resistance to persistence

Last night I got down to business actually coding again. After one of my last posts on not working fast enough, I entered the evening mentally willing myself to try to work as fast as possible. Soon after starting, I hit a wall. This is the first time I’ve used Idea 4.5 with it’s new project/web module setup and I was trying to use the integrated Tomcat support. Only it would never pick up my jars which I’d included in my classpath inside of Idea. As a brute force method just to get me on track, I was going to just copy all the jars into the tomcat lib, but I knew this would give me errors later down the road. As a quick fix to get me back on track to coding, I switched to trusty, fast Resin. I’ll figure out the Tomcat issue later when I have some idle time to mess around with it. (Anyone have this problem?)

And soon after I was back on track, actually getting my code running fine on Resin. I can’t debug on Resin via Idea (I’m sure there must be a way - leave me comments if you know how), but that’s for later as well.

The key is to realize when you get off on a tangent and aren’t being productive. In the past there have been times when I’ve hit one of these bumps, then spent an hour trying to find an elaborate way around it and gone further down a path which isn’t useful. I’ve gotten better at recognizing this as I’m going and I don’t get down the wrong path for as long anymore. Question yourself - is this going to lead to my end goal? Do I really need to spend 2 hours writing an ant task to perform this job when I can do it manually a couple times over the life of the project and it will take me 15 seconds each time to do it?

Recognize when you’ve hit a wall, take a turn and get back on track.

The busblog has gone to paper. Tony’s published a book through cafepress. This is such a great idea. I’m interested to see what’s inside. At 210 pages, that’s some serious work. I’d recently been thinking that it would be cool to put together a photobook. There’s some open submissions for photos to be included in publishings that I’ve been considering entering. But I’d still like to see lots of my photos published. I don’t think I’ve got a big enough body of work yet. Maybe 20 decent pages or so. Something for me to work towards.

I knew it was only a matter of time before I could show off my elementary school-era talent once again. Bowling is becoming hip again. A new bowling bar (don’t think of a smoky, musty bowling alley) is opening up in Toronto. Hopefully the rental shoes are in a little better condition. I know one friend of mine who will be happy about this news…she always gets excited when we mention going bowling for a night. Now where is my wristguard at?

Read this Torontoist posting for more details.

Things are super busy. Late night at work cause I was in late. Home inspection today. Closing next week. Moving a few weeks later. Painting & general house puttering before the move. J & I both have personal stuff going on at the same time. I’m honestly not sure when we’re going to have time for Xmas shopping. If you’re on my gift list I’m sure you won’t mind if you just get a hug this year. Christmas is about friends & family, right? Not presents. I don’t think anyone is buying that excuse, unfortunately.

A guy is trying to get some attention by drinking Pepsi Spice (I don’t even think we have this in Canada) for 45 days. No other liquids are allowed. Sneezing, bloody nose, diarrhea, swollen tongue, weight gain - sounds like a fun experiment.

I instantly started sneezing, which made me poo my pants and on top of the horror I got another bloody nose. Luckily no one was home when this happened.

Paul Graham has another essay to ponder. One point he makes is that good software developers don’t overly plan their entire program.

“Systematic” is the last word I’d use to describe the way good programmers write software. Code is not something they assemble painstakingly after careful planning, like the pyramids. It’s something they plunge into, working fast and constantly changing their minds, like a charcoal sketch.

In software, paradoxical as it sounds, good craftsmanship means working fast. If you work slowly and meticulously, you merely end up with a very fine implementation of your initial, mistaken idea. Working slowly and meticulously is premature optimization. Better to get a prototype done fast, and see what new ideas it gives you.

I think I should try working faster. When writing code, I plan and diagram all sorts of UML, sometimes even write out requirements and timelines. By the time I finish all this work, the fire in my idea is a glimmer of light and I’ve had to move onto something else. And there’s also the fear of where to start. Joel on Software wrote about this in “Fire and Motion” and it’s something I keep in the back of my head. Just code something. I need to dive right in and get coding.

I’d like to do a little personal survey around the office to see if our good developers dive right in or do they sit back and carefully plan.

On Friday night, I went to a show opening for my brother in law, Alist. He was contacted to do some artwork for a touring show of graphics on skateboard decks. When he showed me the boards the week before, I blew up in excitement. The show, Thirty Two Inch Canvas, was at Goodfoot shoe store. Really hip show, lots of great work. I’d consider buying a board from the show. It would be a good piece of artwork to buy for my office.

I’ve got a new site design I’ve posted over the weekend. I’m redoing the photos site as well. I was never really happy with the last design of that one especially. The comments were never working correctly. For some reason you could only post comments on the most recent photo. I think I’m going to remove all the photos I’ve posted there as well. I think the images are WAY too huge. I based the image size on DDOI’s image width, but I think I want to go with something smaller.

I’ve got a big list of celebs (and pseudo-celebs) I’ve seen around. Here’s the who & where list.

• Cranberries - musical group. I was playing pool at the Down Under bar in town in a little back room and 3 of the guys from Cranberries walked in and started playing. Dolores wasn’t there as she just had her baby. One of them launched the cueball off the table over my way and when I gave the ball back I struck up a conversation. They didn’t think they’d be recognized and were trying to pretend they were just some tourists. Finally they admitted they were recording some songs at a local studio.
• Rachel Perry - VH1 VJ. She started out at MuchMusic for many years. I was shopping at Loblaws in Queen’s Quay (rep for a great dating pickup spot) and saw her at the checkouts. I caught a glimpse of some crazy bird tattoos on her belly. Rachel left to the US later to work at VH1 and other shows. Check her out in Stuff magazine
• Jennifer Love Hewitt - most famous for Party of Five. Passed her on Bloor street in front of Holt Renfrew shopping.
• Shaun Majumder - a great Canadian comic working his way up the standup chain. I love his Newfoundland jokes, being a newfie myself. I was walking outside of my house and he was driving by in a tiny, old beatup Honda Civic packed with what looked like everything he owned. This was a few years back
• Harland Williams - this guy is another great standup comedian. Some people don’t like his style, but he gets me laughing. He’s been in movies such as Dumb & Dumber and Something About Mary. A group of us went to a comedy nightclub and he went on stage under a pseudonym to try out some new material. He opened with: “Have you ever ordered calimari and thought the waiter brought you deep-fried assholes instead?” I was rolling on the floor by the end of his set.
• Delroy Lindo - passed him on Yonge street near the Eaton Centre one night walking by himself. I forget what movie he was filming in town at that time.
• Billy Ray Cyrus - Achy Breaky Heart. Ugh. He films a tv series, Doc, here in town. Passed him filming on my way into work.
• Jaleel White - you remember Steve Erkel. Unfortunately, so does everyone and he’ll always be typecast in that role. He was filming a show in town that never made it to tv (111 Gramercy Park I think it was called) and I passed by him during the shoot.
• Tyler Stewart, Barenaked Ladies - musician. He got on the subway and stood next to me. Good to know popular folks ride the subway too.

Before	Now

I passed Bret Hart last night on the way home at the corner of Yonge & King. He’s doing a play in town. It was interesting to see a childhood hero that close. I remember my dad taking me to a wrestling event as a kid. Staying up late with him and watching Saturday Night’s Main Event wrestling. I was a big wrestling fan and would watch it every week. I guess Bret’s many years of acting out wrestling moves and dancing around in the ring has given him the necessary experience to act in a play and dance around the stage.