Archive for April, 2006
This isn’t news, but is worth remembering…
Peter Hallam commented on what consumes most of a developer’s time between the following:
- Design Code
- Write New Code
- Understand Existing Code
- Modify Existing Code
- Verify Existing Code Still Works
He argues that most developers spend most of their time understanding, modifying, and verifying that existing code still works. His focus is primarily upon how this balance impacts (or should impact) editor (Visual Studio) features, but the discussion is interesting outside that context also.
Why do we hire developers based upon how well they can write some lame from-scratch sample code? My current employer did something unique in my experience: they gave me some unfamiliar buggy code and asked me to discuss what was wrong with it, discuss some possible solutions, and implement one of them.
Hello? Test driven development? How about even starting with automated unit tests, even if they’re written after the code?
Does the whole thing make the wacky world of literate programming less whacky?
April 19 2006 | Geek Stuff | No Comments »
I meet with a few men on Friday mornings for a bible study. We start bright and early (more early than bright perhaps), but my Fridays are blessed as a result. We’ve been studying 1 Peter, and today we hit 1 Peter 3:1-7, with the infamous discussion on wives being submissive to their husbands. We chatted about this being a continuation of the thought in 1 Peter 2 encouraging servants to submit to their masters and everyone submitting to governmental authority, but for me, the most interesting portion of our conversation was where I least expected it.
In 1 Peter 3:3-4, he encourages women to focus on the “hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit” instead of on outward beauty. “J” mentioned that Peter seemed to have some insight into women, to understand the challenge they faced and commented upon how there is “something” about a woman’s spirit that can enhance the most beautiful and make the homely appear lovely. “K” pointed out that even 750+ years before, Isaiah had to point out the same problem in the women of that day (Isaiah 3:16). “k” mentioned that the woman admired in the Song of Solomon is not particularly beautiful if you convert the physical description to a picture, but that her spirit made her beautiful in the eyes of her lover (which has some cool applications to God as the lover of our soul and us, His church, as the beloved). What struck me, however, was our culpability as males for this stereotypical tendency in the women we love.
It is generally accepted that a “good husband” remembers to express to his wife how beautiful she is, and a “great husband” doesn’t even have to remember; it comes naturally. But how often do we admire our wife’s hidden person? How often do we compliment her upon her spirit? As humans, we respond to positive feedback. If we men only praise our wife for her external beauty, why are we critical of her tendency to be “overly concerned” about her appearance? We have a duty to fulfill here, and it is not an onerous one. Let’s remember to admire the inner beauty of our wife as well as her outward attractiveness. By doing so, we encourage her to become even more beautiful, and that’s good for everyone involved.
April 14 2006 | Jesus Stuff | No Comments »
I came across an interesting article with implications for game design and, perhaps, for the etiology of some addictions. In their study The Psychophysiology of Video Gaming: Phasic Emotional Responses to Game Events , Ravaja, Saari, Laarni, Kallinen, Salminen, Holopainen, and Järvinen discovered that “Not only putatively positive game events, but also putatively negative events that involved active participation by the player elicited positive emotional responses…” Interestingly, the reaction to failure was more strongly positive than the reaction to success, and the pleasure associated with success was primarily anticipatory, with a noticeable drop once success was achieved. It’s no secret that a game that is too easy, that presents no opportunity for failure, is quickly abandoned as “boring”. Game designers and Game Masters have long been aware of the necessity of balancing challenge and achievement. A “Monty Haul” adventure is generally accepted to be less “fun” than “Mission: Impossible.” So it is no secret that the actual or perceived possibility of failure is critical to the enjoyment of success, but the concept of failure as a source of pleasure was new to me.
The upside of this is that game designers have an additional tool to apply consciously in the quest to entertain and educate. The downside is the ugly intersection of this pleasurable failure with the unhealthy psyche. For individuals convinced at some level that they deserve to fail, whether by neurochemical imbalance, environmental factors, or an agent of the enemy of their soul, this quick and repeatable source of failure can be dangerous. The endless treadmill of MMPOGs are perhaps the most dangerous. It’s like putting a crack-dispenser in an addict’s bedroom.
This doesn’t mean I think games are evil or should be eliminated or restricted in some way. I am firmly convinced that games, storytelling through games, and the art of game design offer benefits to society, technology innovation, education, etc. that outweigh the associated dangers. Additionally, I suspect that perhaps this pleasure in failure may underly other addictive behaviors. Similar patterns appear to exist in addictions to work, unsuccessful relationships, spending, approval from others, food, pot, and other psychological (vs. chemical) addictions.
What I do suggest, is that mentors, parents, pastors, and others who care about someone demonstrating symptoms of addiction consider this as a possible underlying cause. In my experience, games stopped being a snare for me when I came to grips with my belovedness in the eyes of God. Human approval, even intense human love, was insufficient. People can be deceived or mistaken; God cannot. Only recognizing that the same God who knows everything about me loves me intensely was sufficient to drive the changes that took me from addicted and depressed to joyful and free.
April 13 2006 | Geek Stuff and Jesus Stuff | No Comments »
Ambrose Little has a thought-provoking article on Architects vs. Developers over at ASP Alliance. He follows up with some additional comments on his blog.
Oh, and speaking of thought-provoking check out Paul Graham’s latest essay on Software Patents. I actually beat SlashDot to this one by 24 hours or so which was nice. It gave me a chance to ponder this before being utterly corrupted by the SlashDot community’s followup. I find Graham alternately insightful and annoying, but almost always thought-provoking.
April 11 2006 | Geek Stuff | No Comments »
The text for my Friday morning bible study this week was 1 Peter 2:13-25. We discussed what it meant to suffer unjustly, turn the other cheek, etc. and had a difficult time identifying examples of what that would look like in practice. As we closed in prayer, the Holy Spirit pointed out to me that 1 Peter 2:18 instructs me to submit myself (as a wage-slave) to my master (employer), and I missed an opportunity to bring Him glory by obeying that instruction.
Wednesday night, someone mentioned in an email thread that I had committed to resolving an issue that night (after work hours). I had not, in fact, agreed to any such thing. My reply was “Err… nobody ever asked if I could do this tonight, but I will arrange to do so. In the future, it would be nice if I were asked before a commitment is made on my behalf so that if I’m completely unavailable for some reason, we can make other arrangements.”
My reply wasn’t so terrible from a human perspective, but this was a clear opportunity for me to put 1 Peter 2:18 into practice, and I blew it. I grumbled, drew attention to the fact that I was not being treated fairly, and essentially whined that I wasn’t being treated justly. This wasn’t a case where work was coming into conflict with family responsibilities, and I didn’t have an internal debate as to whether I should do the work; the only debate was whether I whined about doing it, or just did it, and I made the wrong decision.
April 07 2006 | Jesus Stuff | No Comments »