Agile Otter Blog

I had a friend once tell me that he didn't understand what it meant to program computers. He was not really a computer user, and was just getting ready to try email at the time. He wasn't a gamer, and frankly the whole computer thing seemed too weird to him. After all, it's a machine, right? How do you program a machine? Is it like choosing a darkness setting on the toaster? Typing data into quickbooks? What? That was many years ago, but it still sticks with me. Some people (most in fact) really don't know what I do. If I tell them, they don't know any more than before. When most people hear "programmer" they think "IT", in which case I must be the guy who fixes network outages, distributes patches, and helps people when their machine crashes (admittedly, a weak view of what IT is about). But no, I'm not that guy. I love those guys, but I'm not one of them. A cousin of mine took an introductory course on programming, probably in Visu...

I've been quite busy of late, partly with holiday season, partly with medical matters (wife's ankle surgery), partly with church, partly with Agile In A Flash, and partly with the series of articles Jeff and I are writing for PragProg. Last month's PragProg article brought some good feedback and kind words from some of you and we're thankful. We have two more "big topic" articles to go (abstraction and volatility) and then we're back to the stories behind the AgileInAFlash cards (on pre-order via online outlets and expected in January). Please keep up with us there as well as here and at Agile In A Flash . I'm looking at some new projects next year, hopefully some that pay and some that allow me to improve my chops on open source development. I don't foresee another book just yet, but some writing is definitely in the works. The only other news is that I dived into Ruby for a little while, and will be chasing that down via the three books I ...