Note to self: this is how you start a python SMTP debugging server:

python -m smtpd -n -c DebuggingServer localhost:25

Thinking through my performance as coach (of my son’s under-8 soccer team):

We had a tough season, winning only a single game. Clearly not very good.

On the other hand, each and every player showed improvement, some quite significant. One parent even took the time to thank me for helping his son find a passion for the sport.

The season ended on a very high note: we came in first in the tournament (based on points). We won two games, tied one, and lost one (in the final minutes). We played very well, showed a real understanding of the game, and played as a team. I was very proud of every one of the players.

On the other hand, a big part of the reason we did so well was our super-sub. This kid was incredible. We were short on players so he played for our team.

Hmm. So we have a clearly improved set of players, playing as a team, playing their hearts out. Fantastic. I’d like to take some credit for that.

The biggest impact on winning, however, was having an excellent player on our side.

I can’t help but think there’s a management lesson in here somewhere. Something about hiring the best you can…

In need of creating various UML Sequence Diagrams and in no mood to deal with Visio or its other graphical editor ilk, I did some research and ended up at a really nice solution.

What I wanted was to be able to specify my sequence using a simple text description and have a tool turn that into a sequence diagram. What I found was a tool called Sequence by Alex Moffat that does exactly that. The syntax takes a minute to get used to, but once you see what’s going on it’s very easy to use. The generated images are reasonably attractive and easily exportable to png, gif, etc.

Here’s a sample of the syntax:

objectOne.methodOne {
  objectTwo.methodTwo -> value {
    objectThree.methodThree -> anotherValue;
    objectFour.methodFour->finalValue;
  }
}

And here’s the resulting diagram:

Once you download the jar and run it hit the “Help” option and look at the examples. They’re self explanatory and fairly complete.