Blog entry by Willy-P. Schaub
Visual Studio 2010 Architecture Tooling Guidance on CodePlex
A quick glance at the downloads shows guidance for new projects as well as retooling existing projects. That sounds pretty cool to me. I’ve got at least 4 different projects that have reached road blocks in refactoring because I didn’t plan well enough. I planned too grand a solution or started out with too small of a vision. How much is just enough?
Alas, I do struggle with seeing that which is right under my nose and correctly planning for the future.
What’s that Fred Brooks quote?
Good judgment comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgment.
Live and learn.
“A well-trained man knows how to answer questions, they reasoned; an educated man knows what questions are worth asking.”
E. Digby Baltzell
From a NY Times Op/Ed piece: The ‘Learning Knights’ of Bell Telephone
“Only the mediocre are always at their best.”
Jean Giraudoux
There are so many ways to take that one. “Sarcastically” is leading the mental calculus. Go figure.
From coding horror: The Only Truly Failed Project
Been there. Done that.
I guess my approach is to not even see failures as such. Failure is an opportunity learn a way to not solve a given problem. 10 failures? Nope. It’s learning 10 ways to do something that doesn’t fix your problem.
Software development is a process that requires continual forward movement. I try to learn something new with each and every line of code that I write, even the bad lines and expressions of much larger bad ideas. I don’t WANT to write bad code, but it happens. And sometimes it takes months before I realize the mistake. It’s all a learning process. And when I do “get it right” the first time, I’m unhappy, paranoid, and unsettled. You never want a successful first test, per TDD. The first pass through should result in a failure condition then when you have a successful test you have confidence that the issue has truly been resolved.
What was that cheese-ball line from Galaxy Quest? “Never give up. Never surrender.”
I found this after reading one of Laura’s posts and searching for more background info. I was interested in the concept of flow outlined by Csikszentmihalyi.
Flow is the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing, characterized by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity. Proposed by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the concept has been widely referenced across a variety of fields.
Many other terms and idioms exist for this mental state: to be on the ball, in the zone, or in the groove.
More on Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
More on Flow
There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain.
Plato
Which are you?
I think I am the first. Knowledge is my primary focus. Learning leads to wisdom.
You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.
Indira Gandhi
The way to succeed is to double your error rate.
Thomas J. Watson
Thomas John Watson, Sr. was the president of International Business Machines (IBM), who oversaw that company’s growth into an international force from the 1920s to the 1950s. (Link)
It is well that war is so terrible. We should grow too fond of it.
Robert E. Lee
My computer beat me at checkers, but I sure beat it at kickboxing.
Emo Philips
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Arthur C. Clarke
Mine is the Dark Art of our age. Do you understand pixel dynamics, electron flow, binary math, or null as a meaningful value? I do. I read books on logic for ‘fun’ and I love to write code. Seeing my code run on hundreds of machines, without users even realizing it’s there is a thrill for me. I want technology to be transparent for my users. You don’t want or need to know how my code runs. You should only care that it runs, does its job, and doesn’t restrict your ability to function. It is the same way for me in other arenas of my life. I don’t really care about how the carbon fibre was laid-up to create my mountain bike. I only care that it works, every time, without fail.
Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.
Charles Bukowski
Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.
Albert Einstein
