I'm not one for link dumps but these are too good not to share.

One of the downsides of having been doing IT for as long as I have ^[1] is that you've heard all the jokes many times before, but here's a list of some new ones.

Yoda Conditions
Using if(constant == variable) instead of if(variable == constant), like if (4 == foo). Because it's like saying "if blue is the sky" or "if tall is the man".

The best one is hidden way down in the comments:

Yoda Exception Handling: Do, or do not; there is no try.

Next up is an amazingly interesting list of useful hidden features in Python. I tend to use Python as a better scripting language (since writing anything longer than a few lines in shell script or Windows batch files Truly Sucks®) but things like this remind me how really cool it is.

I'm hoping to have a bit of free time over the next few weeks (yeah, right :roll:) and one of the things I want to do is to spend a bit of time looking into the new features of Python. If you're into Python, JetBrains recently released a free version of their PyCharm IDE, and after a quick play with it, it looks pretty good. These are the same guys who make the IntelliJ IDE, which I have used ^[2], and is probably the only piece of Java software I've used that I have any time for

As an aside, I'm in Cebu in the Philippines right now ^[3], which is not far from where the big earthquake happened and I was woken up yesterday morning by the whole room shaking and big cracks appearing in the walls 24 hours later, we're still getting tremors and I've been getting slightly seasick as I work in my room. I'm not sure if it's just my imagination but I'm sure the floor is gently rolling from side to side Tomorrow I sail to Dumaguete, which was also affected, and then in a couple of weeks, I'm off to Taiwan, which is rather close to Fukushima and an incoming typhoon.

Awasu 3.0.1 will be coming soon (hopefully), possibly slightly hot...

^[1] I won't say it, since I'm sure all the kids are sick to death of hearing me say how I started out on punch cards
^[2] Yes, I have worked professionally using Java. Just shoot me now
^[3]My favorite sign is still there, albeit slightly faded.