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I talk a lot about software development here on my blog and in general I guess.  What really rubs me the wrong way is how bad software development, as a discipline, actually is.  I’ve written about it before in “Why Software Sucks” and saw a huge reaction to that article.  I regularly seek out intelligent views to this problem.  I think a lot of people understand why it’s such a painful process to get right but they either don’t know how to fix it or they simply cannot given the nature of their project.  Anyway, more of that another day…
I discovered an interesting book on JoelonSoftware.com called “Dreaming in Code“.  I’ve only read the first few chapters but it’s shaping to be an interesting read.  The author has laid the foundation to discuss why software projects are so hard.  He explains why the hard part has nothing to do with the technology and so forth.  One saying I saw in this book, and have heard so many times before, is why is it we can build bridges but can’t seem to build software.  He begins to paint the picture of how much we depend on software in our daily lives and how it’s almost impossible that those solutions work as they do.

If you’re looking for something interesting to read, check it out.  I think this book will end up being one of the more interesting books on my bookshelf.

I had a BlackBerry earlier this fall that I purchased on my own from Verizon. Once I started my new job in September I gave up the BlackBerry and took the general company phone. We were able to order smartphones and such and I took the chance to get a Windows based Treo. That was the middle of September. Months rolled by and no phone came in. Meanwhile my phone didn’t get reception in the house and I generally lost calls and simply couldn’t hear what people were saying. In about early November and co-worker of mine and I decided to ask for BlackBerries instead of the Treo. So we put those orders in and continued to wait. Today, a good 4.5 months after the initial order, our new devices came in! It’s nice to have a BlackBerry again. Even better to have one without paying $90/month for it.

I picked up a few geek DVDs on Amazon earlier this week. I was happily surprised when they arrived earlier today. The package consists of Track Down, War Games, Pirates of Silicon Valley, and Hackers. I got to thinking about must have geek flicks. In addition to these new movies, my library also contains AntiTrust, Revolution OS, and Aardvark: 12 Weeks with Geeks.

What else should be included in a quality lineup of geek films?

The holidays are over, we’re all back to work, and it’s been nearly two months since I’ve posted something geeky. I think it’s safe to say we have some work to do tonight…
Some of you may recall I’ve been following two open source projects pretty closely over the last few months; Adium and Cyberduck. Although I’m very eager, it’s been difficult to get myself involved and contribute something worthwhile. The technology differences between Adium/Cyberduck and my daily tool of choice, Microsoft C#.NET, make the transition difficult. Both Adium and Cyberduck are OS X applications built on Cocoa technology. Adium is written primarily in Objective-C and Cyberduck is Java based. Considering I have no hands on knowledge of C or C++, trying to grasp Objective-C on the scale of the Adium code base is nearly impossible. Cyberduck has been easier because I have a background in Java. Still, no background in Cocoa, the fundamental piece to all native OS X applications these days.

So, how to get started? I’ve been reading the bible of OS X programming in my spare time. Unfortunately that hasn’t netted me a lot of reading time due to the many other life commitments I have. I’ve gotten about 6 chapters behind me and feel like I’m making some progress. Mostly progress with the main tools for Objective-C/Cocoa developers; Xcode and Interface Builder. While reading the book I’ve built a few small applications and have just now gotten to something more practical. The more practical example builds on itself while teaching more than just cool Xcode tips. You learn more about the tools available in this platform; things like Bindings, Notifications, and Key-Value Coding. All of which are awesome and make Cocoa programming pleasurable. At this point the book also describes briefly a fundamental concept in modern software engineering; the MVC pattern. Not only is the concept re-explained for the forgetful, it’s used in the samples, which is certainly helpful for someone not having been in that mode of design for a few years.

I think once I put a few more chapters behind me I’ll be able to make more of a contribution to the projects I’d like to be more involved in. I’ll also want to build some “throw away work” where I can practice what I’ve learned throughout the book without using the book as a step-by-step crutch. Now I guess I just need to find the time…