pysmug, tag clouds, asynch IO and the SmugMug API.

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

A question was asked on a dgrin thread about whether the SmugMug API supported building a tag cloud – it doesn’t. A responder suggested it would take far too long to generate one from the API since you’d have to trawl through every photo. This is indeed true, but you don’t have to do it serially. I consider the batchable interface for pysmug to be it’s selling point and building a tag cloud is the perfect demonstration.

The algorithms behind java.util.concurrent.

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

From Doug Lea on the concurrency-interest mailing list, the new book The Art of Multiprocessor Programming is finally available:

This is by far the best source for explaining the ideas and algorithms underlying java.util.concurrent – the vast majority of them, plus some others, including a few that may someday appear. It also uses Java/java.util.concurrent to illustrate most concepts. I strongly recommended it.

While it’s a bit pricey, as a heavy user of the java.util.concurrent package I’m interested in reading it. We’ve greatly increased the stability and performance of our code by using both the 1.5+ and backport versions and understanding the underlying concepts a bit better might yield even better improvements.

Concurrent-Programming on

pysmug, tag clouds, asynch IO and the SmugMug API.

The algorithms behind java.util.concurrent.