Coding it "old school"

For instance, "no one can ever tell you what a UML diagram means."

If you're old like I am, this is so true. Maybe it's true for everyone.

This article is about how some of the old-timers at Microsoft still program with their good ole text editor. I am not the Luddite that some may be, but my take on MDD (model-driven development) is that it might be good in the initial stages of layout and design, but at some point you're gonna have to lay some lines of code. And it can't do shit for that problem.

A buddy was kvetching today at lunch about how his new architect wants him to crank out a bunch of UML (unified modeling language) diagrams of the application he's been working on. He said the guy was "old school" but I don't think we did UML diagrams back when I started writing code (i.e., back in the real old school). Shit, we didn't even know anything about OOAD (object-oriented analysis and design) back then. I think it was just being invented, or something. (So, by the way, was UNIX. Sorta.)

I am not against more advanced methods of programming, but as Don Box said when they asked: "But when there are 500 things, [graphical programming] is completely unusable. You zoom in and zoom out and you lose all context. I think it's just smokin' dope." It's also difficult to fully fathom something when it's some hundred-friggin-thousand lines of code, but if the code is done well, you can look at individual methods (about 10 to 50 lines) to fathom them, then upward through the stack until you reach the top. So, it's not all bad.

I wish my friend good luck with all those UML diagrams. I told him he should get the damn architect to do them. That should keep the guy busy for at least 6 months, or more. Just about right, IMO.

The Princess and the Frog

I've seen the trailers for this new Disney animated feature. My initial impression has been that the toothless firefly character (well, almost toothless) is racist in the way he is portrayed. But perhaps blacks see him in a different light. It's a fine line to be walked, no doubt.

My family members are Hispanic. Both my wife and her daughter (now living with us) felt the firefly image to be racially inappropriate. I know how much more sensitized I've become to racial stereotypes: the dark skin, the ah ... nose, the curly hair, etc. It's inevitable, though I simply cannot see how such things as minor appearance differences are significant.

My wife's complexion is somewhere in the middle, as far as it goes. She's darker than your average WASP, and her nose shows her African ancestry quite plainly. But I say, "so what?" She has described herself as having the Puerto Rican flag "tattooed" on her face. Her daughter's complexion is lighter and her facial features are more European than African. But though Puerto Ricans have a thing for skin/hair color (the worst thing would be to be very dark with nappy hair, which many have), both of them have found similar racist attitudes here in the states. My wife thought she was continually being scrutinized when she lived in Louisiana. Perhaps not so much here in the Midwest. But then, again ...

None of us are terribly interested in this new Disney movie, but we may change our minds, depending on the reviews. It might not be so bad.

So, why does any of this matter to me? If we're on the subject of racism, why does it matter, and whom am I trying to convince? I know how I feel, and I don't need to convince anyone of anything. If someone thinks my wife is half-black, then that's fine. She isn't, quite, but she's some significant percentage, for sure. I really don't care. Man, it's hard enough to find someone to be with as it is. If I worry about a bunch of insignificant stuff, I might miss someone really nice. I don't, and I didn't. I guess that's my point.

There is so much more to us as individuals, regardless of our physical characteristics and cultural heritage. We need to be looking for ways to come together--and work together--rather than focusing on how some of us aren't like the others. Because everyone is a minority of one.

Happy Thanksgiving from A Far Sun

I got so busy (and feeling somewhat burned-out, as well) so I put the story down awhile. I think I last wrote some content on October 31, and not until Sunday night did I start back into it, again. I did write about 7K words in my other story, Rider on the Storm (the current working title), and I've figured out a few things in that plot, too. I also realized I transited into act two at about the 20K word mark, so the estimated length of 80K is sounding about right. Of course, because of the way I work I won't really know how long it will be until I actually get there. It's more funner, that way!

I'm still not completely satisfied with how I'm introducing my main antagonist in A Far Sun, though. It seems it ought to be more grandiose in keeping with his personality, but I'm going to write some more and see how it goes. He will start causing some real trouble, and really soon, so perhaps my worries are unfounded. Somewhat.

On a related note, my stepdaughter Emily has moved in with us. I haven't started prevailing upon her for story collaboration, yet, but could that be far behind? She's very intellectual (which I knew) and I'm finding she keeps me on my mental toes. Feels good. One of the very necessary abilities for writing (that I've found) is the ability to pour out the words very quickly, and the constant need to keep up with her, conversationally speaking, helps keep those gears well-oiled and functioning smoothly. As I said: it feels good.

Also, with her in residence it might make for more convenient illustration cajolery. I'd like to get some illustrations of my characters to begin adorning the website with. We'll see.

Karmic Koala Netbook Remix - bug update

A little while ago I blogged about some of the bugs I encountered when I installed the Karmic Koala Netbook Remix on my Acer netbook. Here's the run-down:

1. I never got past the upgrade installation glitch. Instead I booted from the CD and installed Karmic from there. I upgraded my desktop over the web. It only took about 5 hours to download the whole thing via my wireless network, but it worked.
   
2. I installed the Ubuntu 9.10 boot enhancement stuff, which has improved boot time, but it's still not as zippy as Jaunty was. Better, though.
3. I'm getting used to the new login screen. It actually contains more information and some options, so it's not as bad as I originally reported.
4. No more menu ghosts. I think they fixed this problem.
5. There still isn't a File System shortcut, but I'm getting over that one, as well. We must be adaptive to change, you know.
6. They have also fixed the touchpad glitch. It now stays disabled, which I am grateful for. I'm weird, I know, but I don't like touchpads. Oh, and I can work my Logitech Nano V450 mouse against my leg. It will almost work on any surface, even a rather nappy blanket.
7. I still don't know how to remove some of the stray icons, but I no longer care as much.
8. They have obviously changed the battery time calculations, but in net it still gets almost 5 hours of battery life.

I have completely bagged Firefox on Linux, and now use Google Chrome (even in beta it works very well) as my browser. I can't wait until they introduce some plugins, especially one that blocks adverts.

I want to commend the folks who fixed some of these bugs so damn quickly! There is no chance whatsoever that a commercial software company would have been so rapid in their response. I think I'm catching on to this new way of thinking: To get the über rapid fixes, you might have to put up with the occasional stray glitch.

On a semi-related side note, Songbird refused to work on my desktop machine under Jaunty. But now with Karmic (Desktop version) it works quite well there, as well. I like Songbird for playing music, except that it doesn't remember the current playlist between executions. That's an almost taken-for-granted feature of other players like MediaMonkey and WinAmp. Sadly, both of those are Windows-only players.

Hello from Google Chrome (on Linux)

It isn't yet ready for public release, but Google has the latest development build nicely packaged for flavors of Linux that can install from a .deb file. Ubuntu (I have Karmic Koala--the Netbook Remix) is one of the flavors of Debian, so installing Chrome was fairly easy.

When installing it asked about importing Firefox settings, which I assumed meant bookmarks (among other things). It may have imported other things, but not my Firefox bookmarks.

It also wouldn't launch the first time, but I grep'ed the processes and killed them, then relaunched it with success. I'm writing this blog post from Chrome. In a few minutes I'll see if it can be shut down and relaunched.

It's very fast by comparison, certainly faster than Firefox, but I wonder how it will perform once it's loaded down with all the crap we usually hang on Firefox. Probably still better.

I understand the Windows version is further along, and you can easily download and install it. I probably won't do this, right away. But, as for many things, who knows?

Karmic Koala Netbook Remix - bugs #1

I won't bore everyone with all the details, but here are some of the defects I've observed with the Karmic Koala (9.10) Netbook Remix:

1. Installation: The first time I inserted the CD, it asked me if I wanted to upgrade to the new distribution. For one reason or another, I elected not to, but it never asked me again. Furthermore, When I tried to run Update Manager to perform the upgrade, it kept insisting I had the wrong CD mounted. The volume name != the distribution "official" name. What a pain! I had to perform a clean install of Karmic. Ubuntu scores a big fat zero on the upgrade front, for that one.
   
2. It seems to boot slower. If it gets much slower, and it will be right up there with Windows. Can't have that, can we?
3. I don't like the new login screen. Perhaps it can be changed, but take me back to the older one, in Jaunty.
   
4. Sometimes the menu applet develops "ghosts"; artifacts from other menus that show behind the current menu page at half intensity. I have tried to duplicate this reliably, but can't. To be fair, I also saw this behavior with Jaunty (9.04).
5. I figured out that the folders sub-menu works from the favorites you set up in the file explorer. Too bad you can't add other things, like the "File System" root folder that was present in Jaunty. I dunno, I liked that feature.
6. The mouse and touchpad system admin functions are separated. Fine, but touchpad admin keeps losing the settings. The touchpad keeps turning back on, and this is a big pain for me. I always use the mouse. Having the mouse move because of my clumy hands is ... well, unhappy.
   
7. I don't like the gray color of the top system area. At least before, it was colorful, and I see no reason to make it boring, again. BTW, how do I remove some of the items that appear there? I haven't quite figured this out, yet.
8. The battery time calculator is somewhat too "twitchy." When I resumed my machine after some time in hibernate mode, it said I had a really exorbitant amount of time left, then corrected itself after awhile. That said, battery life seems a tad better.
   

This list is just what I discovered via my reinstall and subsequent tweaking on Saturday and Sunday. I was already using Firefox 5.4 and Open Office 3.1, so this upgrade did not affect the apps I use most often. In general, though, I like the updated look, though in retrospect I would go back to Jaunty based on my experiences. Perhaps next time (next upgrade, I mean) I'll wait until more of the initial release bugs are fixed.