CS-565

Prof Vesonder mentioned teaching the Architecture course next semester. It is required for me... so I may just go ahead and pick the class for the near future. He is a good prof.

OO Programming

Function programming... what is that? We mentioned "favorite programming languages" and Perl was mentioned. That makes me shudder. As far as my knowledge of Perl goes... it is popular for certain things because it is versatile. In the early days of the web Perl was used for Form Processing. ClearCase leverages Perl to do certain things like task automation and triggers. Anyway, when a quick and dirty solution is needed my preference is batch scripts and throught the years Perl has all but disappeared from the web programming platform. Of course, this makes me happy because I don't like the archaic way Perl does variables and its human in-readable regexps.

C++ and Java are my languages. I've developed for a period in ASP.NET. I know SQL enough to make use of databases (I don't know if that counts as a language). I have a good understanding of XML (a markup language) and HTML (which doesn't count). I know DOS (on Windows) and Bash (on *NIX). I've dabbled in simple C programming (yay, Litec) and had two or three weeks of Assembly (MIPS) academically in college (yay, CANOS). Is that one language per year? I'm not sure... but technology is constantly evolving and I wish I had time to learn more. Especially Java web-based technologies. Those are sexy, now.

Topics mentioned yesterday:

Sharp Tools

We have a group at my company called the Software Technology Insertion Review Board which is responsible for reviewing and approving software tools (compilers, unit test suites, requirements, configuration management, etc). Employees suggest tools to the STIRB, which reviews the tool and then makes a determination of Preferred, Approved, Restricted, or Rejected. In theory, Preferred rated tools are the sharpest and most helpful - so when kicking off new development efforts guidance is provided to choose the best of the best.

On Meetings

I enjoy meetings. Communication is key, and meeting is a good way to communicate. Even if a meeting isn't for something directly related to me, I find it informative and always welcome an opportunity to learn about what others are doing. Also, though, I have seen people who were not expected to have the closest domain knowledge of a subject provide the best insights into certain discussions. You never know who is going to have the knowledge needed to most efficiently do what needs to be done.

Software for a Digital World

There are still a lot of places in the world where technology is still inadequate. I was in the airport on Thursday night and almost got messed over by unintelligent software. My flight was 6:30pm and I arrived at 4:15pm. With the knowledge that my carrier had a flight out at 5:15pm, I talked to the woman behind the Continental Airlines desk and she was happy to give me a stand-by ticket for the earlier flight, saying that if I didn't make it onto that nearly-full flight that I would just get my regular one.

Nevertheless, there were delays and the 5:15 left at 5:45. When the 6:30 announced that there would be approximately a one hour delay, I when to find an airport bar to pass the time at. Around 7:10pm, they announced that the 6:30 flight would begin boarding. When I tried to get on with my old stand-by ticket, the guy informed me that I wasn't on the flight. The software *should have* realized I didn't make it on the stand-by flight and reassigned me to my original seat on the 6:30 flught. I should have talked to the woman behind the Continental desk to figure out my stand-by ticket. It didn't and I didn't... ten minutes later, in a nearly empty terminal, the guy let me onto one of the last seats on the plane. Stand-by assignments from the later 8:00pm flight nearly bumped me off my originally scheduled flight. That would have been particularly unfortunate.

In another facet of software inadequacy, today I saw a friend look her bank's website to find the telephone number to call to check her balance. The bank, Century, doesn't have account information viewable online.

And back at the airport, leaving Newark on Wednesday, I lost my cell phone at the security checkpoint (don't ask). When I flew in, on Thursday, a security guy at the gate went into the security logs which were written down with pen and paper. He also didn't have the fully collaborated lost-and-found logs for all three of the possible security gates where I could have lost my phone. In other words, I need to wait until I have access to a phone during business hours (when I go to work on Monday) to call the central security office to find out whether my cell phone truely is gone for good. Oh, what I wouldn't give for Google to organize their lost-and-found.