabas ahí,
refrescando con tu risa mi razón.

I'm calling it my best move:.

Well, it's been a while since my last post, but as they say, here I am!!

Let's see, I'm in the last part of the semester, so soon enough I'll have to finish and deliver final projects. Right now what concerns me the most is the theisis work, the proposal is almost done, but i should really start coding if I want something useful by the end of summer. Phrasing a colleague, r u ready?:..

Here's a final draft of my thesis proposal, any comments will be greatly appreciated: Thesis_proposal

Now, for something completely different, I'll admit I have a crush on someone...I know, I know, how could it be if I'm used to define my self as a 'cold-hearted boy'?, but I can't help it. It's interesting and weird at the same time, and I'll enjoy it for as long as I can =):...it's all platonic, and I'm not used to care, but I do now:.

This summer I want to travel, and I'm planning on doing what I did for holy week in Spain 2 years ago. Go to the bus station, take whatever bus that departs at the time, the farther the better, stay one or two days, and do it again. That was quite an experience, but the problem was that Spain is not that big, not all cities are well connected, and they don't start working till late morning!!.So, sometimes I could just travel a couple of hours in the night, and then was forced to sleep at the bus station waiting for any place to be open....the good thing is that Mexico is way bigger that Spain, cheaper and people start working early morning, so chances are I won't have to worry about walking alone in the dark waiting for some damn cafeteria to be open so I don't freeze to death!!:...=):.

And songs are never quite the answer
Just a soundtrack to a life
That is over all too soon
Helps to turn the days to night
While I was wrong and you were right.

With one deep breath, and one big step:.

One year before I graduated from college I bought my second Thinkpad. It could've been an unwise decision, being that I had already passed most of the hardcore courses and wouldn't probably need a very powerful computer for the courses left. Five years later, watching my loyal computer finally giving up, I can tell I made the right call then. Everywhere I've been, she's been with me, (almost) never failing. People come and go, but I tend to think of my machine as my constant, just like the guys from Lost.

I'm looking for a replacement, but it's not that easy:.

I check my face,
I look a little bit older,
I look a little bit colder.

Underneath and unexplored:.

For the last five years or so I've read comments all over the net bragging about Java's slow death, and for what it's worth, it's still here, perhaps not as sexy as ever, but still!!. For me, the future of the platform is not in the Java language per se, but in the JVM and the community support that took plenty of years to be built. Considering this, one of my short term goals is to master, to some degree, Scala, using it as my main programming language. It was either Scala or Groovy, but despite Groovy's advantage in the framework area, my humble opinion is that Scala will prevail in the long run!!:.

New year, new hopes!!:.

Islands and cities I have looked,
Here I saw something I couldn't over look.

It just becomes me:.

The other day I read an article named 7 Signs I Knew I Was Born To Be a Programmer, I laughed a lot but the truth is that the author had pretty good points in there. Anyway, I was thinking about this because for the last couple of weeks I've in that mood where you wish days were longer, when even while you're dreaming you are thinking of ways to solve what you couldn't complete during the day, and in the morning the first thing you want to do is continue where you left, and improve what you've done so far!!:..for me, this is how you know you're doing what you were born to do:..

But I can still let it go
And I can still learn to grow

Desapareces te vas y vuelves:.

I'm at that critical point in the Japanese learning curve where you are no longer making huge progress, but rather have to stop for a while to digest what you've learned so far, risking the former interest won't be enough to go forward....The truth is I like the way they express ideas, the writing system is intriguing and the culture in general is great, so I think I'll continue mastering this language!!:.


In the unlikely event of someone needing an implementation of the Baum-Welch algorihtm, you might take a look here: http://code.google.com/p/baumwelch-itesm/. This was my first opportunity to program something useful after four months of inactivity, so I tried to make it as good as possible, then again, there's always room for improvement:.

Amanece en alma
Atardece en tí.

Where a smile is not required:.

Today I updated to Ubuntu 9.04 and the system's overall performance is very good. I'm actually considering not replacing my machine this summer and stick with my loyal Thinkpad for another year and a half, there are just some minor fixes to be done:.

You might call it existential crisis
I simply call it the bravery
Of emptiness.

Just for one day:.

Each day I'm getting closer to my new partner. All reviews are satisfactory and weeks pass by without anyone finding a major issue with it, so all that's left is to decide where to buy it. I could do it online, but I'll probably wait to see if there's any offer at the laptop-fair next semester.

Years ago I took a class that shocked my world as developer. I'm looking forward to meet with that class teacher again, thank him for his insights and, with some luck, be able to share some knowledge!!:.

And the shame
Was on the other side
...we can beat them.

Is this the kind of life you want?:.

In this age of programmers' underestimation and slavery it's good to see that some people are actually doing something to change this. Recently I've been in touch with some members of a little company named IluminaTI, TI standing for Technology Innovation, whose purpose is not to exploit it's members but rather acknowledge their value. Some might say that traditional companies state the same in their missions, but in reality for most of them we're just a thing, not a being. If I were not about to start a full-time master degree, I would definitely work with them!!:.

This new way of thinking has gained momentum thanks to companies like Google, and smaller ones like Fog Creek. It's great to see it can be successfully applied here in Mexico:.

Do we ever try?
We're keeping it automatic
I'll be listening until you fade.

Exsonvaldes

Soy insomnio cada noche:.

This weekend my family and I visited Tequisiquiapan, following a Mexico Desconocido's recommendation for the National fair of the cheese and wine. The city is truly amazing, but sadly there wasn't such thing as a fair, just a park where teenagers went to get drunk. Anyway, we really enjoyed visiting other parts of the city, for instance we went to a nearby aquapark where we spent the whole morning, visited the Freixenet cavas and ate a delicious pozole late afternoon:...pozole!!:.

I'm looking forward to see what the WWDC brings. Though I know the conference will be iPhone oriented, I'm more concerned about Snow Leopard, mainly because that's probably going to be my next machine's OS:.

Voy siguiéndote los pasos
Y aunque tú no lo has notado
Tal ves nunca me hagas caso, pero estoy aquí.

Aarón y Su Grupo Ilusión

Pretending he just doesn't see?:.

Today I had my world shocked by some mathematical truths!. I know the concepts are not nuclear science or anything like that, but it's just that this sensation of getting to understand something that you once did mechanical, without fulling understanding what was happening, is amazing.

As some of you probably did, yesterday I tested the new search engine Wolfram|Alpha, and I have to say that some of the results are pretty amazing. Take for example this one, http://bit.ly/BCMT4, wisdom at its maximum!. In its current version it ain't really a Google's rival, but it certainly is something to follow:.

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

To the left, to the left:.

Today I had the chance to meet with two founders of the mythical CoyoSoft, it was really nice catching up with them and see that their entrepreneur spirit is higher than ever!!:.

Tomorrow is back to work for me, unless the influenza-paranoia decides otherwise:..

Standing in the front yard telling me
How I'm such a fool, talking about
How I'll never ever find a man like you
You got me twisted

I promise I'm not trying to make your life harder:.

Oracle to buy Sun!!:..the doom is coming:...I can't see how Oracle would support GlassFish, MySQL, the open environment or anything that we trust as good!!:..the whole JCP future is in stake here, the community support itself!!:...all JSRs controlled by someone as aggressive as Oracle, we can only imagine what the reaction of the other big players will be, but it might as well be catastrophic for the Java world we live in!!:..

I will go down with this ship
And I won't put my hands up and surrender
There will be no white flag above my door.

I did before and had my share, it didn't lead nowhere:.

Well, it seems I'll be getting more vacations than I first thought and it won't be till next week that I'll go back to work....I don't really liked that, specially not the way the company acted in this whole thing, but they're in the consulting business, it's in their nature to act this way:...I should really move on before I start acting like one of them!!:.

Today I started playing with Google's App Engine support for Java, and I have to admit that it's a really interesting idea, to leverage your server environment to this enormous architecture and care about what you know best, the code:..but then again, concerns are raised as google apparently defies standard-compliance and support for an open environment. It's a recurring problem, big companies trying to redefine standards to suit their needs, but no one should ever forget that if Java has made it this far it's due to community support, a compatibility-standard-loving community (to some extend) by the way!!:.

If I told you things I did before, told you how I used to be
Would you go along with someone like me?
If you knew my story word for word, had all of my history
Would you go along with someone like me?

Catch me I’m falling down:.

Yesterday's big news included IBM withdrawing its offer for Sun, causing it to lose quite a lot of market value and putting in danger some of their managers. But what's really important is the discussion about the future and validity of the Java environment. IMHO the platform has being doing good so far because the ones in control are not as competitive as others, they don't care a lot about making profits, it's not in their nature, or maybe they just don't know how to do it, anyway, that's been good for all because it has allowed for many players to come, which ultimately promotes further improvements to the platform. I'm not sure if this environment can survive with someone as competitive as IBM in charge:.

I know it's not the same, because of the JCP, but I can recall one of the motivations for the Algol programming language, community concern about how IBM dominated the market with its most powerful tool at the time, Fortran!!:.

Walking on a dream
How can I explain
Talking to myself
Will I see again