CodeFeed

Over Easter the family and I went along to see the documentary “In the Shadow of the Moon”. I can’t remember the last time I went to the cinema to watch a documentary but it was well worth it. I doubt the sound and fury of the Saturn V take off would have been as impressive in the living room. One can only image what the real thing must have felt like.

I’m old enough to vaguely remember the first moon landing on grainy black and white TV and, as a teenager, I was always deeply interested in all the space flight programs. Now, as a software and sometime hardware developer, I can only marvel at the achievements of all the pioneers in the space program with what now seems very basic equipment.

All the different recollections and viewpoints of the astronauts were very interesting and I found Michael Collins particularly impressive and humorous.

These days I think unmanned probes such as the Mars rovers are probably the best bang for the buck in terms of science but the manned mission to the moon was something special.

I recommend you give it a look if you have the chance. I found it quite uplifting.

Formula 1 kicked off again at Albert Park. Whereas last year, I journeyed down to Melbourne, this year I watched it on TV from Sydney. Overall I think the season may be more interesting than seasons past with the lack of traction control seeming to catch a few drivers out. Let’s hope the action is on the track this year.

I usually barrack for Webber in GPs but since his luck is so bad, I feel I need to have a reserve. This season, I’m going to go for Kovalainen, for no particular reason.

One of the blogs I read regularly is Robert Rapier’s R-Squared Blog. I always find it an interesting read as it is a little different from the computing blogs I tend to mostly read. His blog covers an increasingly important topic and I appreciate his honest appraisals.

Anyway, one of the things he resolved to do was to read at least 40 books in the year. I don’t expect I can read that many books so I’m setting a more modest target of 12 books. The books can be of any sort or style but must be read completely. I’ll keep track here.

Actually, I set this goal privately last year but I’m pretty sure I didn’t make it. It’s funny because I read a tremendous amout but it is either online blogs and magazines or I tend to read just the bits and pieces I need from software reference books, etc. I’m hoping that making a public declaration will give me some additional motivation.

Today, Atlassian acquired Cenqua. I think it’s a great development and a very good fit.

That means that I’m now an Atlassian employee and I’m really looking forward to working with all the Atlassian guys. The Cenqua and Atlassian websites are being updated right now and they’ll have all the details, FAQs, etc on the transition. I won’t duplicate that info here. It’s very much a case of steady as she goes, of course.

For me personally, there will be a few changes as I change from working at home to working in an office. It helps that the Atlassian office has got to be one of the nicest office environments I’ve experienced. A big-ass Mac Pro doesn’t hurt either.

There’s going to be lots of interesting development as we add new features to FishEye, Crucible and Clover. Truly exciting times.

During JavaOne, the Java Posse team paid us a visit at the Cenqua booth and had a brief chat. You can hear it all here

http://media.libsyn.com/media/dickwall/JavaPosse129.mp3

It was a lot of fun and a welcome interlude from doing the standard spiel. I must have done over a hundred demo Crucible reviews during JavaOne.