Writing helps me think.

I had an epiphany early this year: getting good at something isn’t about finding a groove or being especially clever, it’s about honing a method of doing something. Or lots of methods, meticulously crafted, carefully practiced, and well executed over and over again. That’s it. The problem is in discovering the method. It’s harder than you expect. It turns out that most things, while easier than you’d think, are much different than you’d expect. The process for making an excellent curry, for example, is nothing like what I had imagined, nor is the path to better photography, or art, or anything. Finding methods for things is in itself curious, and my methods for getting to good versions of things is always unexpected. ...

It’s not that these tools and techniques are bad in themselves, but our use of each should be fit into a well tuned approach to building software. An entire project delivery should be tidy, professional, and complete. There are a few causes to the problem of organizational buildup. Our software is limited, our methods need improvement, and the unseen pieces of our project pile up and are left a mess once we ship. categories: rants ...

So you can’t write. You’re empty, tired, and unfocused. You’ve tried exercise, meditation, caffeine, binge sleeping, and a dozen other cures–but nothing comes out. And when you do happen to squeeze out a few paragraphs, you stall, spiralling further into your uninspired daze. You are burnt out. Writer’s block and burnout are the same problem: undue mental exhaustion brought on by overuse, misuse, and other stress. It’s important to understand that you cause your own burnout, either directly through your actions, or indirectly through your lack of action. It’s your choice. ...

I’ve become passionate about design. It’s a subtle craft that says something, things that can’t normally be said with words. It suggests things. It implores us to think in a particular way. It encourages us to go here or there. It is enough of a metaphor to be easily recognized, but not so much that it becomes tacky, unless of course tacky is the thing you need. Design is the artful side of craftsmanship, the soul of a thing. ...

If you want to get better at something, do a lot of it. Throw yourself at practice and real chances to do it. When you want to become great at something, stick with it, obsess over it, and suck up all of the knowledge that surrounds it. And when you want to become truly incredible at something, you need to invert your thinking: reflect on the fundamentals, write, and do anything that lets you define what that thing is. ...

I know a few generations of developers. I find they tend toward different ways of thinking about software design, based on the languages and decomposition tools that were available at the time they formed their thinking. Their tendencies shift over time too, but often their imaginations are limited by whichever mode of thought they’re working in at the time. By design I mean the approach to solving a problem with software, including software architecture and low level design (not product, visual, or UX design). These are another universe around how we think about solving people’s problems with software, a topic for another set of posts. ...

Merlin Mann asks us why we’re waiting to be awesome, as he remembers Steve Job’s 2005 Stanford address. It’s a good question: why do we wait? There are all sorts of reasons, of course, but in the end my simple philosophy is: just fucking do it. Sometimes I have to say it to myself out loud, in the voice of the Dude, when things like absurd politics or chunky technical problems get in my way. “Just do it, man.” I need to be reminded to carry on. ...

2010 has come and gone. I’ve shipped a few projects, each a number of times. I’ve registered dozens of domain names and dropped a few of the older ones. I’ve started (but not finished) a dozen spare time projects. I’ve had hundreds of new ideas, and a few of them were even interesting. I’ve learned a lot, but not enough (it’s never enough). I’ve expanded my horizons and gotten stuck in ruts. I’ve gained weight and I’ve lost weight. ...

When you describe a design to a group of people, each person imagines something different. Depending on your story and the individuals, understanding may vary wildly. And if it differs enough, the result is chaotic–unpredictable and often negative. You need to fit how you show your ideas to different groups of people carefully, and notice when you your story isn’t hitting. For your closest team members you can wave your hands and scrawl ideas on a chalkboard. For people you work less frequently, you need more detail: proper drawings and clean wireframes. For non-technical clients you need even more, polished, functional prototypes and pretty drawings. ...

Boost’s Filesystem library is an incredible resource: it abstracts paths, directories, and stat results. It simplifies coding shell problems in C++, it’s portable, and is maintained by a large community of contributors. The one downside of Boost is that some of its newer libraries are poorly documented. ((Something I want to contribute to.)) Until I have time to get involved in the Boost project, I’m going to post examples here. Traversing a directory tree ...