Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years
« Researchers (Hayes, Bloom ) have shown it takes about ten years to develop expertise in any of a wide variety of areas, including chess playing, music composition, painting, piano playing, swimming, tennis, and research in neuropsychology and topology. There appear to be no real shortcuts: even Mozart, who was a musical prodigy at age 4, took 13 more years before he began to produce world-class music. Samuel Johnson thought it took longer than ten years: "Excellence in any department can be attained only by the labor of a lifetime; it is not to be purchased at a lesser price." »

O'Reilly: An Introduction to Ruby
« Ruby is an object-oriented scripting language that combines the object-oriented programming (OOP) power of Smalltalk with the utility of Perl and the power of Python. »

FlangyNews: The Flangy Guide to Hating VBScript
«  VBScript is, to put it mildy, not my favorite language. Python currently holds that distinction. Unforutnately, VBScript under ASP has been what I've spent most of the last two years working in. Basically, this can be summed up as "VBS isn't Python". If you want the details, read on. Note that this is directed at VBScript running via ASP. »

eWeek: Microsoft Links SQL Server, .Net
« Users of Microsoft Corp.'s SQL Server 2000 database can now code from inside the .NET framework, with a new plug-in that gives a look at what's to come with the eventual successor to SQL Server. »

News.com: XP accessory: 20MB of updates
« People rushing out to buy Windows XP on Thursday may be surprised by the hefty package of downloads already available for updating the brand-new operating system. »

Steve's Digicams: Nikon Coolpix 5000
« Building on the feature set of the Cooolpix 995, the Coolpix 5000 is equipped with a new 3x optical (28-85mm equiv 35mm) Zoom-Nikkor lens with enhanced wideangle and a stepless 4x digital zoom. It accepts most optional Nikkor-Coolpix lenses (using optional step-down rings) and accessories including Fisheye, a new 19mm Wide Angle, and Telephoto converter lenses. A builtin, multi-mode Speedlight with a hotshoe for external Nikon Speedlights, a real 7-bladed lens diaphram for true depth of field control, Nikon?s advanced image-processing algorithms provide exceptional color and a new Noise Reduction system for dramatically improved long exposure pictures. The Quick Review function lets you confirming captured images at the press of a button and then return quickly to record mode. »