April 2005 - Posts

• Convert a count into a boolean in SQL

  select case (count(*)) when 0 then 0 else 1 end from mytable Posted Apr 29 2005, 10:17 by Dirk with no comments Filed under: Programming

• Visual Studio 2005 will be available on Unix

  I know this is old (almost one month), but it's still cool: http://www.theserverside.net/news/thread.tss?thread_id=33023 Posted Apr 28 2005, 09:55 by Dirk with no comments Filed under: Programming

• Teamwork is everything

  This blog entry is a thank you to my collegues from the football team (soccer for my American readers).  I play football every Tuesday evening, just a couple of friends and me, nothing professional.  Last Tuesday we were 10 people, so we divided in two squads of 5.  We stacked the deck in our favour because my squad consisted soleley of people who can handle a ball, and more importantly, know how to play with each other.  Naturally, we blasted the other squad into oblivion and won with 12 goals difference. The other team had some good players too, but they didn't play together as good as we did.  If a team plays together instead of doing solo tricks, if every member works for the other guys, the results are enormously satisfying. The ultimate proof of our team play must be this situation: I was standing in the point attack position, so I got the ball.  It was a really easy one, I only had to kick it into the goal.  But I screwed up.  Another guy recovered the ball, and since I was still in point I received the ball again.  I screwed up again.  It took me four attempts to kick the ball into the goal.  I want to say a heartfelt thank you to my team for giving me so many chances to score that goal.  It would have been easier for the other guys to put the ball into the goal themselves but they trusted me to get it right eventually.  Thank you. Dirk   Posted Apr 28 2005, 07:30 by Dirk with no comments Filed under: Miscellaneous

• Cross-Cultural differences in Sports

  I stumbled over a page describing cross-cultural differences across the world with regard to sports.  Living in Austria (but not being an Austrian), I found the entry about Austria quite amusing: You know how football ("soccer", Fussball) is played. If you're male you may even know the infamous Abseitsregel, and you think the national team's head coach doesn't have the slightest clue, which is probably the reason why the national team invariably loses all matches. Sports like baseball or cricket are boring and weird. American football is exotic and weird. Whenever you turn on the TV during the months with "r", you'll likely see downhill skiing, slalom skiing, giant slalom skiing, ski jumping, and cross-country skiing. In all other months, you'll see football (soccer) or Formula One racing, with commentary by the legendary Heinz Prüller. How true - especially the part about skiing!  And it seems like Heinz Prüller is (in)famous outside of Austria too ;-) Posted Apr 26 2005, 08:46 by Dirk with no comments Filed under: Formula 1, Entertainment

• The Institute for Backup Trauma

  To all people using tape backups: John Cleese recently took the job of Head of the Institute for Backup Trauma: http://www.backuptrauma.com/video/default2.aspx. (flash required). Hilarious! Posted Apr 25 2005, 08:17 by Dirk with no comments Filed under: Programming

• Ferrari are back

  Yesterdays F1 Grand Prix of Imola was a thrilling event.  There's one conclusion to be drawn: Ferrari are back.  Michael Schumacher started from 13th position after making an error in the second qualifying session.  The first half of the race was quite uneventfull, but then Schumacher put the hammer down.  He stayed out longer than anybody else during the first stint (apparently his fuel tank was filled to capacity) and as soon as he was free of traffic, he started churning laps roughly 1.5 second faster than everybody else.  Alonso's 25 second advantage melted like snow in the sun and he managed just barely to keep his lead after Schumacher's second pit stop.  We were then treated to 13 laps of Schumacher driving 0.3 seconds behind Alonso - sometimes the gap was literally only centimeters wide.  It speaks for the young Spaniard that he was able to fend of Schumachers attacks, taking his third consecutive victory with a marginal 0.215s advantage. I can't wait for the next race in Spain, in two weeks.  Alonso will be super-motivated for his home race, and Schumacher will be looking to deal the psychological blow of beating Alonso on his home ground. On a side node: it was good to see that Villeneuve is getting back to his old ways.  So are BAR.  Now if only Williams could get their act together, we'd have a very closely fought field of 8 (!) top-to-subtop teams. Posted Apr 25 2005, 07:56 by Dirk with no comments Filed under: Formula 1

• About the Critical Analysis

  I read part of the critical analysis which I mentioned in a previous blog entry.  The interesting part is that while I shoot down Dominus Iesus because I deem it too conservative, Donald J. Sandor basically shoots down the text because it is not conservative enough.  He even goes as far as to explicitely call it heresy.  A bit of browsing on their site told me that he shoots down Vatican II as well.  Wow.  This makes Ratzinger seem ultra-progressive in comparison. For the sake of completeness: it appears that Rev. Donald Sandor is part of a group of priests who split themselves off of the movement around the excommunicated Bisshop Msgr Lefevre.  While everybody is entirely entitled to her or his own opinion, Sandor's or Lefevre's opinions are not the kind I'd like to subscribe to. Posted Apr 22 2005, 07:31 by Dirk with no comments Filed under: Let's get metaphysical

• My take on Dominus Iesus

  Dominus Iesus (as I understand it) conveys three lines of thought: It states that the Catholic Church wants to be open and respectful towards other religions It establishes what constitues (in Ratzinger's opinion) Catholic faith The revelations, workings and salvation of God are not limited to the Catholic Church, but it is only in the Catholic Church that they are complete. Ad 1: I like that in principle, although it sound a bit demeaning towards other religions: The Catholic Church ... has a high regard for the ... teachings ...which ... often reflect a ray of that truth which enlightens all men.  So the other religions only offer rays of enlightment. Ad 2: There's nothing wrong with clearly outlining what constitutes ones faith.  Where Ratzinger does go wrong (in my opinion) is in making Catholic faith an all-or-nothing issue.  He basically says "these are the things that you must believe, and if you do not believe every single on of them, then you are not a Roman Catholic".  I believe that every person should find her or his own way in faith. Ad 3: Here's where it goes terribly wrong.  Ratzinger says that only in the Catholic Church God's revelations are complete.  This sounds so much like "people from other religions will be salvated too, but remember, we are holier than thou". No, I don't like it.  Reading this text has also made me severely doubt Ratzinger's intentions to try and bring unity to all Christiias during his papacy.  I had hoped it would be unity on equal foot, but Dominus Iesus makes me fear that it will be only a two-class kind of unity. No, I didn't read the critical analysis yet ... Posted Apr 21 2005, 03:28 by Dirk with no comments Filed under: Let's get metaphysical

• Dominus Iesus

  One of the things that were mentioned time and again on CNN during the days leading to the election of the new Pope, was that Cardinal Ratzinger had written a document called "Dominus Iesus" ("The Lord Jesus") in which he allegedly says that Roman Catholicism is the only true religion. While I normally tend to trust the things they say on CNN, I found this statement to be so strongly negative that I wanted to judge for myself.  After some research, I found the text of Dominus Iesus (or rather an English translation; my Latin isn't quite up there anymore after ten years of disuse).  I haven't had time to read it yet, but I'm putting the link here so I can find it again. Complete text of Dominus Iesus A critical analysis My mother was probably referring to this text when she said that Jesus brings salvation to every human being, and will find a way to each and every person regardless of their religion.  I suppose that is a positive interpretation of the text (which, I repeat, I haven't read yet). Posted Apr 21 2005, 07:35 by Dirk with no comments Filed under: Let's get metaphysical

• Life as a software engineer ...

  An old one, but still good for a laugh: Drug Dealers Software Developers Refer to their clients as "users". Refer to their clients as "users". "The first one's free!" "Download a free trial version..." Have important Asian connections. Have important Asian connections. Strange jargon: "Stick""Rock" "Wrap" "E" "Stash" "Drive-by" "Hit (LSD)" "Source" "The Pigs" Strange jargon: "SCSI" "RTFM" "Packet" "C" "Cache" "CTRL ALT DEL" "Hit (WWW)" "Source-code" "Microsoft" Realise that there's tons of cash in the 14- to 25-year-old market. Realise that there's tons of cash in the 14- to 25-year-old market. Clients really like your stuff when it works. When it doesn't work they want to kill you. Clients really like your stuff when it works. When it doesn't work they want to kill you. Job is assisted by the industry's producing newer, more potent product. Job is assisted by the industry's producing newer, more potent product. Often seen in the company of pimps, hustlers and low-lifes. Often seen in the company of marketing people, venture capitalists and fund managers. When things go wrong, a "fix" is just a phone call away, but may be expensive. When things go wrong, a "fix" is just a phone call away, but may be expensive. A lot of people are getting rich while still teenagers. A lot of people are getting rich while still teenagers. Product causes unhealthy addictions. DOOM, Quake, SimCity, Duke Nukem 3D... Do your job well and you can sleep with sexy movie stars who depend on you. Damn! DAMN!!! Posted Apr 20 2005, 06:36 by Dirk with no comments Filed under: Programming

• Habemus Papam

  The Roman Catholic Church has a new Pope, and I am not happy.  I counted myself among the "Anybody but Ratzinger" crowd.  Ratzinger has been very conservative during his tenure as Dean of the Cardinals, and I don't agree with that stance.  A person like Cardinal Danneels, who is moderately progressive and has an incredible moral authority in Belgium would have been better, in my opinion. Still, what's done is done.  I will give Benedict XVI the benefit of the doubt (not that I have much choice), and let's be realistic: he is 78 years old so this won't be another 26 years papacy.  I guess it will be much shorter than that, maybe 5 years or so. Posted Apr 20 2005, 06:48 by Dirk with no comments Filed under: Let's get metaphysical

• Drop all Stored Procedures in a Database

  Once in a while, I run accross the need to delete all stored procedures in a database.  I found a script/sql query on the net that does just that. A couple of caveats: I did not invent this myself, so I take to credit for it.  I just wish I could remember where I found this, so I could give proper credit. I will not accept any responsibility of executing this script causes damage in your particular environmnent.  Use at your own risk! Now without further ado: declare @procName sysname   declare someCursor cursor for     select name from sysobjects where type = 'P' and objectproperty(id, 'IsMSShipped') = 0   open someCursor fetch next from someCursor into @procName while @@FETCH_STATUS = 0 begin     exec('drop proc ' + @procName)     fetch next from someCursor into @procName end   close someCursor deallocate someCursor Posted Apr 19 2005, 08:40 by Dirk with no comments Filed under: Programming

• Simple Main method

  A blog entry on Wintellect.  Don't let yourself be fooled by the apparent simplicity of the first proposed Main method and the apparent complexity of the second Main method.  From a JIT point of view, the first method is more complex than the second. Posted Apr 19 2005, 08:08 by Dirk with no comments Filed under: Programming

• Star Wars Episode 3 Rated PG-13

  Old news, really, but Star Wars Episode III has been rated PG-13.  I assume that's for violence and intense angst rather than drugs and nudity ;-).  A good thing, this PG-13, because I was hoping for a really really dark Star Wars movie.  Seems like we'll get it! Posted Apr 18 2005, 02:18 by Dirk with no comments Filed under: Star Wars

• VS2005 Beta 2

  Visual Studio 2005 went (rather quietly imho) Beta 2 last friday.  Here's how to get it. Posted Apr 18 2005, 02:17 by Dirk with no comments Filed under: Programming