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Why I don’t work from home

Mar 102013

When Marissa Mayer ended Yahoo’s work from home policy, the Internet went nuts, and stayed nuts for days, which is a pretty long time for Internet nuttery. There’s been all sorts of ~~random talk~~…um….~~personal annecdotes~~…er….”news articles” have sprung up discussing this very important issue of 1 specific company’s policies. It’s almost as if people think that Yahoo, great, shining beacon of largely irrelevant and nobody cares anymore, is a precursor to the whole tech industry (something it hasn’t been in a long while). Some people have at least either tried to either limit their discussion to Yahoo’s particular situation, or moved everything to a broader discussion of telecommuting in general. I’m going to focus on why I personally don’t like to telecommute if I don’t have to. Continue reading »

It lives….bwahahahahaha

Programming, Projects 1 Response »

Feb 172013

I want to tell you a story. It’s a story of failure, heartache, and not a lot of sleep. It’s also set during a college course, so it’s not like lives were totally ruined by the end of this or anything. Continue reading »

Maybe one day Google will finally get mobile

General Commentary, Shenanigans 1 Response »

Feb 122013

Originally when I cooked up this idea, it was going to be all about how Google didn’t really get mobile, and how they were getting sidetracked by Android. I still think Android is more of a distraction than Google shining at mobile, but I do think they’re at least starting to understand what they need to do to continue to be successful and relevant as people leave the computers at their desks and turn more to phones and tablets. Continue reading »

Why I don’t believe in a “happy medium”

General Commentary Comments Off

Feb 012013

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti “happy medium”. After all, who could be against a magical mythical scenario that has all the advantages of the other options and none of their disadvantages? I’m also for unicorns, flying cars, making a trillion dollars (after taxes) in salary, peace in the Middle East, and calm, tempered, well-reasoned, rational political discourse – but those aren’t real either. The thing about “happy mediums” you have to remember is that they don’t exist, therefore you can never hit them. Continue reading »

Programming resolutions

General Commentary, Work Comments Off

Jan 182013

I was going to write something about the 1 or 2 tricks I’ve learned about trying to wrap your head around large codebases, but the last few months at work have pretty much made it clear to me I know nothing about knowing things, so that one’s pretty much in the scrap heap at this point. My very first post tried to capture that sense of being overwhelmed and in over your head when you start a new job, and it turns out it’s pretty easy to keep that sensation alive 6 months in. I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that I know less about what I’m doing now than I did when I started. Continue reading »

A Christmas script to brighten your holidays

Programming, Python, Shenanigans 2 Responses »

Dec 252012

In honor of Christmas, I wanted to put up a little script I wrote for a family holiday tradition. Every year, we each pick a name at random and fill their Christmas stocking. There’s a few rules to this little game, but the one that applies for the purposes of this script is that you cannot be assigned your own stocking. While this script randomly assigns someone a stocking, you can use the same code to dole out Secret Santa targets if that’s more your thing. Continue reading »

Want to unleash innovation and jump-start the economy? Hire drug cartels!

Shenanigans Comments Off

Nov 262012

Well, obviously, this is going to fall in the “Shenanigans” portion of “Software and Other Shenanigans”, but with the election over and the country’s attention (presumably) turning back to spurring innovation and economic production, I’d like to offer my humble suggestion. Namely, we need to start hiring, encouraging, drug dealers. I’m not talking about the shady-looking, ill-reputed people on street corners. I’m talking about the people making drug dealing work on a more corporate and organizational level. These guys are innovative, resourceful, and they get things done. In other words, they’re exactly the kind of people we keep saying we want to unleash in our economy. Well, they would be if we weren’t so busy trying to put them in jail. Continue reading »

A more useful guide to getters and setters

Education, Java, Programming 1 Response »

Nov 232012

While perusing the Internet, I stumbled on some question about getters and setters and why people are supposed to use them (which of course I can’t find the link to now, even with the help of the mighty Google). After reading the question, I realized something. Holy crap, a lot of getter/setter examples on the Internet aren’t that good. Most of the tutorials on getters and setters talk about variable visibility, and you don’t get any real useful discussion about how to use them properly outside of technical forums or discussion boards. So, I thought I’d write a quick little guide on the topic in part to increase the number of useful pages on the topic out there on the Internet, and thus make it easier to find a good reference on the matter. Continue reading »

With documentation that’s easier and (theoretically) better for all

General Commentary, Work 5 Responses »

Oct 292012

I’m sure there are lots of ways to handle documenting things (design documents, release notes, requirements, etc.) in a software development environment, but I’ve only ever seen 2: a corporate wiki, and something from Microsoft (I forget the name of it, all I really remember is that it had a check out/check in model, and all the developers thought sucked. I’ll just call this option “the Microsoft option” for lack of something more accurate). From what I’ve seen, wikis have a lot of promise, and do a great job, but to live up to their full promise they still require an anal retentive developer dedicated to periodically reviewing and fixing the documentation for anything they actually deal with on a day-by-day basis. Continue reading »

Virtually handy

Programming, Work 2 Responses »

Oct 162012

Maybe it’s just that I’m slow on the uptake, but I didn’t get the whole hype over using virtual machines for development up until I actually started doing it. After all, why use virtual machines when you have a perfectly good physical box sitting right there and ready to go? I get that it saves money and power and is easier to administer, but that’s an administrative reason to use virtual machines, not a reason for me to put my server set up on a VM rather than the computer sitting right here next to me. Continue reading »

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