Matthew Lang

More of an introvert than an extrovert? Some good tips here to make social gatherings and meetings easier.

It would be nice to re-visit decisions I've made recently, but I need to live with the results.

A week ago I finally got round to doing some little jobs around the house and one of them was taking a couple millimetres off the top of a door so that it would shut correctly. As it required only a small amount off the door, I opted against using a power tool.

When Jennifer's parents moved to Canada over a decade ago, her Dad left some tools for me that he didn't want to take with him. One of them was a plane that belonged to Jennifer's great-grandfather. For those that don't know, a plane consists of a block with a projecting steel blade. It is used to smooth wooden surfaces by gradually removing shavings away from the surface of the wood.

Intrigued as to whether it was still working I dug it out from the toolbox and started working on fixing the door. Surprisingly the blade of the plane was still sharp enough to take just enough wood off the top of the door for it to close properly again. This plane is at least 30 years old and still works. It got me thinking about the choice of tools that programmers have when it comes to working with code and how long these tools last.For some years now, the text editor has been my choice of tool when working with code. I used TextMate for Ruby coding for about four years before I switched to Sublime. Yes, the keyboard shortcuts might have changed, but essentially, these two are the same tool. Just plain old text editors.A text editor is such a simple tool to use and many of the more popular text editors have a history that goes back at least five years. Look at Notepad++, jEdit and others. They've all been around for years. Even at over 20 years old, Vim is undoubtedly the first choice of text editor for many programmers.

The other choice developers have is an integrated development environment or IDE for short. These are the power tools of the software development world. IDEs are development tools that are designed to aid developers by providing built-in shortcuts that increase programmer productivity, but where they fall short is that they are tied to the programming language or platform they were designed for.

Being tied to a few programming languages or a platform is very restricting. Inevitably IDE's get releases every couple of years to take advantage of the latest new features from the programming languages and frameworks they were designed for. Re-learning the ins and outs of these news tools every couple of years is the kind of time I'd rather not waste. These tools are too complicated in my book.

That's the beauty of simple tools like our plane, like our text editor. They last a long time. Just like the plane made fixing the door a simple task to do, the text editor makes working with code a simple task. You just have to know how that programming language works in order to make the best use of your chosen text editor.

There's a lot to be said for the simple tools we use.

... where Patrick Rhone looks at how he's still using his first generation iPad and why it's the tools you never think of that get the job done.When I replied to Patrick's original post on App.net on how I'm still using my five year old black Macbook (believe me, that's old for a programmer) for development, his reply back was a great summary on why we use the tools we do:

It's what we believe in. ;-)

Thanks Patrick :-)

... brought to you by xkcd.

A little reminder from Dustin Curtis. Avoid the trap of worrying about what you lose.

Start a new coffee shop that prides itself on not only making better tasting coffee and food and provides a better customer service, but also pays their UK taxes.

Try Nicholas Bate's time management plan for a better day.

Glad to hear that I'm not alone. I don't always think that I am a terrible programmer, but some days I just can't afford to spend the extra time in making my code better with time restrictions set that can't be negotiated.

A good coder knows when something should be quick and dirty, and when something should be thorough and clean.

via Dan Shipper

Good luck pedaling that off the building!

via FGGT

... to say yes to forking a new career path.

Otherwise you're project is going to stall and get nowhere.

Know that when you start just a side project, you’re starting so much more. It’ll completely consume you. The worst failure in any side project is to devote time, energy and sanity for any sustained period only to close the doors.

Side projects are a means to an end.

— Side Projects by Andrew Dumont

A passive income stream. That's why I'm working on Journalong. Growth has stalled in the last couple of months though, so I'm looking to rectify that with a site up-lift and highlighting more of the features I've shipped in the last couple of weeks.

... we all have them. However it's never too late to turn them around.

... the Internet?

Barring a few replies out of common courtesy, it's now been three months since I stopped posting to my Twitter account and moved over to App.net. So what's the change of scene been like?

It's good to hang out some place else, and while I may not have the following that I had on Twitter, I'm happy to post here for the foreseeable future. App.net doesn't have the numbers that Twitter has, so at the moment I'm following most of the same people I follow on Twitter. Not many of these people are actively posting on App.net, but it's forcing me to consider following others that I might not have considered before. Not a bad thing really.

The big change though that sets App.net apart from Twitter is that there is no free account. Yip, this is a paid service that you are using and you're probably thinking that a service that doesn't have a free account would be restricting itself, but this is precisely why I like App.net. Not only does it ensure the healthy and continued development of a product paid for by its users (or customers if you prefer), it also provides a barrier that many people aren't going to cross.Twitter's free service means that anyone can sign up, and while that's all well and good for everyone, I'm not looking for a service that allows just anyone to connect with you.

The subscription fee that App.net charge ensures that there is little chance of accounts being created on the App.net network that currently pollute the Twitter network. Spam accounts, celebs and retail companies to name a few. I don't follow any of these type of accounts on Twitter, but knowing that there is little chance of these kind of accounts polluting the App.net network means that the quality of posts by it's users should remain higher and in turn be a much more interesting place to hang out.It's early days though, but I for one am enjoying my change of network.

Which is why I love working on Journalong. The small problem I had with keeping notes and thoughts in plain text that I could pick up on any of the devices I use was the problem. Next thing I know I'm running a small product on my little corner of the web.

Today, why not start something small?

• Post Captain by Patrick O'Brian - I'm continuing the series with the second book after thoroughly enjoying the first book, Master and Commander. Also I'm becoming well versed in 19th century naval terms. What more reason do you need to start reading these books!
• Heroku Hackers Guide by Randall Degges - First of two technical books this month. At only 60 pages, I've already digested this in a single sitting, but each week I'm going to review how I use Heroku for my web applications and learn how to make better use of the platform. This week it's logging.
• Sublime Productivity by Josh Earl - Second of the technical books this month. Again this book is light enough to be read in a single sitting, but I'm going to try and learn a new shortcut key every day to make it easier to work with Sublime Text 2.

It's easier than you think. Just read step one.

... give them a 2 week shelf life.

This is just an idea for a new blogging platform, but i love the idea for the simple fact that your posts are written using Markdown.

... with Caesura Letters.

Let us expose the conspiracy: success is an illusion. To be sure, the human experience is full of tantalizing tokens, symbols and rituals to represent this highly-sought status. But every diploma, certification, award, medal, pay-grade promotion and recognition is simply another construct of this brilliant mythology: ‘success’ is nothing but a humanly crafted religion that teaches us how to revere one another.

— The Myth of Success by Caesura Letters

Caesura Letters is the one bit of email I look forward to reading every day. Make it yours also.

Love the detail on the down tube and the chain stays.

via Pedal Consumption

... Raiders.

I loved this movie as a kid, but equally amazing is that my oldest son also loves this movie. It's a real testament to a movie when it can be appreciated across multiple generations.

While I would love to work with some programming languages full-time I know that it will unlikely be the case. However, being able to split my job into smaller jobs seems like a more feasible idea. My bread and butter is Dynamics NAV, but I also like working with Ruby, Go, Dart and Coffeescript.

This is where having a portfolio career would be nice.

Working a couple of days a week doing Dynamics NAV work, then a couple of days a week working with Ruby and then hopefully leaving myself the Friday to work on my own products would be a great way to balance the week out. It also means of course that I keep a broader range of skills updated rather than focusing on just the one.

What's not to like about this build? And you can't say the colour!

via FGGT