Ionrock Dot Org

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Just Checking In

Today I had the desire to write something down, but really didn't have a concise idea of what to write about. So this post is just going to be a small summary of some thoughts and experiences.

Free Software and Open Source

I recently read the RMS opinion on Codeplex and Miguel's response. After a quick glance over at planet gnome I noticed a few people taking sides and it occurred to me that the whole argument is rather silly. When I was in college the concept of free software made a ton of sense. Looking back it was because I didn't have any money, so generally anything free made a ton of sense. Now that I'm a full fledged tax paying adult, the glamour of free software has lost its glitz. It is not that free software has become unimportant or useless. What has happened, in my mind at least, is the arguments associated with free software have become rather stale. By stale, I simply mean it isn't anything exciting for me personally. I think free software is critical, but I have better things to do than care about it in its own right. I'm probably just getting old, but it was an interesting realization for me nonetheless.

Test Driven Development

At work I've been trying to improve my tests. By "improve" I really mean write them in earnest. It is a really difficult thing to write code using TDD. It is a similar approach to modeling in that it forces you to consider an abstract idea of what some code should do and look like. TDD is sort of like UML in the age of Ruby on Rails, which is kind of funny as the recent web frameworks and NoSQL all suggest rapid prototyping over planning before coding. While both UML and TDD are doing pretty much the same in terms of hashing out code, the obvious benefit of TDD is that you get something that can be used in the future. At the same time, a well tested code base is not that important if the tests are bad and are hard to run. Testing in web browsers is the most obvious case in point. The larger point then is obviously that planning, whether through tests, visio or some hodge podge of tools, is helpful for writing better code. It might also be argued that it is faster since the design is fleshed out to some extent, but I would ask if the time spent planning is included in that calculation and if it is a real calculation at all. Programmers have a nasty habit of estimating because of the constant requirement to create hypotheses in debugging. My bet is that many of the virtues of TDD (like UML as well) are overblown and the only real benefit is forcing a developer to focus on what the problem is. One of my issues is that it creates a whole new class of code that deals with testing. This is totally fine, but where are tests for the tests! It seems like a story that we'll probably never see the end of.

Text Browsing

I'm going to suggest that if you're a programmer, it would treat you well to try out a good text web browser. My recommendation is w3m due to its Emacs integration, but anything that can keep you in your work environment works. My guess is vimmers would get similar usage from links/lynx assuming the terminal is their environment. The reason being is that if you are constantly editing text and reading it in your dev environment, browsing the web textually can be a helpful tool to keep focus. For me, I get the same keybindings, easy copy and pasting, and simpler window/frame/buffer management. Beyond this though, it feels faster when it comes to reading documentation and finding helpful code. Your milage may vary, but it sure couldn't hurt to try.

Administering Systems

At work we recently rolled out a new system. It isn't actually new, but is in fact the latest step in an improvement to a current system. What always strikes me about the smart folks I work with is how gracefully they walk the line between system administrator and programmer. The two fields are completely intertwined, but the best programmers are those that have the better understanding of both sides. This is probably partly why I'm not that great of a programmer! For whatever reason, my mind doesn't ever seem to really indulge in the system administration side of things. It is always a challenge for me to make pre-existing software work the way I think it should. That doesn't mean I'm not trying of course! But it does mean that I have a ton to learn and will for the foreseeable future.

ACL Wrap Up

This past weekend was ACL in Austin and it was a blast. We saw Them Crooked Vultures, The Walkmen, School of Seven Bells, Broken Social Scene and some guys from Phoenix DJ. We also played a show with The Riverboat Gamblers and The Soldier Thread. It was a ton of fun. On the road we don't really get to hang out that much. There is usually somewhere to drive, something to load or unload or something to sell that usually keeps us busy. It was great to come home, rest and then have a great weekend of music and friends. We didn't go to ACL proper and I'm glad. There were plenty of bands I would have liked to catch but the weather was horrid and my guess is I would have been pretty miserable in the mud. Hopefully next year there will be some nicer weather. Who knows, maybe we'll even get to play!