Recent Posts What's new in the land of Vanyanan?
Agile Fundamentalism
Before the word “fundamentalism” became derogatory, it referring to a movement in American Protestantism that insisted upon a return to 5-10 ‘fundamental’ doctrines of Christianity (the number varies as the movement evolved). The idea was that there were a small number of relatively simple to understand and essential doctrines to Christianity and if you found yourself building an elaborate theological or philosophical scheme that reached contrary conclusions, then this was a sign that you had gone wrong some where. You needed to return to the fundamentals and start over. Hence the name “fundamentalist.” Emphasizing the role of fundamentals as an error checking mechanism. The way this became derogatory was that one of those fundamentals was the total inerrancy of all parts of the Bible, and this quickly came to mean that any natural science that concluded the Earth was substantially more than a 5-10 thousand years old had to be wrong. I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately in the context of Agile processes in development. … (Read More)
The Political Philosophy of Dungeons And Dragons
What is the first rule of being a Dungeon Master who wants to enjoy a long campaign of Dungeons and Dragons with his friends? Maybe, “know the rules.” Maybe, “it’s about the players, not about you.” Not bad candidates. But there is another: Do not allow evil characters. Do not allow one evil character. Do not allow an entire party of evil characters. Why does every DM know this rule? … (Read More)
Luke 4:1
They stood alone in the deserts of West Texas, some of the cheapest, least useful, barren land in the continental United States not used for atomic testing. “We’ve expanded into China. We had to jump through some legal hoops. Technically, ‘we’ are a subsidiary that we own in joint partnership with someone’s nephew’s wife’s uncle. But, they won’t block our IPs anymore.” … (Read More)
I am now 41
I am now 41. This somehow feels more significant than the 40-year threshold. I know enough to avoid the fallacy of round numbers. … (Read More)
Christmas Spring
It is Christmas Eve, and it’s not even noon. I’m sitting outside without a jacket, wearing a t-shirt. Welcome to Texas! We have a dozen little springs scattered throughout the winter. We associate Christmas with snow, but isn’t spring weather a better symbol of Christmas? We were in the winter of our sins, but here today a baby is born, ‘tis Christ the Lord. And here, in mid-winter, is a little burst of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit descends, we take off all our armor against cold and sin and death, and we have coffee on the front porch. … (Read More)
The Spelling Bee
I live at the corner of Gibson and Parrish. “Parrish,” with an extra R that makes me wonder if there is some word I don’t know or if I really live next to an elementary school and at the corner of a misspelling. I’d call it a typo, but it’s not a slip of the finger. Or, if it is, it’s a slip of some secretary’s finger, recorded in the city records and in my street name forever. … (Read More)
Secular Christmas
Christmas is almost here. Decorating the tree is a study in human nature. I never want to go through the trouble. But, then I begin and it proceeds happily, and it is done. We turn on the tree lights, we turn off the house lights, and then there is peace. … (Read More)
A Thanksgiving Post
I began to write this in my notebook with the line “When I was young, every variation from linear progressive time was a nuisance.” And as soon as I wrote it, I realized it wasn’t true. To be young is to live an entire life in the grooves of cyclic time. Life is summers at Benbrook Lake, Thanksgiving, Christmas. The annual trip up to Dalhart which smells of horses. Cartoons on Saturday morning. The funny pages on Sunday afternoon. The favorite TV show Friday at 4. … (Read More)
Interviewing Programmers
We have discovered why it is actually so difficult to interview programmers. We want to know if they’ve acquired the thousand and one little lessons that add up to being good at this. And those lessons mostly consist of a sense for a good design versus a bad one, identifying the correct abstraction and the right data structure, and knowing when they have chosen poorly and how to fix it. … (Read More)
A Programming Allegory
Once, in the long, long ago, the prophet descended from the mountain. We called him Alan Kay, praise be upon his name. He told us the gospel of objects and the priests heard him, and the priests told the people, who had been suffering greatly. … (Read More)