Updating the dictionary

Updating the dictionary to support the repository terms as they are used today

Devil's Dictionary Definitions:

DOId (pron. Doh-iyd)

State of wide-eyed euphoric ignorance in person(s) bedazzled by baroque identifier system (submitted by the tuxedo'd gentleman of the fens)

Duraspace (pron. Wat-ler-phauk)

What a system is prior to being useful. ("Is the system built yet, or is it just duraspaced?")

(Syn. - vapour, ethereal, nebulous, hot-air)

Persistent Identifier [Ed. note: existance of this is highly dubious]

Something librarians think is important, while the rest of the world couldn't give a toss as long as they can google it. If they can't google it, then it doesn't exist and it doesn't matter to them anymore.

Institutional Repository

"where research goes to die"

Harvesting

A mechanism to create multiple, incomplete copies of items, spread across the internet, in an apparent effort to make sure that when users search for something they find lots of useless links.

The actual aim is to make repository managers feel better about the tiny numbers of items they have by letting them see that everyone else has bugger all content as well.

Zentity (aka How to be able to use Open Office and still be tied to MS)

A really terribly closed system, which is "Open Source" in that you need to purchase a full MS server solution to host it and interact with it.

But, as noone gets fired for purchasing MS software like they should, this will likely have marketshare in the near future.

Agile development

This does not mean doing a waterfall method, but faster with more meetings and more milestones.

It also doesn't mean saying that you do pair-programming when you are the only developer.

A scrum is not another word for a meeting.

Agile development means being able to say "Fuck, I got it wrong" and changing the course of development to avoid a total waste of time and money to hit arbitrary and now, meaningless milestones.

Please, add your updated definitions to the bottom of this post!

The Cry of the Anarchic Librarian.

Block me, and I will go around you.

Build a wall, and I will build a door.

Lock the door and I will break a window.

And if I don’t have have a leader to inspire me, I will lead.

If I don’t have a team that will support me, I will recruit a team from beyond the organizational boundaries - every policy has a loophole, every system has a hidden reward.

(Torn from "The PARTICIPATORY LIBRARIANSHIP Starter Kit blog: http://ptbed.org/blog/?p=692 - taken out of context on purpose to mean what I intend.)

Inspired by: From TopatoCo

The man who's gonna fix it all

@enterprisey on twitter is the man for the task, oh no, wait, I think he's running the show anyway:

Something which makes my blood boil is developers arguing about programming languages. That's the beauty of BPEL: code gen into Java or C#!

Been asked to put up a web site for my daughter's Girl Guides. Now looking for J2EE/JSP/EJB/Oracle hosting with MQSeries and 5x9s uptime.

He's the man....

No, fuck it.

I can't do it.

Seriously, kill him.... stop the madness....

But he's funny....

Internet Explorer - the world wants compensation.

Wbe developers - We spend time crafting wonderful, beautiful works, w3c compliant, accessible, and using the right tags for the right jobs.

Then we check it in IE5 or IE6 and spend the next couple of hours battling with IEs idiosyncracies and downright stupidity. So much time is wasted kowtowing to the myriad flaws and idiotic bullshit that IE flings upon us, forcing us to hack that which we know is right and correct into something that is somewhat correct, but with various workarounds and hacky solutions just to get it to look decent in Internet Explorer.

Internet Explorer, I spit on you. I have added the hours you have recently cost me to this site: http://internetexplorerwastedmytime.appspot.com - people, please rally up and add your wasted hours! With just 6 people, the wasted money is up to $5k! Let's see how much Microsoft has really cost the world! (via per hourly rates)

(Oh, and this site is being developed on the move - a friend of mine is making it while he commutes to and from work on the bus using his shiny new 3G connected Dell mini 9! And yes, the site is ironically crap looking to boot!)