Rise and fall of the great warrior

Kaoklai Kaennorsing "was the first Thai K-1 Grand Prix winner at Seoul in July of 2004 at only 176lbs, beating fighters of 195 and 216lbs in the process. As well as winning the GP in seoul, two of Kaoklai's other great moments in K-1 came as he demonstrated the true attributes of a great Muay-Thai fighter. Beating the giant 6'5, 258lbs Belarussian Alexey 'the Red Scorpion' Ignashov to a decision over 4 gruelling rounds and his spectacular 1st round KO over the American Mighty Mo weighing in at 273lbs!

Kaoklai has proved time again that being the smallest fighter is no disadvantage by mastering the art of Muay-Thai; with bone shattering, lightning fast techniques and exhibitng immense levels of conditioning and endurance." (from Wikipedia)

"Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength." Eric Hoffer

"This plane isn't going to crash. I'm on it." Muhammad Ali

"I have said I'm the greatest. Ain't nobody ever heard me say I'm the smartest." Muhammad Ali

"Never idealize others. They will never live up to your expectations." Leo Buscaglia

You do not win just by being brave

"Those who will play with cats must expect to be scratched." Cervantes

Don't celebrate before the victory

"Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose." Bill Gates

Energy and persistence conquer all things

"If I had to select one quality, one personal characteristic that I regard as being most highly correlated with success, whatever the field, I would pick the trait of persistence. Determination. The will to endure to the end, to get knocked down seventy times and get up off the floor saying - 'Here comes number seventy-one!'" - Richard M. DeVos

Even winners lose sometimes

Charles Lynch said "You can't be a winner and be afraid to lose". Don't let fear guide you.

Drucker about leadership

I came across this quote from Peter Drucker and couldn't resist to publish it here.

“Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes.”

Indeed.

Web frameworks - looking for QWAN

IPM has published results of the "Pre-requisites of a Good Framework" poll. The answer options were:

• Strong separation of data
• Web 2.0 support and preferably libraries built in
• Strong naming conventions and smart English recognition
• Robustness (ability to handle large volumes of traffic and data)
• Rapid development features (scaffolding etc.)
• A great IDE (preferably Eclipse)
• Others

Christopher Alexander (his works inspired the Gang of Four), described a feature which some buildings possess and some do not. He stated that it is not measureable, but you can just feel it. He called this feature Quality Without A Name (1, 2).

My requirements for the good framework aren't about the technology. They are rather about the feelings I look for when evaluating the framework. They are about the Quality Without A Name...

So here are my Alternative Pre-requisites of the Good Framework:

• gives you well-thought, clean "frames" to work within - easy to understand paradigm of thinking about app, directory stuctures, etc. letting you avoid a "design paralysis"
• makes you feel natural and comfortable when working on the application - eases things, instead of making it harder
• is documented well enough, the docs are not over-detailed, but friendly and easy to use
• doesn't try to be everything for everybody - is focused to solve selected class of problems

Where have I found Quality Without A Name in the world of web frameworks?

• Java - Spring Framework
• Ruby - Ruby on Rails
• PHP - Code Igniter

Of course those choices are based on my subjective feelings (not comparison of features). Every one of them provides its own way of doing things, very specific to the language and the areas of intended applications.