Stephen’s Blog

Amber has asked me nicely twice to fix some issues with the comment verification image. I thought I better not make it three or I might get into trouble.

The chief issue, I hope, is the readability of the font. So I swapped out the existing font with what I think is a more readable font. There may be another problem with the script, but I won’t know for sure until I see how the new font works. If anyone still has problems leaving comments let me know via email: Stephen @ this domain.

I am currently reading Micro-ISV: From Vision to Reality by Bob Walsh. So far, so good. I haven’t been blown away by anything yet. At the same time I haven’t been disappointed.  In my former job, I was in the same building as the Oklahoma Small Business Development Center and a lot of the advice and resources that Bob include in his book sound familiar. This of course makes sense as starting any type of business requires the founder(s) to consider some standard questions that have to be answered.  One feature of the book that I am split on is the frequent interviews. There are a some useful nuggets of information in some of them, but others just feel like a marketing spiel. I may or may not write a full review when I am finished.

I recently finished the 2nd edition of Steve McConnell’s Code Complete. I have to say that I enjoyed reading it and that I am going to have to re-read it to help reinforce some of the lessons contained within the book. I wish that it would have been required reading while I was a Computer Science undergrad at SWOSU.

Software Craftsmanship, is one of the metaphors that McConnell uses to describe the programming profession. In fact, the last five chapters of CC2E make up a section titled Software Craftsmanship. I have to confess that I really like this metaphor and this section was one of my favorite parts of the book. Other parts were on the dry side at times, but McConnell does a pretty good job of mixing in humor to help you make it through the 960 pages.

If you are a programmer you should find most of the content either enlighting or a reinforcement of lessons learned. All in all, a must read for the budding or even experienced software craftsman.

I have a confession to make. I have been a user of open source softare for about four years now and I have never submitted a bug or otherwise made a contribution. I took a baby step this evening and submitted a bug for wordpress, the blogging software used on amberandstephen.com.

It wasn’t earth-shattering. Just something that could annoy users. Back to my point.

Looking through the code it is amazing to see the amount of time and effort that goes into to software development. Everyone who uses open source software should at the very least say thank you to the developers and contributers. And if the opportunity presents itself find a way to contribute.

Of course this goes beyond just open source. I think we need a “Hug a Software Developer” day to go along with all the other days that seem to be taking over calendars. I want my hugs like everyone else.