Quantum Commuter

This is an idea that I've had for quite a while, and thought I'd blogged about already, but apparently I hadn't.

You ever had the choice of two routes to the same destination and wanted to find out if the "road not taken" was the better one? Well this idea is one that'll help you find out.

Chicago's public transport system - CTA - provides an api to find out bus times and a whole slew of transit related information. The idea is to create an app that allows you to select two (or more) buses/trains that ply between points A and B; and pit them against each other using the API. The display would show a live display of the progress of the buses/trains, and who won.

I've always wanted to "clone myself" quantum mechanics-style to do something like this IRL, so I call it Quantum Commuter. Nice play on words, even if I say so myself :)

Btw, this could be an easter egg in an otherwise normally useful bus tracker app :)

Idea: A URL/URI spec for code

This is one of those early morning ideas that I have to put down before I forget it: How about a URL spec for code? Something like:
code://somecompany.com/someapp/package/structure/goes/here/AClass.java#methodName#if3@rev234

The idea is to be able to refer to any part of the code externally, easily, and transparently. guarantees on the posterity of the resource returned similar to general URLs, so they're more URLs than URIs.

Elements that should be in the url:
- language used (better notation that file extension tbd). alternative the protocol could be the language name instead of "code"
- ownership of the app by company/individual identifier. i think the java package concept of inverting the domain name works fine here
- package structure
- source object reference. could be file name, but doesnt have to be so in this abstract space
- intra source object references to methods and specific lines, eg the 3rd if in a method
- version information in the form of a scm version specifier

Code Canvas

I just discovered a Microsoft research project from 2008 that foreshadows quite a bit of my ideas with Webster. Its called Code Canvas (demo video).

In line with the N+1 concept, the few things I can think of (if I were to think of Webster as a product) are:

• Treats everything as a graph - down to the individual tokens. This is a game changer in the way wave was :(
• This also means using graph operations to edit code.
• Any language, not just CLR
• Any mix of languages eg, one web app uses shell scripts, build scripts, assemblies/jars, html+javascript+css, ui frameworks (jsp/asp/etc), compiled code (c#, java, et al), ORM scripts, so forth

I do like the semantic zoom, and the Quad tree algorithm to enable it.

Idea: The "Switch around the And" plugin

I was watching a colleague editing a document, and was struck by the the number of steps he need to change a phase like "cat and dog" and convert it into "dog and cat". I myself have had this problem quite a few times. How difficult would it be to make a plug in (in whatever editor) to automate this simple task?

So, this then, is my next idea: Create the "Swith around the And" plugin. For specificity let's call it a Word Plugin. But no reason to stop there - how about for most other editors?

In fact, when I think about, this could become like one of those projects that write "hello world" in every possible language. The "And switch" plugin for everything from vim to word to what have you :)

And of course, this is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Why stop at just "and" as the matching pattern? Why not add this as a feature to any code editor so swapping arguments of a binary operator is easy and automated?

Todo: Somebody must have done this already. Google it.