About
This is a regularly-updated blog documenting myself and my progress through my PhD in developing a modelling language for interactive web applications.
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Follow me on Twitter: @soundasleep.
Thesis Status
Entry Archive
< 2011 | 2012
Important Feeds
22 February 2012
2.16pm
Block Scope in Javascript
So today I found out that Javascript has no concept of block scope. That is, the following code will work fine, because 'a' is not scoped to the block:

{ var a = 0; }{ alert(a); }


However, today I worked out a pretty simple workaround that emulates block scope. Simply replace the block scope as follows:

(function (){ var a = 0; }());
(function (){ alert(a); }());


This definition works fine in functions as well, so it is essentially a complete replacement for  block scope.
Read Thoughts (1) - Write a Thought
26 September 2011
11.17pm
IAML 0.6
Version 0.6 of the IAML Modelling Platform has been released.

This release represents the "final" version of the software as described in my thesis, and includes a major refactoring of the underlying metamodel, and various improvements to the editor itself.

You can browse the completed metamodel at http://openiaml.org/model/.
21 September 2011
9.01pm
Thesis Draft Statistics
My thesis is slowly getting completed. Today I had a spare hour, so I decided to have a look at the bigger picture of the thesis in terms of statistics. There is a hard limit of 100,000 words for the thesis, and unfortunately mine is currently at 116,257... it looks like I have to do some serious editing work! (A lot of those words are from images, considered to be 250 words/image.)

To understand where I could most efficiently remove content, I made some statistics about the number of pages per chapter:

Thesis Draft: Pages per Chapter

And also, the number of words per chapter:

Thesis Draft: Words per Chapter

It looks like I will have to do some serious editing in the Model chapter. These statistics are from the third draft of my thesis; I have one more iteration before I submit. I plan to submit in approximately four weeks time, and I'm pretty sure I can make it.
Read Thoughts (1) -
1 June 2011
9.05am
AINA 2012
I can now announce that I am part of the programme committee for the "Internet Computing and Web Applications" track of AINA 2012, which will be held in Fukuoka, Japan Smile
Read Thoughts (1) -
18 April 2011
1.00pm
NZ Internet Blackout 2011
In 2008 the Labour government at the time tried to pass an unjust File Sharing law. The resulting NZ-wide Internet Blackout, inspired by the Australian blackout, made a huge difference, and forced the bill to be reviewed.

Now in 2011, the National government is trying to pass a relaxed, but still unjust, File Sharing law. I have already blacked out my social profiles, but it's time to step it up a notch. Over this weekend I will be blacking out all my websites (http://jevon.org http://openiaml.org and others). If you have a site or online profile, I encourage you to do the same.

For more information about why the law is unjust and what you can do to protest, check out the Facebook page, the Twitter #blackout hashtag, or Creative Freedom NZ.

EDIT: You can see what my websites looked like while blacked out at http://jevon.org/blackout.html.
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