Accessible Programming

Just a quick shout-out to the Scala Center -- the group that shepherds the Scala language -- for their new accessibility initiative. They're exploring how to get the compiler working in a usable way with screenreaders, so that sight-impaired folks can actually make use of it.

(See the linked article and the SCP behind it for a bit more info, but the heart of the point is that literally rendering Scala code to speech produces nigh-incomprehensible results. So they're starting to study how to express the concepts in a way that can be understood through speech.)

Catching my breath after Crazy Season

As of today, I start to have weekends again. Whew!

For reasons beyond my ken, the schedule of Cool, Fun (and occasionally less-fun), Geeky Stuff bunches up weirdly in Q1. Since the beginning of the year, my schedule has included:

• Arisia
• Kenric's Memorial
• Birka Losing a week to the flu
• Dancing Fox
• A business trip to CA (teaching a Scala seminar, which is a major aspect of my dayjob)
• Intercon
• Vacation (which involved two solid days of Mandatory Family Time), and finally
• NE Scala, the conference which has consumed all of the past three days

Much of the above has been an absolute hoot (including NE Scala, which has become a highlight of my year), but I haven't been posting much here because I've had so little downtime, and because I've been continually prepping for The Next Thing. (I've said a bit more on Facebook, mostly because the activation energy to post there is much lower.)

Anyway, expect to see a bit more from me here, probably including belated retrospectives on some of the above, now that my schedule has a bit more breathing room...

Opinions about Berlin?

(That's Germany, not MA.)

Kate and I are thinking of doing Berlin for our big vacation this fall. We're starting to do research, but would love any ideas / suggestions / opinions about places and things to see and do...