The Petting Zoo

It's a girl!

Due on or around December 11th. Yikes.

Open source and the "user experience"

In the past, I have been rather unkind to open source projects. Some of my criticisms may not have been valid, but one thing that I feel still holds is my beef with the "user experience." I use quotes because that expression sounds an awful lot like marketing-speak, which I try to avoid, but can't think of a better term. What I mean is that it is an all too common trend in open source projects to put forth a titanic effort to code the software, but an abysmal one to make it user friendly and to document it well. Just recently, I needed to implement some form of complicated logging in an application I was tasked with. Most suggestions on the web pointed to the open source library log4net. Those recommendations did come with a word of warning though that it was a little heady to jump right into. But, since time was of the essence, I threw myself off from the high dive and into the deep-end. Those guys were right. Log4net is a very robust and extensible logging framework, and it performs well, but it took me the better part of a day and a half to figure out how have it write to Oracle and properly extend the formatters to my fit my will. The documentation is what we in the industry call "sparse." It provides some very basic examples and then just chucks the API at you and throws you to the wolves. Contrast that with something like SubVersion. SubVersion may not be the greatest Source Control Provider out there, but it has TortoiseSVN. The Tortoise UI makes managing a repository of code brain dead simple; even a non-programmer(!) could do it. Installation is easy: a typical windows installer package that requires the standard amount of clicks to get up and running. The app itself is built right into the Windows shell; just right-click and there you are! Perhaps most importantly though, the documentation¹ was up to snuff. No, more than that, it was superb! It sounded like a real human being wrote it, not a coder! I actually wanted to read the thing. Additionally I learned a thing or two about code management in general, not just pertaining to SubVersion. I'd bet that one of the reasons SubVersion is so popular is because it manages to hold the user's hand without treating him like a child. From what I can tell, git is a pretty powerful competitor to SubVersion, but until it has as nice an interface as Tortoise, it will never see as high of an adoption. I would argue that the single greatest hurdle that the open source movement still needs to overcome is the notion that their audience is not just the geeky programmers huddled up in their caves. It is a tricky line to walk though, too much hand-holding is just as big of a product killer as too little.

Forcing Creativity

I enjoy photography, and I think I've been slowly getting better at it. However, I have felt like I've just been a rut for the longest time. I do think that part of it is simply laziness brought on by the fact that I don't have much motivation to get out of the air conditioning when it's 110+ outside. So, I'm going to try to suck it up and actually go out to some of the "sites" around Phoenix. I'll probably be doing this on weekends, and if anyone would care to join me, I'd love to have you. I'll be visiting:

• Papago Park, specifically the Hole-in-the-rock. This weekend.
• Desert Botanical Gardens. This is mostly because my brother-in-law is getting married here next year and I will be doing the pictures, so I'd like to scout out the area.
• The Phoenix Zoo. I was never too fond of zoos when I was a kid, maybe I'll like them more now.
• Camelback Mountain.
• Pinnacle Peak. I have a friend who goes out rock climbing here from time to time, I'd like to catch some of that in action.
• The Superstition Mountains. There are tons of trails all around here, by the time I get around to this, it should be cool enough to get some quality hiking.
• Four Peaks.
• Downtown Phoenix and the Biltmore area, for architectural stuff.

At some point I'd like to take more extended trips up through northern Arizona, and hit various places in the Mogollon Rim, and the various canyons. Does anyone else have some good ideas for places that lend themselves well to photography? 

Night Factory

Not sure exactly what this building is. It looks like some kind of quarry elevator thing.

I've had my eye on it for a while, the lighting works quite well when it's dark out, but it was hard to find a good position to get in for the shot. It's gated pretty much all the way around. Fortunately I found a little gap between a couple of trees on a nearby street. It's a good thing God created telephoto lenses.

Night Factory
Originally uploaded by Krazy Yak.

Who's the big winner?

The World Series of Poker is finally over. I was just quickly going through winners list and saw something catch my eye:

#702 Scott Williams - $17,730

I'll expect the check in the mail any day now. It is especially nice when you don't have to get up off the couch!

Word Play

I love how "procrastinate" has the word "pro" in it; makes it sound positive.

Desert Sunset

Still no super duper monsoons, but this was sort of close. I was originally planning on driving up to the Pinnacle Peak area for a few sunset pictures, but found a little dirt road on my way that overwhelmed my curiousity. There was a bunch of garbage littered around, allowing for some cool things, but as the sun went down the clouds turned this color. Five minutes either way and it wasn't nearly as impressive. Desert SunsetOriginally uploaded by Krazy Yak.

Functional Programming

In the interest of furthering my knowledge of Ye Olde Computer Science, I've taken a slight interest in Functional Programming. For the neophyte, this is a different paradigm than what is generally standard programming, mostly relegated to boring university papers and phd students. However, it can have some benefit in the real world, and I'm a proponent of "knowing more" rather than "knowing less."

Repent Ye Sinners!

And install Christian Linux! Comes with a free pack of Testamints!

Cloudy desert

It's rather difficult to find a decent spot to get a good photograph right now. I wanted to get a shot of clouds rolling in over cactus with mountains in the distance. I didn't really want to trek too far out into the desert, since it's 100+ degrees (at night). So I drove around in the northern parts of the valley and found a neat little area just off the side of the road. Hopefully I'll be able to get a better shot of storms/monsoons. Cloudy desert Originally uploaded by Krazy Yak.