Sat, Feb 25, 2006
Clean Hacking Stations
#
Fun Fact About Eugene #322: I'm obsessed with cooking shows. There's
nothing I like better on a Saturday morning than rolling out of bed,
turning on PBS, and watching JacquesPepin work his magic. What's
amazing about these chefs is that they always have a clean cooking
station. Always. It's apparently a principle they teach at cooking
school, and it makes a lot of sense. It also seems to apply to other
areas of life. GettingThingsDone. ProjectManagement. And of course,
hacking. (K95)
IngyDotNet (The Hacker Formerly Known as BrianIngerson) was in town
this past week, and we hacked a little bit on Wednesday
night. "Hacking" with Ingy for me so far has mostly consisted of me
watching him in action, catching a typo here or there and occasionally
pursuing some philosophical disagreement. But it's cool, because I
enjoy watching other folks code, especially folks who are better than
me. (K96)
(Earlier this month, while working on the
Ruby YADIS
library with BrianEllin, I learned for the first time about command
completion in Emacs using meta-backslash. Emacs has been my primary
programming environment for about 15 years, and yet, I never knew
about this. Very embarrassing.) (K97)
One thing that surprised me about Ingy is that he doesn't code very
fast. On the other hand, one thing he does incredibly well is that he
always has a "clean hacking station." Even when he creates temporary
directories or inserts debug statements in his code, he does it in a
very clean way. It's a practice I'd like to do a better job of emulating. (K98)
/tech/programming |
Posted at 3:13am
Wed, Nov 02, 2005
The Thrill of Pair Programming
#
I have a lot of different passions, which is lucky in a lot of ways,
and unlucky in others. It's lucky because it makes life incredibly
fun. It's unlucky, because life is finite, and I don't have time to
delve as deeply into things as I would like. It's why I knew I would
never become a professional programmer. (JZB)
This past year, I spent most of my time doing field work and thinking
about social processes. When I switched into technical mode, it was
as an architect or a pundit, not as a programmer. And that's the way
it should be. It's the right mode for me professionally and
personally. Besides, the less time in front of a computer, the
better. (JZC)
However, that's changed these past few months, as I've had to wear my
coding hat for a variety of reasons. And I have to admit, it still
gets me going. My skills have degraded a lot over the years, more
from disuse than age, but I can still get it done. It makes me feel
like one of those clean-cut, Midwestern types who comes home from his
nine-to-five job, then plays poker all night at some seedy underground
club. It's liberating. (JZD)
In particular, I had fun PairProgramming with PeterKaminski
a few weeks
ago and with BrianIngerson
last night.
Both of those efforts were toy one-offs, but they were great fun
nevertheless, and it got me thinking. Coding with others, and pairing
in particular, is one of the most intense, enjoyable collaborative
experiences one can have. Read EvanHenshawPlath's account of his
recent RubyOnRails sprint with BlaineCook and KellanElliottMcCrea, and you'll see what I
mean. It's the sort of thing I never get to do anymore. (JZE)
I know a lot of great coders, and I love talking shop. And, I still
want to spend as little time as possible in front of a computer. But,
I'm going to make a concerted effort to pair with folks at least once
every few months. If you're in the BayArea and are in the mood to
code up something that is small, cool, and will improve collaboration
some way, somehow, let me know. (JZF)
/tech/programming |
Posted at 5:21pm
Fri, Oct 14, 2005
The Craftsman Approach to Building
#
ScottMcMullan
uncovered this great quote on the craft of building, one that's as
applicable to software as it is to buildings: (JVV)
The Craftsman type of building is largely the result not of
elaboration, but of elimination. The more I design, the more sure I
am that elimination is the secret of beauty in architecture. By this
I do not mean that I want to think scantily and work meagerly.
Rather, I feel that one should plan richly and fully, and then begin
to prune, to weed, to shear away everything that seems superfluous and
superficial. (JVW)
--GustavStickley,
More Craftsman Homes (1912) (JVX)
/tech/programming |
Posted at 9:40pm
Mon, Oct 10, 2005
Unit Tests: A Reliable Friend
#
MikeMell and I were IMing today about a project we're working on
together, and he said off-hand that he'd like to be more rigorous
about writing unit tests. His comment struck me, because I've been
hacking PurpleWiki again after being away for literally months, and
once again, unit testing has made my life considerably easier. (JUO)
I've written
about unit tests before, using PurpleWiki as an example. Writing them
can be a serious pain, especially when you're on a coding roll, and
I've been known to cheat. But the more you refactor or code
intermittently (as I'm prone to do), the less inclined you are to
cheat in the future. (JUP)
Unit tests are the ultimate in peace of mind. There's just no reason
not to use them. (JUQ)
/tech/programming |
Posted at 3:54pm
Fri, Aug 19, 2005
Extreme Usability
#
In preparation for
next week's
sprint, I've added some
thoughts on
what ExtremeUsability is. Of interest to many people will be the
link
to an interview
between KentBeck and AlanCooper on whether UserCenteredDesign and
ExtremeProgramming can coexist. (JOJ)
/tech/programming |
Posted at 8:14am
Thu, Jan 27, 2005
PB&J Humor
#
My first exposure to programming came in the third grade, when my
elementary school got a fresh shipment of Apple IIs. (My only prior
experience with computers was from poring over those old RadioShack
TRS-80 comics featuring Superman. Anyone remember those?) My third
grade teacher, Mrs. Keltner, introduced us to programming by asking us
to write down instructions for making peanut butter and jelly
sandwiches. After collecting our recipes, she surprised my class the
next day by literally following our instructions. Apparently, she
hammed it up, and the class had a ball. One kid wrote, "Put peanut
butter on bread," so she put the jar on top of the bread. (I80)
After going through a few recipes that were far too general, she
finally came across a working recipe: mine. Yes, I was anal as far
back as the third grade. My prize: A correctly constructed PB&J
sandwich. (I81)
I didn't get to experience the glory of winning firsthand, as for
some reason, I was absent for the first part of school that day. All
I remember was coming in later that afternoon, seeing a sandwich on my
desk, and asking my friends, "What the hell?" (I82)
That sandwich had an amazingly (perhaps disturbingly) powerful effect
on me. Years later, when I was teaching computers to kids at the
Midpeninsula Boys & Girls club, I decided
to use the same lesson. Worked like a charm. The kids had great fun
with it. (I83)
Yesterday, I spent half a day giving a group of nonprogrammers an
overview of the software development process, and I thought it would
be fun to do the ol' PB&J exercise. Frankly, I expected the results
to be about the same as it was with kids, but I underestimated these
folks. Everyone wrote nicely detailed instructions. One woman wrote
a damn treatise on the subject. I actually had to ask her to wrap it
up. (I84)
The funniest comment came from a guy who tapped his colleague on the
shoulder and asked, "Did you write, 'Call my wife'?" (I85)
/tech/programming |
Posted at 4:44pm
