April 2008

PoCo::MessageQueue version 0.2.0 released!

Submitted by David Snopek on April 25, 2008 - 6:35am

We reached a huge milestone this week, with the release of PoCo::MessageQueue version 0.2.0.  It is primarily a refactor engineered by Paul Driver.  Here is the change log:

  • Massive refactor:
    • Built on Moose.
    • Any storage engine can be a front-store.
    • Callback passing (versus old static method).
  • Storage::Complex:
    • Treat the front store like a cache.
    • Separate 'granularity' parameter.
  • Storage::Throttled:
    • Can claim and retrieve messages for improved performance.
  • Comprehensive unit-test suite.

For the future, Paul's already working on some interesting things:

  • Remote storage engines.
  • CouchDB store.
  • Clustered MQs.

Rock!

Its all in the algorithm, baby.

Submitted by David Snopek on April 22, 2008 - 6:17pm

Last Wednesday, I was discussing learning and spaced repetition with a co-worker. A couple good things came out of this conversation.

Firstly, that I should blog more. This inspired me to finish up an introductory article on spaced repetition that I had been working on for Memorati™. I also decided to try and make Tuesday be blog-day. Since I spend so much time writing each entry, Tuesday will really just be blog-publish-day, but thats fine, whatever gets me to post more.

We also discussed my experience using Memorati with its algorithms and some things that have been unsatisfying about them. Those things are:

  • The aggressiveness of the algorithm used should vary with the number of cards a user has decided to tackle. Aggressive algorithms work better for lots of cards but less aggressive is better for fewer cards.

Polish Update

Submitted by David Snopek on April 11, 2008 - 6:40am

I meant to write about this weeks ago! But it slipped my mind. Anyway, I finished reading the first Harry Potter book. I didn't reach my goal of pages to translate, but that never mattered anyway. I reached page 223 and I was shooting for page 250.

I've already started reading the 2nd book, but the audio book which I ordered from Empik hasn't arrived in the mail yet and I'm worried it may have gotten lost. Usually, I buy all my Polsh books/audio-books from one of the great Polish bookstores in Chicago (Polonia, Quo Vadis), which is how I got the paper book right away. Anyway, for some reason I can't find a local bookstore that has the audiobook for the 2nd one, even though they've got the 1st, 3rd, 4th, etc... So I had to order that from Poland.