Suicide by C++ And How to Avoid It

Really – look at this code…

I had to look at it a few times. Cool, sorta wacky.

try_
[
    f(arg1)
]
.catch_<runtime_error>()
[
    cout << val("caught runtime error or derived\n"),
    throw_()
]
.catch_<exception>()
[
    cout << val("caught exception or derived\n"),
    throw_()
]
.catch_all
[
    cout << val("caught some other type of exception\n"),
    throw_(runtime_error("translated exception"))
]

Facebook did it again. They’ve built another system capable of doing something useful with ginormous streams of realtime data. Last time we saw Facebook release their New Real-Time Messaging System: HBase To Store 135+ Billion Messages A Month. This time it’s a realtime analytics system handling over 20 billion events per day (200,000 events per second) with a lag of less than 30 seconds.

Alex Himel, Engineering Manager at Facebook, explains what they’ve built (video) and the scale required:

http://highscalability.com/blog/2011/3/22/facebooks-new-realtime-analytics-system-hbase-to-process-20.html

What the SEC Staff Will Likely Recommend in Reaction to the May 6th Flash Crash

Google’s Go: A New Programming Language That’s Python Meets C++

Go site

1st blush looks nice. Types good, C like performance good. Built for multi-core etc. I will admit I wish it looked more functionally inspired. I am loving Erlang these days (and to a lesser extent Haskell) so going more imperative again feels a step back…

I will give this one a *go* I think…

LAgent : an agent framework in F# – Part I – Workers and ParallelWorkers

LAgent : an agent framework in F# – Part II – Agents and control messages

LAgent: an agent framework in F# – Part III – Default error management

LAgent: an agent framework in F# – Part IV – Custom error management

LAgent: an agent framework in F# – Part V – Timeout management

LAgent: an agent framework in F# – Part VI – Hot swapping of code (and something silly)

Been reading lots…

Finance, microstructure:

• A Dynamic Model of the Limit Order Book
• liquidity supply in a pure limit order book market
• Optimal liquidation against a Markovian limit order book
• Fluctuations and response in financial markets

Languages:

• Expert F# Hardback (Expert’s Voice in .Net)
• Programming Clojure (Pragmatic Programmers)
• Why Functional Programming Matters

Distributed computation:

• Pig for Hadoop
• HBase
• Hive
• Cascading
• Aster Data (hardware )
• Project Voldemort

Just good readin’

• Stonebreaker says we may be at the end of the DBMS era
• Nosql links

The AlloSphere, truly insane !!!!

I have talked with people for some time about work I had done in the past with copulas… today saw a good ref on Slashdot:

The Formula That Killed Wall Street

I do not like PowerShell. 

I still love Rake for building/ running .net apps

Visual Studio crashes all the time when editing XAML (it hates custom attached properties I think)

Xceed’s latest release of their grid is replete with sucky bugs

I feel overly awake at 11:30, that is what happens when you go to the gym at night

The global economy sucks, everyone is feeling it. I hope the low is not so low we can’t all bear it. I really do not want my wife and kids to be truly effected by it.

I love my iPhone and my MacBook Air

I am pissed that my skateboard went missing during our move

I love living in London

I have been thinking a lot about WPF, what are good practices for larger apps wrt managing XAML/ templates/ styles etc

I want a good lock free (or at least low, low lock) hashtable for C# (not a bad place to start Julian M Bucknall)

Windbg rock

The latest Ants profiler is pretty impressive, well done

OK, that is enough

Well, it has been 55 days since I posted last – that is a record for me! As of my last post, my family and I moved to London. Since then, we have lived in Knightsbridge for a few weeks, gone on holiday to Austria, moved to Chelsea, unpacked our goods, furnished rooms, hooked up bills of all sorts… and so on.

It has been a whirlwind of activity, expense, fun and overall goodness. I have been ‘FaceBooking’ all my small, personal items regularly – it takes very little effort. Now that that business is all through, and life is getting back to ‘normal’, I will be blogging again about my normal technical fare.

Currently I am building some good software using WPF and the other MS stuff. I am also getting back into using Rake for my build and general scripting automation. All in all, things technically have been much the same. I plan to be elaborating more ASAP!

For now, here we are having fun in Austria

-Chris-

Great book i have recommended to several people…

• 5:00 AM – Wake up, doze
• 5:45 AM – Get up, eat breakfast (Optimum Slim + Soy Milk)
• 6:00 AM – Skateboard over to P.S. 29 to VOTE FOR BARACK OBAMA
• 6:45 AM – Done voting, skateboard home
• 6:50 AM – Send Shannon to vote, sit with Gabe on sofa – watch some cartoons (he was soooo sweet this AM)
• 7:15 AM – Shower, dress
• 7:30 AM – Shannon home, chat with Micah for 2 minutes (he was in a cute sweet mood) off to work – catch the bus, to the subway (4,5,6 green line to 51st & Lexington)
• 8:15 AM – Arrive @ office (side-trip to Starbucks for a coffee)
• … get water, bananas, fruit salad, check email, login to Bloomberg, CNBC on/ off/ on
• … WPF Command Binding to ContextMenus
• … Help co-worker deal with a few small WPF-isms (say ElementSpy/ ToolTip issues)
• … Update RedGate SQL Toolbelt install
• 11:45 AM – Lunch – Salad + Salmon + Steamed Cauliflower
• 12:00 PM – Back to work
• … more WPF stuff, Xceed Data Grid – forcing right click to select the row beneath it (not successful yet!)
• 1:30 PM – Double Tall Soy Latte to prep for some database work
• 1:40 PM – Get to some nitty gritty database work – let’s get rid of some crap in the DB…
• … work work work …
• not a lot of trading today, markets up well positive PnL
• 5:00 PM – Virgin Frequent Flier accounts set up for the whole family
• 5:45 PM – Leave (a little early) Subway @ Lex + 51st, out @ Jay St, B75 Bus to Kane St + Court St, walk home
• 6:35 PM – Home, hugs + kisses from sweet kids + sweet wife, change, hold Micah, watch Gabe do homework
• 7:00 PM – Shannon made a *lovely* orzo soup – *yum* (did I mention she is a ROCKIN’ cook?!), Hang with Micah a bit more
• 7:30 PM – Read books to boys (“Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus” + “Surprise in the Lunchbox” (something like that))
• 7:45 PM – Skateboard to the gym, boxing!!! cycling, cancel gym membership as of Dec 1 (since that is when we MOVE!)
• 9:00 PM – home with Shannon ! Sofa…
• 9:15 PM – start typing random crap in my blog while I am anxious about the ELECTION
• 9:25 PM – ABC News projects Obama as winner of Ohio! (big deal here folks!!)
• 9:35 PM – Lookin’ grim for MCRAGE!!!!
• 9:40 PM – Stop this nonsense blog entry…

Summary – go Obama, go Skateboard, go Shannon, go Gabe, go Micah, go London