Life is good. My son Alex is now 4 years old and healthy. I’ve now been married for over eight and a half years and I’m coming up on 4 years as a programmer for Element Fusion. I’ve been working on various projects at work. It’s nice being able to work on something different all of the time; it is difficult to get bored in my job.

On evenings and weekends I occasionally work for a startup called ShoppinPal. It is definitely interesting work.

In less than two weeks my family and I will be moving to Seattle. This isn’t for work reasons; we just like it out there. The weather and all of the activity is very attractive. I will be continuing to work for Element Fusion remotely; which will be a fun experiment.

So, I just got done reading Being Geek by Michael Lopp. It was a great read full of information that anyone working in the programming industry should know. It has gems such as how to deal with different personality types you find in the work place to tips on how to interview well and even tricks on making better presentations.

Definitely check out this book.

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Well, I finished it. Great read here. Really interesting imagery that is different from anything else I’ve read. I will have to read the follow up at some point as this one leaves you hanging. I do like the format of the story, as it reads more like a collection of short novellas that add to the overarching story that is developing. It seems that this book has become a modern classic and anyone truly into modern science fiction should give this a look.

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It wasn’t the open door or the mess of his room or even the fact that his most precious book was missing that startled Ken after he ventured into his basement. What startled him was the threatening voice of Cory from the top of the stairs. “What were you doing with my girl at the party? Word got around and they say she was down here with you and then she left with you.”

Ken stopped picking up the papers in the room and turned to answer. All he could see was the silhouette of an angry man standing in the only true exit of the room. But this was not true. A slight breeze tickled the hairs on his arm and just out of direct vision Ken noticed that one of the blackened basement windows was ajar. Ken did not dare look away to inspect more closely with Cory staring down from the threshold.

“Well, are you going to answer me? Or do I have to come down there and talk some sense into you?”

Ken knew that by ‘talk’ he really meant ‘beat.’ Any puny kid or ignorant party goer who looked at his girl has experienced the meaning of this in the past. “Word is she isn’t your girl anymore.”

She now stood in front of the house. Should she even bother? These things aren’t real. But oh, how sweet it would be to get back at him. He has to feel what I feel and more.

The house looked empty. No music could be heard from the windows, not even the drone of a daytime TV was playing. Sarah knocked on the front door which rattled at the hinges on each strike. How many times have drunken kids slammed this door over the years? Before Paul lived in this house another student lived here. In the living room there was a post with carved names and dates of past tenants. Paul carved his name beneath someone named Donald, who was there for five years, about the normal length of time for a degree nowadays.

No one came to the door, but Sarah had to know the truth. Whether anyone was here or not she had to get into that basement and see proof that what that paper said was real. The door wasn’t locked. Snack bags and beer bottles still littered the front room floor, remnants from the last party; at least there was proof of drunken stupid college students. This was part of what led her to this situation. She used to attend these loose gatherings filled with hormone raged students. How did things with Cory last as long as they did? But even then, was Sarah not good enough for him? Of course I am. I look good and I’m good company. “How could he!” Sarah caught her balance on the arm of a stained couch. “That’s it.”

The stairs into the basement were much easier to manage without a night’s worth of liquor. But it was darker than the previous visit. Carefully she reached along the wall for a light switch at the bottom of the stairs. The light from upstairs did not shine more than halfway down, and her eyes were not adjusting to the dark. She tried to look around the room hoping some splinter of light was breaking through a window. She saw nothing, but there was a sound. It sounded like small taps moving across the floor. Like the ticking of a clock, but moving.

“You know they invented a word for guys like him.”

“Sure, and what would that be?”

“Creep.” Judith took the glare from beneath Sarah’s brow. “You know he’s a creep, he cheated on you with a freshman. Any guy who sleeps with something that young must have issues. I wouldn’t be surprised if he ended up in prison.”

The biology books were starting to dig into Sarah’s arms. Switching arms no longer cured the tightness in her shoulders. The stone bench seemed a welcome relief.

“Sarah, you’re going to be late for lab.”

“Who cares, I’m failing anyway. And he wasn’t a creep; I don’t date creeps and I never plan to. That girls was just a tramp. All boys are weak, but he’s too weak to have me.” Her spirits were rising and the bags no longer dug as deep into her shoulders. “Screw bio, I’m going to the gym. You coming?”

“Unlike you, I have to keep my grades up to stay in school. You should be at least a little worried about your grades, how do you expect to ever get out of here?”

“I don’t expect anything. Have fun in lab.” They parted.

Sarah came to the gym entrance but moved on. She passed the gym, passed the campus gates, and kept going even further. No one paid attention to her as she passed by. She knew exactly where she was going and no one else cared. The sidewalk carried her on past the bookshops and cafes. Each grass filled crack measured a distance further from what she ever thought she was capable of.

After a left on Tunsdale and a right on Spokes Street she found her destination. The rundown home needed siding and the roof had a few leaks, but this was the place. Would her father approve of her even looking at a house like this? It didn’t matter; he would never know of the party she attended there last week.

The first half of that evening was a little dull but full of beer and spirits. The second half was a bit of a blur. The night ended with her being driven back to her dorm by Kenneth, the recluse who lived under party central.

I mentioned a blog post http://joshondesign.com/2012/03/09/open-letter-language-designers I had read a couple days ago to a coworker/friend of mine which goes over ideas such as this. It is really amazing to be seeing a concept like this demonstrated for others to take up and attempt to implement.

I just read this (http://ardalis.com/new-is-glue) article. I mostly agree with the author.

The gist of his post is that you should only use ‘new’ to instantiate an object if you know that you will not need other behavior in the future. I’m very big on loose coupling through interfaces, but I personally do not think you should jump the gun and implement an interface until you need it.

It is perfectly fine to just ‘new up’ an object that satisfies what you need at that moment. Than later down the line when it is found that you need varying behavior, go ahead and spend the time than to implement the interface solution.

There is no sense in spending the extra time abstracting away things, when there is no guarantee that the abstraction will ever be needed. By waiting you will be saving yourself extra work.

To be fair, the author of the referenced article did say this was a design decision. Although the permanence of using new that he expresses isn’t really as permanent as made out to be by his post.

For quite awhile it was getting harder and harder to find time to work on any programming outside of work. Having a 3 year old really takes a lot of energy out of me, so even when the little one is actual in bed by a decent hour I am usually ready to pass out.

But lately things have improved a bit. My son has been going to bed at a more decent time much more often, and I have had the energy to stay up and work on things.

Just in case you hadn’t noticed already I wanted to let you officially know that I have a new design up on my blog. This is a big deal to me because I did the design myself from start to finish. I am no designer by any means, but I’ve been told by a few people that the site looks nice, of course a few followed it up with ‘but it looks like a programmer designed it’.