exotribe

Quite a while ago, I discovered the joys and productivity of using multiple monitors. On my current system, I have two identical Samsung 19" LCD monitors connected to an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro. Unfortunately, the video card only has a single DVI connector so my second monitor is hooked up through the analog SVGA port.

When I first hooked it up, I couldn't get over how bad the monitor looked when it was hooked to the analog port. I knew it would be worse, but it looked defective, or as if the resolution was not set to the native LCD resolution. Also, I love ClearType, but on the monitor connected via SVGA it looked horrible no matter how much I used the ClearType tuner.

This is what I learned...

I hate buggy software. However, as a developer, I know how difficult it is to write bug-free software and so I am always looking for new ways to learn how to write better software. One of those ways is exception based programming. Sadly, exceptions are often glossed over in samples and books so exception anti-patterns tend to propagate.

Take a look at the following code...

A few years ago, I got a Mac. It started when I read about Apple jettisoning their entire operating system core and starting over with the UNIX-based NeXT operating system. Every day after work, I stopped by CompUSA and just explored all the OS X systems there. This all happened in late 2002 and, at the time, there was just nothing that looked anything like OS X... it was just incredibly gorgeous. When Apple announced Jaguar, I decided to jump on the train and buy an iBook. It was relatively inexpensive, and a good way to step into the world of OS X.

My development experience has primarily been in commercial software. As such, I am quick to recognize that some aspects of agile methodologies aren't always practical for commercial software development, nor were they designed with commercial developers in mind. For example, sitting with the customer you have not yet won is not really practical (or even possible, unless you happen to know the Doctor). and the ability to freely modify and refactor published interfaces is greatly reduced without significant customer impact.

I first came across the phrase "Cargo Cult" in the book Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! by Richard Feynman. In the book, Feynman warned researchers against fooling themselves and thus becoming cargo cult researchers. The term is from a 1974 commencement address given by Feynman where he talks about learning not to fool yourself, because you are the easiest person to fool.

What is a cargo cult?