Research

I decided to finally post some things about my current research. Of course, due to my NDA, I cannot be very specific... Some things I am doing currently:

• using Eclipse in Python and C++ mode (who needs a clumsy language such as JAVA??): it totally rocks!
  
• using Gentoo Linux: I am very impressed! This is the way Linux is supposed to be! The performance of a Gentoo system is significantly better than Windows (of course) and rpm-based Linux distributions such as SuSE or RedHat. Also the package management system is incredible. E.g., it is a piece of cake to switch (on-the fly!) the whole system from one low-level library to another one (e.g. QT vs. GTK, KDE vs. GNOME, OpenGL drivers, etc. etc.). All dependencies are automatically updated. Can you do this in Windows (an analog task would be to switch from some MFC+Visual Studio version to another one)? I guess you would need 10 reboots and some stale dependencies would screw up your system, so you have to reinstall in the end.... Some colleagues have even started to use Gentoo, when they saw my system :-)
  
• Doing calibration. In my reasearch area, this is one of the hardest tasks (at least for me). It requires strong knowledge in maths. I was very excited to find a research paper that describes how to build systems without calibration. It's title is: "We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Calibration". Read it here.
  
• I am currently researching lots of patents. Let me tell you: there is nothing too insignificant to be patented (at least in the United States, haha).
  
• Asa sent me a hillarious link: there is a webpage that advertises a (fake) conference on software engineering. It mocks the bad practices of software development that lots of companies actually apply. In the past, I have experienced these anti-patterns myself :-) Check the webpage out here