In his May 2008 IEEE Computer column, Neville Holmes discusses The Craft of Programming. In the context of his five decades of programming, he shows were computer programs often fail to meet end user needs. He uses a variety of tools to accomplish his own programming tasks and would like to see more people to be able to enjoy the craft of programming to get computers to do what they want them to do.

Despite a much effort, end user programming remains hit and miss. Scripting languages help some and graphical programming has seen some very limited success. Perhaps we'll see intelligent systems which fill the gaps. Solving the end user computing problem will become more critical as embedded computers become pervasive. How many people can't, or won't, program their fancy video systems?

CorePy came on the radar last year for the Power-PC and Cell Processor. It's a package that supports using assembly language instructions from pure Python, including the interactive prompt. Version 1.0 been released under a BSD license and now includes X86/SSE support. Looks like a great way to code to the metal for maximum performance.

I've been aware of the Lua programming language for some time, but just took a look at it this week. It's small and fast, making it well suited to embedding in other software, particularly where resources scarce. It's used as a scripting/customization language for many video games, but it is capable for many applications. It seems a bit like a leaner, meaner Python. Where Python is sometimes compared to Lisp with Algol syntax, Lua is more like Scheme with Algol syntax.

The Lua architecture which emphasizes simplicity, performance, flexibility, and portability, was driven by the business requirements of industrial projects and the functional programming research of academia. It isn't as full featured as Python or Ruby, often requiring multi-language development. Integration with C programs seems to be even easier with Lua than with Python, however, so this isn't a great disadvantage. I may try it for a small footprint project.

Last night I attended a Front Range Pythoneers meeting for the first time since Spring. There wasn't a formal presentation, but there was a lot of interesting talk as well as the usual pizza and beer.

One of the guys demoed Earthscape on his iPhone, an Internet service that his company introduced a few weeks ago. Earthscape is geolocation based application that allows users to upload photos from their phones to the Earthscape server which stores them in a geographic database. The application on the phone tags the photo with time and location and can display a spinning globe showing locations of recently uploaded photos. It's a really slick geolocation application.

Thanks to our colleagues at bivio for hosting this months meeting.

I did my duty and voted today, though I didn't like the choices. On a brighter note, my new kettlebells arrived today from Dragon Door. I put them to good use working off some frustration about the state of our political system.

Musculoskeletal Tissue Regeneration presents the state of the art in biological materials and methods for repairing damaged bone and muscle. It's of interest to me because I'd like to postpone or avoid replacing my knees with bionic devices. While not light reading, it is clear and comprehensive.

I just got back from a road trip to San Francisco to visit the Stone Clinic for an evaluation of my knees. Bad news is that the right knee is toast, beyond 2008 technology for biologic joint repair. Good news is that the left knee is a good candidate for a meniscus transplant. I need to think about where to go from here.

On the way there, I stopped to train at the Murray Institute for Lifelong Fitness, aka Dan John's garage gym. I got a good workout, some technique pointers, and advice for training with my knee issues. Dan suggested that I work on my gait and forward head posture to mitigate the effects of arthritis. To that end he had me doing kettlebell and ring work: farmer walks, swings, presses, reverse rows, lawn mowers, and pull-ups. We finished with some 56# weight for distance throws.

Dan's "rings" are simple 5" lengths of 1" PVC tubing with rope threaded through them. They are cheap and effective and I think I have suitable material around the house to make my own.

It was a good trip. The weather was great and I had the top down most of the way. I really enjoy driving across the great American West. I find it relaxing and invigorating. Traffic from the eastern side of Sacramento to San Francisco was heavy on the way out Sunday afternoon, and took me longer than I expected. I planned on two nights in San Francisco, but after experiencing Sunday's traffic I decided to start back Monday afternoon following my visit at the Stone Clinic. I threw a kettlebell in the trunk before leaving home so I wouldn't have to rely on hotel fitness centers.