Quote of the Day [6.02.23]
Within this program of rap
I eradicate the glitches
“Supa Emcees” De la Soul Posdnous
Link of the Day [12.03.22]
One of my favorite programming things is regular expressions. What are regular expressions? Well, they’re patterns mainly used to search text files particular words. It’s a code for how to find a needle in the haystack. My favorite is Perl regular expressions. I like programming in Perl because I like using it for searching for text in a file and processing that text into what I need to do. I hate when your search feature doesn’t use Perl regular expressions. (I am looking at you sed.)
Today’s link is to help you to use regular expressions. I think I have to read this, too.
“Bill thinks having a bird crap on him is a compliment from the gods!”
Quote of the Day [9.21.22]
“What users really want is good tools. They want systems that are easy to learn and easy to use, and that help them do their work. They want software that doesn’t slow them down, that doesn’t trick or confuse them, that doesn’t make it easier to make mistakes or harder to finish the job.”
Larry Constantine, “What do users want?”
Link of the Day [6.26.20]
The answer to what that perl script t-shirt said, or at least, a paraphrasing of.
105
Covid-19 Days – 63
Let’s get to it early on this off Friday.
I don’t want to turn on the work computer. I don’t want to do some work. We always are in a state of flux. It is what we want to do. I sometimes wonder if I am the only one who sees that the light at the end of the tunnel is a locomotive. The way we’ve built our system is just a bad update from making everything not work, and it seems that they, the bosses, like to make it such.
Doctors believe in “do no harm” as their primary principle. I like to think that it should be the same for companies with legacy code. IniTech doesn’t seem to be. I think that we’ve lost our founding principles in software engineering when we thought we could do agile. In our minds, agile was the “anti” of what we were doing before. It stripped away all ideas of making things better using smart engineering and instead cast us back to the “big ball of mud” days.
Our software culture has really regressed. I am only along for the ride. I am part of the problem.
Link of the Day [4.18.20]
This was originally going to be the reason I wrote about software development on the 36th day of lockdown. I got so into writing about the books I was reading I couldn’t pivot to this story. Here it is now as a link of the day. Go read and ponder how we got into this mess. Surely it isn’t a Legacy Code issue is it?
Covid-19 Days – 36
I’ve said before that I am bored of television. Bored with YouTube. Bored with the internet. So I am trying to read. There’s the stack of books on my nightstand (and on shelves, and even on the floor) that I have not read. I’m trying to get to a few of those.
Currently, I am reading both Developer Testing and Working Effectively with Legacy Code. Both are very good reads and contain important points to think about while programming. Previously, I had only skimmed portions of the books. I’m trying to be more thorough now with the infinite time on my hands.
In the former, the book describes the roles of testing code from a programmer’s perspective. What to test, how to test, why test are topics covered. I’m reading it, because at work, I am running into the absurdity of failing tests indicating the product isn’t working where the failure is cosmetic in nature. It is perfection as the enemy of the good. I understand their point, but it is a hole we dug for ourselves because of a non-iterative approach.
In the latter, the book describes how to approach legacy code and systems when dealing with changes. It really sharpens the idea that all code is legacy code even the code you wrote five minutes ago. You have to be aware that it will change, and you have to make it ready to be changed. If not, legacy code gets rough. I’m reading it because of the code we’ve got is legacy and needs changing. Unfortunately, we changed it via throwing the baby out with the bath water and started from fresh. Jesus is that a mess.
Finally, I think I glanced at a few chapters in Clean Architecture. It’s really next on the list. I’m finding it useful as I approach my work. Our architecture isn’t clean, it’s dirty like a Big Ball of Mud.
Weird to write about software development at a time like this. Weird that I am reading books about it. Weird that I’ll tag it with the rona tag. It is just a weird time.
Link of the Day [2.12.17]
Books? I’ve got books out the ying-yang. I’ve got fiction. I’ve got non-fiction. I’ve got travel journals. I’ve got cook books. I’ve got novels. I’ve got graphic novels. I’ve got text books. I’ve got instruction manuals. I’ve got books on the night stand, on the floor, on shelves, and under the bed. They’re overflowing.
Today’s link gives you a peek at more books for programmers. It’s a list compiled by programmers. I would suggest you read any of the ones on there.
Bookstore Haul II: Volume 2 — Useless Things
I should’ve made ‘buying books I don’t read’ one of my New Year’s Resolutions. I stopped into the old B&N and bought a couple of books. I wanted to pass the time and rack up some steps, but I ended up with a couple of books.
The first book is trying to get me to learn Japanese so that I can talk to my idols, Nogizaka46, at one of their handshake events in Japan. I would like to encourage them to do their best: 頑張って！ I’ve bought several books. And have yet to apply myself to reading and learning. At least I’ve got a little bit of hiragana and katakana, but without a vocabulary it will be difficult to understanding anything. Hope this book starts me off.
The second is learning about node.js. We’re using it at work. And I’m trying to figure out what it is. Will I be able to read it?
Japanese For Beginners by Sachiko Toyozato
Learning Node.js: A Hands-On Guide to Building Web Applications in JavaScript 2nd Edition by Marc Wandschneider
Bookstore Haul: Volume 18 — The Last Couple of Weeks
It’s getting hard blogging about my bookstore purchases if I am purchasing something almost every week. Especially during Christmas, I buy presents there. So SPOILER ALERT! Some of these are presents. Others a presents for me.
This is my haul for the last two weeks. I’ve been to the bookstore about 4 times. I should stop. Yet I keep going.
It is a place to buy Christmas presents. Sometimes I want to shop for everyone there. Except no one reads books let alone in paper back. Not too sure why not. I wish for all the books in the world.
Developer Testing: Building Quality Into Software by Alexander Tarlinder
Smuggler’s Cove: Exotic Cocktails, Rum, and the Cult of Tiki by Martin Cate with Rebecca Cate
Dune by Frank Herbert
Modarri Cars
Godiva Chocolate