Romeo and Juliet, the dyslexic version (Beautiful Girls)

Willie: [calling down from a window] Hey.

Marty: [looking up to the window] Romeo and Juliet, the dyslexic version.

~ Beautiful Girls

Write your first draft with your heart. Rewrite with your head.

“No thinking - that comes later. You must write your first draft with your heart. You rewrite with your head. The first key to writing is to write, not to think!”

~ Finding Forrester

You're the man now, dog! (from Finding Forrester)

“You're the man now, dog!”

~ Finding Forrester

Ye olde Talkeetna cabin

As I think about moving back to Talkeetna, Alaska for the summer, I ran across this old photo of my car in front of my cabin.

My name is William Forrester

“My name is William Forrester.” (Points to Writers Wall Of Fame pictures.) “I'm that one.”

My favorite song of March, 2013, Thank You, by Alanis Morissette

My favorite song of March, 2013, Thank You, by Alanis Morissette:

Scala REPL - There were deprecation warnings, re-run with -deprecation

Whenever I used to get the Scala REPL warning message, "There were deprecation warnings, re-run with -deprecation", I used to have to restart the REPL with the -deprecation flag to see the warning message, like this:

$ scala -deprecation

That works, but sadly, you had to lose your entire REPL session to run it.

Use :warnings

Thanks to the Scala gods, this is no longer necessary in Scala 2.10 (and newer). Now, when you get the REPL deprecation warning message, like this:

Sign for the 'Free Store' in Talkeetna, Alaska

The sign for the 'Free Store' in Talkeetna, Alaska.

Women will sleep with you if you write a book?

Jamal: “Women will sleep with you if you write a book?”

Forrester: “Women will sleep with you if you write a bad book.”

~ Finding Forrester

The nearest donut theory (Detective Wheeler, Law and Order, Criminal Intent)

Wheeler: “If he was seeing someone, the nearest donut theory says she lived near the firehouse.”

Logan: “The what?”

Wheeler: “Men are lazy. Even if there's a good meal across town, they'll usually just reach for the nearest donut.”

Solution to the Scala jar class file is broken error

I just ran into the following Scala jar (class) is broken error:

Java enum examples/tutorial

Java enum FAQ: Can you share some Java enum examples, such as how to declare a Java enum, and how to use a Java enum in a for loop, if then statement, and Java switch statement?

As described in Sun's Java documentation, a Java enum "is a type whose fields consist of a fixed set of constants ... you should use enum types any time you need to represent a fixed set of constants." Let's take a look at some Java enum examples to see how this works.

A Scala XML NodeBuffer example

Here's a short example of how to use the Scala XML NodeBuffer class:

A very big moon setting over the ocean

I don't know if this photo of a very large moon setting over the ocean is real, but it is pretty.

From this Facebook URL.

Man finds a baby squirrel in a bag of mulch, and saves it

Man finds a baby squirrel in a bag of mulch, and saves it. See the full story at http://imgur.com/a/ibc2Y

Learn the rules like a pro so you can break them like an artist (Pablo Picasso)

“Learn the rules like a pro so you can break them like an artist”

~ Picasso

The NCAA Sweet 16, 2013

The NCAA Sweet 16, 2013 edition. Courtesy of espn.com.

Less is more

“Less is more.”

~ Anonymous minimalist designer

Computer programming languages ranked by "expressiveness"

Computer programming languages ranked by "expressiveness", from http://redmonk.com/dberkholz/2013/03/25/programming-languages-ranked-by-...

Learning how to write a technology book (for O'Reilly)

A fun part of writing the Scala Cookbook has been learning more about the process of thorough writing, and doing more research about topics than I've ever done before.

The process goes something like this: For the next 24 hours I'm working on editing the “XML & XPath” chapter, which was originally written a few months ago. For these 24 hours, I let myself “love” processing XML with Scala.