Language Tree

I just ran across a post on slashdot that pointed to a computer language lineage tree. Another tree is located here. Interesting stuff.

Past that, I've been busy catching up on reading. Currently, C.L.R. James's history of the 1791-1803 Haitian Revolution, _The Black Jacobins_ ; Ania Loomba's overview of colonial theory, _Colonialism/Postcolonialism_ ; Frantz Fanon's seminal work _Black Skin, White Masks_ ; Aimé Césaire's influential _Discourse on Colonialism_ ; and the last parts of Charlotte Bronte's classic novel _Jane Eyre_. Not much to say yet other than I feel that Loomba tends to overgeneralize and leave out what was happening on native shores. That is, the machinations of colonial powers in foreign lands cannot (I feel) be reduced to the evil of Europeans when much the same evil was happening within Europe. These were brutal times and those in power seem to have had little regard for humanity (though I doubt past tense is needed here). There is more of an intimation of such in Jame's work - interestingly written in 1938, whereas Loomba's work was published 60 years later, in 1998.

Lastly, working on a paper for a conference. I don't want to let too much out of the bag yet, but basically it entails entertaining a new way, a "fresh" framework, for examining software. Hopefully, I can allocate the time to get everything wrapped up, though much of it has been percolating in my brain for awhile.