I am often amazed at how little some of my colleagues know or care about their craft. Something that constantly frustrates me is that people don't want to learn any more than they need to about the programming languages they use every day. Many programmers seem content to learn some …
rant
Booleans Shouldn't Be Complicated
Warning: Geeky programmer content below.
While learning a new codebase, I was a little disturbed when I saw this:
enum IsVerifying { IsVerifyingFalse, IsVerifyingTrue }; enum IsVerified { IsVerifiedFalse, IsVerifiedTrue }; enum IsEnabled { IsEnabledFalse, IsEnabledTrue }; enum IsActive { IsActiveFalse, IsActiveTrue }; enum IsOnline { IsOnlineFalse, IsOnlineTrue }; /* etc. (There are about a dozen more of these.) */And there …
Science, Evolution, and Creationism
The National Academy of Sciences has issued a report that documents the methods of science and the overwhelming evidence in support of the theory of evolution. It also presents the arguments against the teaching of creationism and Intelligent Design in public-school science classes. However, it also clearly outlines the reasons …
Slower Traffic Keep Right
Having driven a few thousand miles over the holidays, I decided I'd like to present the following message to all the drivers of America:
If you are driving in the left lane on an interstate or other multi-lane highway, please check the following:
- Are there cars right behind you, but …
No
Kris, the production system isn't working since we installed the newest release. Can you tell us how to fix it?
Can you send me the log files?
No. They are too big.
Will you let me access the system myself to see what's going wrong?
No. Developers can't touch the …
Living in Squalor
A few weeks ago, after watching the film Supersize Me!, I stopped eating fast food. I was preparing my own meals, using fresh ingredients. I felt better, lost some excess weight, and had more energy. Unfortunately, with the long hours and stress at work recently, I've returned to the old …
Web Site Reconfiguration
My web hosting provider was bought out by another provider. That new provider has now "upgraded" my old account by moving it to their servers. So now all my CGI scripts aren't working, and I can't use FTP or SSH to fix them. Grrr.
Thank you iQuest Hosting.
Managing Again
Why do they keep doing this to me? I was just minding my own business, writing buggy software more slowly than expected. But they've made me a manager again. I'm the "lead engineer" on a "highly visible" project. It's a "great opportunity", generating "a lot of excitement" in upper management …
Too Busy
I hate to neglect my blog, but I've been too busy the past couple of months. According to my timesheets, I've been working over 250 hours/month. This needs to change.
Being deluged with too much work has got me thinking about my desired amount of work. I know that …
I Suck
Well, my project at work is nearing its deadline, which means we are all working 70-80 hours a week without any days off.
This is dumb. Dumb, dumb, dumb. I'm stupid for doing it, and the people I work with are just as stupid. But we're doing it anyway. Why …