9. April 2009 by Asher.

So this isn’t perfect but Steve and I worked on this the other day and came up with a start to it. Check it out at Steve’s blog. http://blog.deobald.ca/2009/04/tiddlybuild-single-file-build-light.html

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20. August 2008 by Asher.

So I’ve been told many times by a a few people (my mentor being the biggest supporter), but I’m not sure what to get into and how to go about it. Some things I’ve been looking into:

- KeePass(X): an encrypted password storage system for both Windows and Unix. Part of the reason I’m thinking about this because I use it frequently to store a lot of my passwords and think it would be a good place to make my entrance into the open source world.

- Jetlang/Retlang: libraries for messaging based concurrency. These libraries are both based on Erlang and were started by Mike Rettig, with whom I currently work. At work, I’ve used Retlan a fair amount, so feel that it would be a really good project to work on and would help me learn more about a library that I employ in some of my projects at work.

The open source world that have prevented me from dabbling in it. Until recently I had trouble finding time for more than my school work. However, recently I feel that I have more time (not doing homework until the wee hours of the morning) and should contribute to some of the open source projects, which I frequently use. I’m just am unsure of the best way to start this adventure. I feel like, as is true for most projects, that there is a lot of ramp up time for any project to which I want to contribute code. I’m not sure if the best way to overcome this is to just lock myself in my room for a weekend and learn as much code as I can or to slowly learn what I can while contributing smaller amounts. I guess either way I just need to pick one, make my mentor help me out and dive in!

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27. April 2008 by Asher.

Ever heard of navel-gazing? Omphaloskepsis? I had not of until Friday morning.

Navel-gazing is, as was described to me, the act of a Buddhist monk staring into his navel trying to figure out the meaning of life. Wikipedia explains it in a very similar way. I’m not even going to ponder the craziness of one looking deep into their own navel as a source of enlightenment, rather I’d like to discuss why I am now blessed with this knowledge.

Friday morning I went to talked to my boss about a program we had been working on Thursday afternoon. I stated that Thursday night I had thought of a better way to accomplish our goal and wanted to run it by him. At this he went into a long rant about not having time to navel-gaze, not gold-plating things and to just do it his way and now.

This concept confuses me, almost everything I’ve read or been told about programming is that a good programmer is one that is always thinking. I have even been told by the President of a Java Shop in Ann Arbor that the biggest reason that sending programming project overseas is due to communication issues causing problems with overseas programmers actually thinking about the specification as opposed to just programming what they are told.

Most of my college education we were not taught how to solve a problem in a specific way, but we were given the tools that could solve the programming problems and the knowledge of how to apply them in various ways. To be more specific we are not just typing monkeys, we are actually paid to be thinking monkeys. (Insane isn’t  it!) It amazes me that someone who has worked in the programming industry so long would not understand this simple fact that makes programming such a difficult thing to do.

However; I continued to think about this problem, discussed it with another member of my team, who agreed with my ideas and was able to accomplish our goals within 30 minutes of programming and testing. Mind you, I had spend 4 hours Thursday afternoon trying to think about how to test the code I was asked to add and couldn’t figure out the best way to do it. (Usually a sign that something is wrong, hence the thinking.)

I think this experience helps me realize how important thinking about the best way to accomplish something is never a bad idea. Thinking about solutions most often leads to a increased knowledge, a better solution and hopefully a quicker solution. So moral of the day: Keep thinking!

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13. April 2008 by Asher.

Hello All! I just decided to start my first blog ever today. For now, I’m just going to use a temporary design provided to me, but over time I would like to change it and make it a lot cooler. So if you have any suggestions for looks, please let me know. I plan on writing mainly about my life with regards to sports, friends, Chicago, programming, technology and any other random sh!t that comes to mind. Thanks all!!

Random Wikipedia Adventure: There is a programming language called D. I haven’t read much about it other than some of what I read on Wikipedia. To me it looks like a cross between C++ and C#, which some other cool features, such as nested functions. I don’t know if anything will ever come of it, but it is still a baby, only being release in Jan ‘07.

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