Hello!

This is the current homepage of James Pearson, known as Xiong Chiamiov across the internets.

Why Python Encourages Maintainable Systems

I love Python. I don't think it's the right answer for everything, but I do act as its advocate for many new projects. Since most of my programming has been spent working with legacy systems, I am primarily concerned with maintainability, and Python is built on two ideas that directly benefit that cause: explicitness and a culture of documentation.

Explicitness

If you run import this... more

On Being a Volunteer Sysadmin

It's kinda hard to do.

The actual process isn't difficult (you just do work, like you would normally), but finding out how to contribute is much more of a PITA than it should be. Most notably, it's more difficult than it is for programmers.

The open-source software movement has grown over the last 30 years to be continually easier to join, at least from a technical... more

On the Freedom of Data

This post is part of Mothball March, where I dust off old posts I never quite finished. This is a more-final version of something I originally wrote in December 2012.

In the 1980s, a young computer programmer named Richard Stallman started the Free Software Foundation with the goal of promoting "free software", software that granted its users a number of rights, including the right to view... more



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