Making Computer Systems Behave Themselves
troubling my mind
why was this place abandoned?
these lives forgotten
Today’s Word of the Day Challenge features the word “abandoned”, which reminded me of all the houses I’ve seen, empty, decaying. I wonder about the lives that were there before. I wonder about what caused these places to be left behind. What joys, sadnesses and pain have faded into oblivion?
dawn glowing golden
flowing over eastern hills
silence with my tea
watching the sunset
colors against the blue sky
spring’s glory arrived
in the night’s calmness
I delight in the silence
stars in the spring sky
In the early 2000s (2004-2009, to be specific) I worked at Starbucks, first in Global Communications then on the Corporate Social Responsibility team. I loved my time there and is the one place I would return in a hearbeat.
We former Partners (as Starbucks employees are referred) have an alumni group, the Green Apron Network. It’s a great group of folks whose presence I greatly enjoy and am privileged to be part of. One of the great figures of Starbucks’ corporate history is a man by the name of Major Cohen. If there is anyone who knows coffee better, I am unaware of them. Recently retired, Major has written a book, “Coffee For Dummies“. Though I haven’t read it yet (I have a copy on its way), I know Major well enough to highly recommend it. A few of my friends have already read it, and recommend it. I’ll write more about the book once I have read it.
So, check it out! There’s a Kindle version, so you can start reading it right now. If you read it, leave me a comment and let me know what you think.
Currently, I’m taking the second quarter in a two-quarter series on Systems Analysis. One of the lists my text presented is “7 Design Habits”. (side note: I appreciate the reference/nod to Steven Covey’s 7 Habits Of Highly Successful People). I like the list, so I wrote it out on a post-it and have it on the wall next to my desk.
I value each of these. While maximizing graphical effectiveness has been an area of interest for quite some time (it’s the roots of my interest in design), what really speaks to me right now is “document everything”.
I’ve lived by this mantra for years. I try to drop everything into Evernote*, for instance. Articles I’ve read, people I’ve met, things told to me. This collection of notes is but one element of documenting everything. Knowing where I got ideas is pretty important. But this notion means more. To me, it implies a certain thoughtfulness to the documentation. Sure, it’s great to have dozens of pages of random notes. But “documentation” is organized. Not just links to articles, or pages of feedback, but also analysis, explanations of the “why” within choices. Being able to reference, at some random point in the future, how we got to a certain decision can be crucial when evaluating a problem and determining a response. Also, in a more negative vein, it can show due diligence in a lawsuit.
So, yeah, my propensity for collecting information has saved me plenty of anguish over the years (“you never told me that!” “well, here’s the email I sent to you with your reply”). It’s also been helpful to friends and colleagues (“hey Carl, who was that guy from Facebook we met with last year”. Yeah, it’ll be in my notes). I appreciate the reinforcement that this is a best practice that’s valued at least by textbook writers.
*this link to Evernote is an affiliate link. If you subscribe to the service, I will get rewarded with a free year of the service.
another spring day
moving through the sunlight
breeze through the blossoms
the daffodil’s gaze
loving glance in the spring sun
a gentle breeze blows
Spent today finishing up my first assignments coded with PHP. It’s interesting to me how the expectations have evolved. I’m getting to the point that, even though I’ve never done anything in PHP, that I can look at existing code and decipher its intent, then adjust the code accordingly. I did need some of my instructor’s “hints”, but not much. It was pretty cool to be able to just read my text, open up the code, and tweak it to get the desired results. Again, this is the first chapter of the book, my first set of projects, so still pretty basic. But, I’m feeling more confident as a coder every day.
This is balanced with moments of complete bewilderment. Over the course of one project, I had several moments where I just wanted to scream at my screen. One moment, trying to get some if/elseif statements to work. After the better part of an hour, I finally deleted the whole thing and re-coded it…and it worked! I haven’t any idea what I did differently. That’s one of the things with code: a wrong letter case, dropping one character, one symbol, and the whole thing will not work.
Getting it to work is an amazing feeling. Balanced by the frustrations of the damn thing not working at all.
in the spring sunlight
if you look closely enough
you will find blessings