I find it very helpful to jot down a few squares and arrows when thinking about a new system or a new layer of a system that I am building. These squares and arrows will look very much like UML, but probably not be 100% compliant. The point is, they are really somewhat of a [...]
I can not begin to tell how much I love a little book called “bird by bird - Some Instructions on Writing and Life” by Anne Lamotte. It has influenced my life and my work in more ways than I can list here, and this is also not the subject of this post. The idea [...]
I used to have the habit of coming into work, and as the first thing make some coffee and grab something to eat in the kitchen. I would hang out there, chatting with whoever was available, for a varying amount of time. I started noticing that, when doing this, it became harder and harder for [...]
Recently, I had coffee with a friend of mine who happens to be an excellent programmer. I asked him about that blog that he was supposed to start, and he said, “Well, I can’t seem to get comments to work with Zope. Can’t have a blog without comments”.
I have seen that a lot (also in [...]
When I sit down to work, whatever I have previously decided to do next needs to grab my attention as soon as possible. Otherwise my attention begins to wander while desperately looking for my To-Do list. In the case of programming, specifically using Test Driven Development, I try to leave my desk with a failing [...]