I just finished reading Design Patterns in Ruby on Greg Wilson's recommendation:

"There are several reasons Olsen’s book is so good:

1. He clearly likes the languages he’s using (English and Ruby), and knows how to use both well.
2. The classic Gang of Four patterns are much simpler to express in dynamic languages like Ruby than in modern Java or C++.
3. We’ve learned a lot since the original Gang of Four book about how to teach patterns and in what order."

When I studied Computer Science, design patterns were really glossed over. Their importance was emphasized, but the extent of teaching was, "Go read the Gang of Four and see if you can find some of those patterns in the code base you're working with." I think this would make a great 2nd or 3rd year CS textbook for a class called "Design Patterns and Dynamic Programming."

It's enjoyable to read, actually funny at times, and easy to understand. It goes beyond design patterns to also cover some programming best-practices and useful features of dynamic languages. If you already have some programming experience, it's a great way to not only learn design patterns but also Ruby. It starts with a good introduction to the language, and then every chapter says, "Here's a design pattern, and he's a cool feature of Ruby that makes this pattern really easy to implement." For example:

• Strategy and Observer - Code Blocks
• Composite - Operator Overloading for Arrays
• Iterator - Benefits of the Enumerable Module
• Adapter - Modifying a class or single instance at run time
• Proxy - using method_missing and send to handle missing functions
• Decorators - Avoiding them by wrapping or renaming functions using alias
• Factory - Reflection ie. leveraging the name of a class
• Builder - Magic Methods

Here's another rave review with code snippets.

Isaacezer.com has been completely redesigned, and it's now available in English and Japanese!

Special thanks to Dwayne Grech for doing a great job of the design and Mike Wrobel for the beautiful art work.

I just finished transcribing Teddy Wilson's solo on the 1936 hit These Foolish Things from this Billie Holiday recording. Pianists out there, let me know what you think.

Main things I got of it:

• His left hand style. Basically start with the idea of playing 10ths on the 1s and 3s and then decorate those with pickup notes. Also mix in stride sparingly. Sometimes he'll play a chord on the 2 or 4 that really feels like stride but it comes out of the blue and makes for nice emphasis.
• Right hand - Beautiful tone. Simple melodies. Sometimes jumps octaves, ie. finish 1 line on an E and then start the next line on the E above or below.
• In general my playing could be legato (less choppy). This was noticeable when playing along with the recording (using The Amazing Slow Downer, a great iPhone app).
• Short solos. Teddy only plays 3/4 of a chorus, and then the sax takes the bridge. I'm going to use this type of arrangement when playing for dancers.
  

These Foolish Things is one of my favourite songs. From Wikipedia:

"Romantically linked to the Chinese-American actress Anna May Wong while working in Hollywood, Eric Maschwitz's lyrics reflect his longing for Wong after they parted and he returned to England."

My good friend and Ezer Swing 5 bassist, Hirotane Takahashi, was playing bass at a vocal jam at Sunny Side in Takadanobaba, so I went to check it out with my friend Alice, who's also in the band and going to sing at our next show. I sat in on piano for several songs, and sang 2 songs. First time singing in my life. Sang It Could Happen To You and These Foolish Things, and did a little solo Charleston while the pianist was soloing.

We also lindy bombed the hell out of that place and got other people up dancing. Afterward the pianist introduced me as "Isaac-san, Entertainer. 詠って 踊って ピアノを弾いて" (He can sing, he can dance, and he can play the piano) I like to think I'm a triple threat ;-)

Good times, and good reminder that there's still plenty of fun and stupid things left to do in Tokyo ;-)

The last Wicked Swing took place on Wednesday, Sept 16. It's really sad that Sam & Dave in Akasaka closed down. That venue was perfect for what me and I Swing Tokyo were trying to do. We're on the search for a new venue.

As always it was a blast playing for dancers. I listened to a recording of our set a few days ago and it was pretty humbling. Here are some of my own thoughts, combined with feedback I've gotten from some of the dancers.

Some of the songs are too long. Too many solos and too many of them. We get carried away when we're having so much fun on stage, but we need to be conscious of the dancers on the floor and keep the songs to around 3-4 minutes.

I think I put a good, varied set together, in terms of tempo, style, etc. Dancers in Tokyo are scared to dance to slow tunes but every set I like to push them with at least one ballad. This time people didn't shy away at all and I saw some great blues dancing happening right in front of me.

Our arrangements could be a lot tighter. A simple intro to set up the vocalists, or a great ending, will really make us sound more professional. I'd like to arrange more breaks and repeated, rhythmic shots too as those are really fun to dance to.

For arrangements I'm really inspired by Teddy Wilson and his work with Billie Holiday. Here are some great tracks that are really short (less than 3 minutes) but so tight and well arranged. There's a lot of fun stuff going on in those 3 minutes.

Here's the set list

Set 1

1. Body and Soul
2. Stompin at the Savoy
3. Solitude
4. Just You, Just Me
5. Don't Get Around Much Anymore
6. On The Sunny Side Of The Street

Set 2

1. Take The A Train
2. East St. Louis Toodeloo
3. These Foolish Things
4. I Got It Bad
5. They Can't Take That Away From Me
6. Tuxedo Junction (Live Shim Sham!)
7. Love Me Or Leave Me

Set 3

1. I've Never Been In Love Before
2. Our Love Is Here To Stay
3. Feets Too Big
   

I implemented a few new features for Listous over the past few weeks.

Spidering Conversations

One of the key features of Listous is that people can update their friends lists. For example, I can recommend a book to @hyfen by sending

@listous @hyfen books Whoever Tells The Best Story Wins

However, People have commented that it's less than ideal that you always have to message @listous for this to work. Well no more. Instead, you can just message the list owner, and include the prefix #LS_ for the list name, and it will get added. For example:

@hyfen #LS_books Whoever Tells The Best Story Wins

Now you can get all the power of Listous without having it interrupt the conversation.

Deletions

You can delete list elements by using the "delete command"

@listous delete list_name as much of the text as you can fit...
D listous delete books Blink

You will soon also be able to delete a list by sending

D listous delete_list books

Next Features

I've gotten tons of great feedback from my friends, and have posted a list of issues on Github here: http://github.com/iezer/listous/issues

What do you guys think I should work on next?

My band, The Ezer Swing Five, is playing at I Swing Tokyo's Wicked Swing on Wednesday, September 16. The last gig was a huge success and we can't wait to play again. Playing for dancers is so much more fun than having people sitting around to listen. There's nothing like playing a slow blues and looking up from the piano to see a couple in front of you do something REALLY sexy to a lick you just played.

Here's the set list from our last gig in July:

Set 1

1. I've Never Been In Love Before
2. How High The Moon
3. Basin St. Blues
4. Lullaby of Birdland
5. Our Love is Here To Stay
6. Honeysuckle Rose
7. Solitude
8. Love Me Or Leave Me

Set 2

1. Take The A Train
2. East St. Louis Toodeloo
3. Ain't Misbehavin
4. Blue Horizon
5. Roll 'em
6. Feets Too Big
7. I Found A New Baby
8. After You've Gone

It went really well, and I want to start thinking of some new songs to play. Here are some songs I'm thinking of:

• Tuxedo Junction - for a live Shim Sham
• I'm Crazy About My Baby
• Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea
• Shiny Stockings
• Body And Soul
• Easy Living
• Sunset and the Mockingbird
• Stomping at the Savoy
• Dina
• Black and Tan Fanasy
• Just you Just Me
• Louise
• On the Sunny Side of the Street
• Out of Nowhere
• They Can't Take That Away From Me

Any comments? Anyone want to share their all-time favourite swing tunes?