Latest Shiny Object

Oh Erica…

Here’s the lastest shiny object to consume all of my time.

Think planner mixed with post-its, online.

Too many dependencies

At work I’m integrating a library from our new corporate overlords into an existing application. I use 5 (count ‘em, 5) functions from the library. In order to work, the library, which I’ll call libsink, requires between 10-20 other libraries, most of which appear to have nothing to do with the purpose of libsink I am using. This, to use a technical term, smells bad.

I probably wouldn’t care so much if I hadn’t discovered a symbol collision between the libraries on which our application is newly dependent and another library (libgoo) we use. Two different functions, two different libraries, with different semantics, but the same signature — meaning libsink will happily try to use the function from libgoo. Unfortunately, this results in a core dump when the application unloads.

So, if you’re writing libraries (especially in C, where there is only a global namespace):

• Please keep your dependencies to a minimum; why should I need code to perform higher order calculus in order to print something to the screen?
• If you’re going to write utility functions that may have names other libraries may use (like, say print() or open()), prefix the function with a string to uniquely identify it and prevent users from accidentally using the wrong function.

Books read: 2006

I plan to keep a running tab of books I’ve read in 2006 here. Why? Some sick vanity, probably.

Started, but did not complete: Mother of Storms, John Barnes

Read to date, in (roughly) reverse chronologicial order:

1. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, David Sedaris
2. A Pirate of Exquisite Mind: Explorer, Naturalist, and Buccaneer: The Life of William Dampier”, Diana Preston
3. The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion
4. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, Mark Haddon
5. On Bullshit, Harry G. Frankfurt
6. Armaggedon’s Children, Terry Brooks
7. Animals in Translation, Temple Grandin
8. Silverlock, John Myers Myers
9. The March, E. L. Doctorow
10. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
11. Prince Caspian by C. S. Lewis
12. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
13. No god but God by Reza Aslan
14. Consider the Lobster: And Other Essays by David Foster Wallace
15. His Excellency by Joseph J. Ellis
16. Freakonomics by Steven J. Levitt and Stephen J. Drubner
17. Alton Brown’s Gear for Your Kitchen by Alton Brown
18. Driven to Distraction by Edward M. Hallowell, M.D. and John J. Ratey, M.D.
19. Good to Great by Jim Collins
20. The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century by Thomas L. Friedman
21. Gods of Tin: The Flying Years by James Salter
22. Born to Kvetch: Yiddish Language and Culture in All Its Moods by Michael Wex
23. The Art of Project Management by Scott Berkun