Can’t think of an idea for software to write? Check out Reducing Guilt is the Killer App — they’ve really got a point. Getting rid of extraneous guilt makes for great apps. (And by “extraneous” I mean guilt that really shouldn’t be there. If you murder someone, you’d darn well better feel guilt. And read Dostoevsky, for that matter.)
Technorati Tags: guilt, Dostoevsky
At the library today I browsed through the Python section (QA 76.73 .P98 or so, if you care to know 
) and picked up O’Reilly’s Learning Python. Spent the last hour going through the first chapter and a half. Good stuff. It’s surprisingly easy to learn, and gosh it’s fun! (I think my delight stems from 1) the fact that I haven’t really learned any substantially new languages in a while and 2) it’s interpreted, so results come immediately, and 3) it’s a cool language.) This language-learning thing is addicting. I can’t wait to learn Ruby and Lisp/Scheme and more Perl… Anyway, the main thing is to start coding real things in it, so I’ll have to come up with some small mini-programs that’ll help me get my bearings. And then it’ll be time to learn PyObjC and see if it’s feasible for writing Beyond. I think it is — Apple’s website seems to indicate that you can do anything you need to with it — and it’ll be soooooo nice not to have to take care of memory management.
And yes, TextMate is still slow. Backspacing, especially. Hmm. If I can’t figure out a way to fix it, it’ll be bye-bye TextMate and hello again to vim. (TextWrangler is okay but the interface is kind of clunky.)
Technorati Tags: Python, Ruby, Lisp, Scheme, Perl, TextMate, vim, TextWrangler
I’ve been using both TextWrangler and vi for the last while, but all these Rails screencasts have got me interested in TextMate. I downloaded the trial version and it looks pretty cool, but I’ll have to do some real work with it before I decide. It’s really quite nice that it opens a new file when you switch back to it (if you don’t have a file open). However, it doesn’t seem to be as responsive when I’m typing fast. I’m not sure why. (By “fast” I mean 120-140wpm.) When editing plaintext like this, the autocompletion of parentheses and quotes without getting in the way is a very nice thing. I can see this one growing on me… Anyway, I’ll write more about it later.
Technorati Tags: TextMate, TextWrangler, vi, Rails
Found this excellent post by Jason over at 37signals:
The best designers and the best programmers aren’t the ones with the best skills, or the nimblest fingers, or the ones who can rock and roll with photoshop or vim, they are the ones that can determine what just doesn’t matter. That’s where the real gains are made.
Most of the time you spend is wasted time on things that just don’t matter. If you can cut out the work and thinking that just doesn’t matter you’ll achieve productivity you’ve never imagined. It’s there if you just don’t pay attention to the things that don’t matter.
Very true!
In Digital Bridge a while back, I said something about Penny Pincher, the software I want (er, need) to write to help me save my money. So this morning I came up with a logo (the name is now just Penny, by the way) and it’ll be my first Cocoa project. Here’s the logo:
Last night I spent the evening reading Paul Graham essays (and thus wanting to learn Lisp ). Also read Eric Raymond’s How to Become a Hacker. Interestingly enough, the brief discussions of math therein were like drops of water to a parched tongue, making me salivate for more. The last math I really did was AP Calculus back five years ago in high school, and all I can remember of that is the word “integral,” the word “derivative,” and something about dy over dx (I think). So I pulled out my copy of Euclid’s The Elements (the three-volume Dover set) and started reading through the propositions. (Disclaimer: despite the following sentence, I still think I’m a normal, healthy human being.) It was fun. Today I stopped in at the library after lunch and picked up a neat book called The Nature and Power of Mathematics. I’ve only read 13 pages of it so far, but the two forces at work are readily apparent: the first is a strong desire to re-learn what I’ve forgotten and then to push the boundaries of my knowledge and burst out into new, glorious horizons of mathematical beauty; the second is a befuddled cloud that sits on my head and reminds me just how little I know about math nowadays, and that’s why half of what I read is hard to understand. But obstacles are meant to be overcome, so I’ll press on until I can comprehend multivariable calculus and all that. To infinity (wait, don’t limits have something to do with infinity? It’s starting to come back…) and beyond!
Technorati Tags: math, Paul Graham, Euclid
Just came across this awesome quote from Paul Graham’s essay “Beating the Averages”:
Robert and I both knew Lisp well, and we couldn’t see any reason not to trust our instincts and go with Lisp. We knew that everyone else was writing their software in C++ or Perl. But we also knew that that didn’t mean anything. If you chose technology that way, you’d be running Windows. When you choose technology, you have to ignore what other people are doing, and consider only what will work the best.
:)
Technorati Tags: Lisp, Paul Graham, Windows
I’ll be spending more time learning Ruby on Rails now that I’ve sent the book to press, so I guess I’ll go back to reading Why’s Poignant Guide to Ruby. It doesn’t seem like it’ll be that hard to pick up, really. What I need is an idea for a Rails project that I’ll actually use. Hmm… Ah, I’ve got it: I send out a weekly newsletter to my ward and provide a list of date ideas in it. There are plenty of recurring events which I have to type in again and again, and so it’d be nice to store the events in a database and then just export the list each week when I need it. (I talked about an idea like this on Top of the Mountains last week.) You know, it may be good to expose the site to the ward members and give them access to add date ideas (and tag existing ones). It looks like I’ll need two tables: one for dates and one for users. Simple enough. Hmm, what other functionality will I need? From a user’s standpoint, I’d want to be able to search for dates and limit results by cost, time of day, category, etc. Would I need to bookmark dates? Probably not, since most people will be checking the site on a weekly basis and a week isn’t enough time to warrant more permanent links. It’d be nice to have an RSS feed for new date ideas… It’d also be nice to interface with Google Maps, either directly (like Frappr) or via normal links. Okay, I’d better get back to class, but I’ll write more about this later.
Technorati Tags: Ruby, Ruby on Rails, Google Maps, Frappr
I tried cleaning out my fonts folder (with FontExplorer X) and that didn’t help at all. Why aren’t the fonts showing up in the Adobe apps?!? I checked Illustrator CS and the fonts do show up and I can use them just fine. So what changed in CS2? Argh. I have no idea how to fix this…
Go iTunes!
Technorati Tags: iTunes
