PolarLava::Blog

The Mythical Man-Month

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 06:35:41 +0100

Before going on my biography binge, the last technical book I read was The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition (2nd Edition).  This is a must read for anyone who works in software engineering and/or management.  I've worked in this field for nearly two decades, but sadly hadn't read this "must read".  Discussing this one day with my Lead Engineer, Anthony, he was dumfounded that I hadn't read it.  A couple of days later he showed up in my office with his copy. (Thank You Anthony!)  I was reading something else at the time so this sat for a while at home before I finally got around to it.

Those who don't work in the industry might not be familiar The Mythical Man-Month by name.  But I'm guessing that if you've worked for very long you've witnessed it in some form.  So what is?  The basic idea is that "adding manpower to a late software project makes it later". This idea is known as Brooks's law.  For a real and complete explanation go read The Mythical Man-Month Wikipedia page, you're not going to get one here.

So I did find this an interesting and indepth read even though I was already familiar with the concept of Brook's Law.  This is a book that was originally published in 1975, reprinted with corrections in 1982 and then this anniversary edition coming in 1995, and me not reading it until 2009.  And the basis of the book was the development of the IBM OS/360 operating system software project in the mid to late 1960's.  So scoring this at home, that's 35 years between when it was originally written and my reading it…for a project that was 10 years prior to it.  So we're talking about events from 45 years ago (just shy of my lifetime!) and the truly astounding part?  Although there has been many technological advances in computing systems and software since then, the basis premise still holds true!  And if you don't work in computers or can relate to this is your profession, trust me, it's true.  I live this on a daily basis.

Child Custody, Darwin Style

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 05:33:51 +0100

Meet Dwayne Lamont Moten. Unfortunately you can't because he has a previous engagement with Charles Darwin. You see, Mr. Moten decided that Mr. Darwin should mediate his child custody dispute.

So as you can see, the child custody issue has been resolved. Unfortunately for his rocket scientist friend, Jacob Wheeler he's got himself a new problem, a murder rap. And I say "new problem" because this makes that "unrelated aggravated robbery charge" seem reasonable.

One Word: beach

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 21:00:25 +0100

Today's One Word was "beach"…

I long to be on a beach. To feel the warmth of the sun, the sand on my feet and the wind on my face. Salt air filling my lungs. [Ref]

New Topic: Books

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 20:58:11 +0100

About a year or so back I actually started reading regularly. It's been something I've been wanting to do more and more as time goes by. I never used to be a big reader and when I did I generally read a lot very dry technical reading. But now I've been reading what I call "real books". I've really gotten into reading biographies so that's overwhelmingly what I've been reading. Anyhow, I thought I'd start a new blog topic to catalog what I've been reading. Don't expect much more than a capsule summary of the book, I'm not doing this to wax poetically in-depth about the books I'm reading. Just getting around to creating this topic has taken way longer than it should have!

Hitching The Wrong Horse

Sun, 13 Jun 2010 21:44:36 +0100

So back in November I announced EOL: PolarBlog and my plans to migrate my blog to Chyrp.  I don't have a lot of time available for playing around online these days, thus why it's been over 6-months and I still haven't moved.  I had made progress, contributed a few module fixes back to the project and only had a minor data transfer issue to resolve.  We're on the homestretch.

Well, that was until a few weeks back when I found that Chyrp is dead.  It's going away for similar reasons to Polarblog.  Not enough time and nobody else dedicated to enough to take up the project.  Thus I now find that I hitched my horse to the wrong wagon.  I'm less than thrilled by this, but I get it.  I chose the long shot for a reason and unfortunately instead of winning, it's headed to the glue factory!

So needless to say, I'm back to exploring my options.  I'm considering Wordpress after all, Drupal, Text Pattern and likely some others.  Thus I'm probably going to keep blogging on my platform for the foreseeable future as I need to make a new choice and then figure out the migration automation.  Live and learn I guess.

Dogfish Head Festina Pêche

Sat, 22 May 2010 07:01:16 +0100

Great Divide Wild Raspberry Ale

Fri, 21 May 2010 04:57:49 +0100

Gritty McDuff's Pub Ale

Wed, 19 May 2010 20:27:57 +0100

Southern Tier 422 Pale Wheat Ale

Tue, 18 May 2010 20:50:52 +0100

Isn't that always the case?

Thu, 13 May 2010 20:59:26 +0100

My wife and I bought a bird book —A Field Guide to the Birds of Eastern and Central North America a couple of years ago.  My girls also liked to look at it and occasionally would wander off with it.  Thus when it disappeared last Fall I presumed they had "put it somewhere" which had turned into "never to be found".  One plausible explanation was that it wound up mixed with the recycling and went out with that months ago.  We've talked of replacing it to which Mary Lou always replies "You know as soon as we buy one, we'll find the old one."

Knowing she's missed having it, particularly in the Winter, I decided to buy her (OK, us) a new one for Mother's Day.  Being slow to get around to ordering it, and being unwilling to spend $10 to have it shipped before last weekend —which she agrees with for the record, it came yesterday.

Being the creative guy I am, I not only bought the replacement book, but I also bought The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America.  So now we have two very good bird books.

I got a delivery notice from TrackThis so I called to see if she had gotten the mail.  She had, but didn't see the box which was on the front porch.  After retrieving and opening it she was very happy and added "You know, now we'll find the old one you know."  Yeah, yeah, whatever.

My phone rings an hour later.  It's my wife.  She's laughing hysterically.  She finally calms down enough to tell me —you guessed it, she found the original book!  It was in a magazine bin not more than 2 feet from where the book was previously located.  My response was simply "Good, now you've got two."  She's OK with that as she said we can just put the old one in the car.

And just to rub some more salt into the wound for me, while looking for the book links above I find there is also a newer Peterson Field Guide to Birds of Eastern and Central North America, Sixth Edition available.  I just can't win.