And Another Thing

Happy birthday mom, I love you.

15 Years

Not even a week from now, I'll have been married to my young bride for 15 years. Anytime we mention this to people, they always ask our age; which of course makes us laugh and blush.
On the serious side, I spent a long time looking at gifts from practical to emotional; because after all, it is not a trivial matter to surprise somebody you have known for so long.

Buying gifts for people is supposed to be fun, not a chore. However, the commercialization and the pressure that society has imposed on 'events' has relegated the simple act of expressing your love and thanks into a public display. What happened to the days of singing a song or reciting poetry to your loved ones? I am definitely not a renaissance man, but even I can see that the charm and emotion put into gifts is often shunted aside to find the 'greatest gift ever'.
What is out there that can express 15 years of love?

I am holding out the 'big' event gift for 20 years, as that would mark a huge number in our lives. Although I am constantly amazed that we have been married this long and together for far longer. While I never doubted that I had found my life mate, that person that is opposite me in the right ways and challenges me in others. Many people in my personal life and outside did their absolute best to attempt to separate us. Whether they were jealous or filled with hate I can not decide, as I leave that up to God to sort through. Twenty years to me is special because it would complete a promise I made to a special person in my life about 13.5 years ago (The details of that promise I'll keep to myself though so please don't ask).

scalability or performance

If there is one concept that appears to cross many fields, its performance. Think about it: automotive, sports, medicine, or software development. In each field, we are always trying to squeeze that one last drop.

One thing that is interesting, is that in other fields it is easy to measure performance. In the software development field, it seems as if many developers don't know the different between performance or scalability. Oftentimes they'll punt to the hardware folks to deliver faster machines to achieve greater 'performance' if you will.

I would like to challenge my fellow peers to tackle a minor concept: predictive performance. Predictive performance is the concept of measurable performance under guided environmental conditions. Achieving predictive performance allows you to set a baseline under which to develop under.

More Football & Programming

So I noted in a previous post I can lassoed in to Coach a little leage football team, and just two days after I found that out we had our first practice. By trade I am a software engineer and at night I am a bumbling handyman. So how does one rapidly pickup a new skillset and 'wing it'. I decided to apply the problem solving and planning skills I learned from my years in engineering to coaching.

When I need to learn a new programming language or complex application I purchase dead trees (aka books) that are education or reference manuals. So I did the diligent thing and purchased books on football coaching from the local Borders. I was very surprised to find an actual Dummies book on coaching little league football.

Then next thing I usually do is find somebody smarter than me. I've been foolish enough in the past to think I can learn something without advisors by just reading and maybe applying. Don't get me wrong, you *can* do this and get something to work but you can never do it as efficiently as somebody that has been doing it for years. Yes, its fun to make mistakes while learing by doing but it is neither expedient nor effiencient. Why waste time? On my personal list of things to do to become a better programmer is learn Erlang. When I get to it, I'll find a local user group or some sort of mentor to help me along. Failing that, I'll join an online forum to field questions to the world. I was fortunate enough to find that talent among the parent pool of the kids of the team.

So I have my knowledge base, and my experts panel to guide me and the first practice went through without too many hick ups.
Next step is to build my 'team' and to separate the team into their relevant skill set positions.

From programming to Football Coach?

There never seems to be an end to somebody who likes to complicate their own lives.


I took my middle son down to the parents meeting for his football league over the weekend. To great confusion; at the meeting we learned that we had just paid $75.00 to participate in the league, the parents had to come up with coaches, equipment, etc.. At the moment I am not sure what the $75.00 covered other than game setup? One note to all league organizers out there, "organization" is key, as the parents meeting was not setup well at all.

I've also been wrangled in as being a team coach, and I will tell you I am petrified! I enjoy all sporting activies (as a spectator) and occasionally don't mind playing some sporting games at all. However, unlike my siblings my parents never engaged me in sports as a youth which pushed me down a very different channel in life. I'm done the diligent thing and have read up on the expectations; there is always that nagging doubt when you pursue something new and different in life.

Dad of all bombs

In this post, it is reported that the Russians have successfully tested the 'dad of all bombs', which is a parody of the American MOAB nuclear device (mother of all bombs). Given the nuclear treaty inked awhile back, it is not surprising that other countries have gone this route to build bigger and more deadly bombs.

On a humorous note, it is funny to see this bomb declared as "environmentally friendly". Wikipedia defines "Environmentally friendly" as a term used to refer to goods and services considered to inflict minimal harm on the environment. Now, solar powered water heaters can be defined as environmentally friendly; however, a 7.8 ton explosive can not. I am sure that the animals caught within the 990 foot blast radius will not feel comfortable or that it had a minimal impact on their lives.

Programmer or Developer?

Meta Blog Warning!

I recently read a post from Hans-Eric Grönlund about the difference between a Programmer or a Developer. I have been declaring for years that there is a difference; and while I don't necessarily agree with Hans-Eric's exact definition of the differences I applaud his insight.
I am particularly curious about why he believes a developer should start with an gui interface, as that is usually not the best practice; although this is often a religious choice to make.
One particular comment I agree on:

If you think the implementation is unimportant as long as it does what you want, and is reasonably maintainable, then you’re probably a Software Developer

I recently worked for a company that rubber-stamped this in-and-out. The main 'guy' cared more about what the Gui did and looked like than what the 'stability' of the code. It is hard to succeed as a developer when the mantra from top-down is "just make it pretty". My take has always been, don't sweat the small stuff. Get it to work, make sure it meets the business needs, then make it pretty, then optimize the performance. It's not rocket-science, its not engineering, its poetry.