Internet Alchemy

I’ve documented the private vocabulary URI space that exists at vocab.org. If you need a safe URI for a namespace or a set of schema terms that you think might be around for a long time and you might want HTTP dereferenceablity then this is the place for you. Even if you don’t think they’ll be around for a long time it might be worth considering. Experimental vocabularies have a habit of outlasting their creator’s original vision and with the types of data retention policies made possible by super-cheap storage it might be nice to have working URIs in 5, 10 or 20 years time.

Note to self: must find the time for improving the upload and maintenance of schemas at vocab.org

I found this taxonomy of code smells by Mika Mäntylä very interesting. The smells are mostly straight out of Refactoring but the groupings are new:

• The Bloaters, things that have grown so large that they cannot be effectively handled
  • Long Method
  • Large Class
  • Primitive Obsession
  • Long Parameter List
  • DataClumps
• The Object-Orientation Abuser, cases where the solution does not fully exploit the possibilities of object-oriented design.
  • Switch Statements
  • Temporary Field
  • Refused Bequest
  • Alternative Classes with Different Interfaces
• The Change Preventers, things that hinder changing or further developing the software
  • Divergent Change
  • Shotgun Surgery
  • Parallel Inheritance Hierarchies
• The Dispensables, things that should be removed from source code
  • Lazy class
  • Data class
  • Duplicate Code
  • Dead Code
  • Speculative Generality
• The Couplers, cases that increase coupling
  • Feature Envy
  • Inappropriate Intimacy
  • Message Chains
  • Middle Man

So, I just updated to Firefox 1.0 and… this site is now broken. The comments heading after the first posting appear way down the page after the end of the sidebar leaving a huge white void. Funny how it was fine 2 minutes ago with Firefox PR1…

Update: fixed by removing clear: both from my CSS for H2 elements