I am now the proud owner of geekwith.me!
I have a huge collection of links to geek cuture, communities, blogs, and quick reference material (and some of my own material) on my private wiki. I was going to move it over to thekramers.net, but now I must put it on geekwith.me.
One of the many ways in which I am weird is that I love pair programming (two Software Engineers working together on the same computer). I’m a social animal, and I have the self-confidence to appreciate corrections couched as constructive criticism. But many Software engineers hate it because they feel they’re being judged constantly. And of course a lot of Software Engineers are introverts or have poor social skills. Or just like a little breathing room.
At my last company, I was instrumental at rolling out Agile on selected projects (because I believe in using the right tools for the job, and because Agile was not right for every project). My current employer, alas, is nowhere near ready for Agile. We’re trying to make some major changes to a product that affect the Flex front end, the Java back end, the XML and XSLT documents that hold and transform some of the data, and the databases. All those components need to dance together, or someone’s toes are going to get stepped on. But there’s no one person with all those skills, and certainly not enough time for one resource to do it all.
So here’s what we’ve been doing; My partner in crime (let’s call him E. He hates that.) and I are working physically side by side, but not together on the same thing. While E’s flexing the Flex and pouring the Java it talks to, I’m torturing the data till it sings, and pouring the Java that manages the data. But when either of us has a question on how something should be working (E may have questions about what’s in the data to help determine the expected results, or I may have questions on how a particular query is formed or the results processed), we’re right there to point at things on our screen. The fact that we’re working on two different computers isn’t a problem because we’re both syncing regularly with the version control system.
Clearly this is not pair programming, because we’re both working on different things most of the time. But there’s something different going on than if we were both sitting in our own desks. The barriers to communication are very low, and we can point out stuff right on our screens because they are next to each other. It’s a great balance of supporting each other while still doing our own thing. I don’t know if there’s a real name for what we were doing, so I decided to call it Co-Programming.
| woot.com, the online geek store phenomenon that sells one item each day, turned 5 last Sunday.
This is one of the more fun way to get deals on the InterTubes. [almost] every day, at 12:00CST, they put up a new item for sale, and sell that one item until they run out, or 12:00CST the next day. There’s a lively discussion forum to discuss the products among the other wooters. Another great thing about woot is they write very funny descriptions of the products. Every now and again, there’s a woot-off, where they sell a bunch of things in rapid succession, and deprive geeks worldwide of much-needed sleep and focus at work. I’ve bought several things there, and have always been happy with them. Just be aware that their cheap shipping is VERY slow. |
Mortimer & Monte: In the Break Room from Woot Video on Vimeo. |
From Wired: 100 Essential Skills for Geeks.
I found this list fun, but a lot of the skills on their list are either too esoteric for even a mid-level geek (lock picking, bypassing passwords), or to specific to be be general geek knowledge (steganographics, robotics). But it is fun.
I’ll update this post tonight with my score. I welcome comments with yours.
I apologize in advance because (1) this is a hot topic that may offend some, and (2) I posted like 87 times today. However….
I just saw this article on WBUR’s website (the local NPR station) saying the Vatican is starting this huge investigation of U.S. nuns because they’re straying too much from Catholic doctrine, and not promoting church teachings. Now, I’m not Catholic, and I’m seeing this from an American perspective, and allegation != guilt, but it seems odd to me that all these priests are found doing illegal and harmful things, and it’s all apologies and shuffling them from one area to another, but The Inquisition II is fired up because nuns aren’t wearing their habits. I don’t get their priorities.
There’s a battle going on in many religious institutions, both internationally and locally, and that’s purity vs popularity. Should a religious institution stay true to it’s original doctrine and morals, or should it bend with the times just a bit in the name of staying connected to their “target audience”? Obviously, opinions on this will vary wildly. Then there’s the cultural differences between different countries. As that article rightly points out, the US has a highly individualistic culture, so some rules that aren’t a problem in Europe may be harder to follow here.
I would really like some feedback on these issues. I think it’s an interesting problem.
According to this New York Times article, dogs wag more to one side than another depending on their emotions. If they see something or some one they’re happy about, they wag more to the right. If it’s something they’re less positively disposed towards, they wag more to the left.