Where I have been

I haven't written an entry on this blog for about a month and a half. I stopped posting because I was unsatisfied with the quality of my entries. In a word, they sucked.

I realized this after listening to 149 Surprising Ways to Turbocharge Your Blog With Credibility!, Merlin Mann's and John Gruber's talk at the SxSW Interactive conference. Their advice to aspiring writers is simple: write well about topics which interest you.

Before now, I was putting frequency before quality, partially due to a foolish commitment to write one blog post a week during this year. I was writing pointless updates because I didn't have the time to create anything meaningful. Now I know that was a mistake. I am not a blogger; I'm a college student who enjoys writing.

Of course, this isn't the end of Welcome to Obscurity; it's the end of the shallow updates that have composed most of this blog's content for the last year. I will be writing infrequent, in-depth, polished entries about things about which I care.

Other news

Although I haven't been updating this blog lately, I have been blogging elsewhere. I started Life at the U to share my college experience with my family. It's been a huge hit within my social circle, so I've been updating frequently, sometimes multiple times per day.

New look, same direction

Well, I've finally ditched my custom template for a generic Blogger template. The reason? I wanted to use Blogger's native share toolbar, and my template didn't support it. I simply don't have the time to wade into the HTML and add the feature, so it's time to bid farewell to originality and let Blogger handle my layout. That is, until I find the time to switch to Tumblr.

In addition, I've disabled comments. This blog isn't meant to be a noisy discussion by a large group; it's a platform for me to talk about what I find interesting: myself, my projects, and other things. If you'd like to respond to one of my posts, feel free to by posting an entry on your blog or sending me an email at [redacted]. I'd love to hear from you!

Playing with SVG and Javascript

As a fan of ActionScript 3, Flash's vector-drawing scripting language, I've always been interested in the SVG standard. However, now that it's actually available to most of the web-browsing population, I have an excuse to learn more about it. I had stopped programming in AS3 because of the closed nature of the platform, its instability on Linux, and my inability to develop AS3 on Linux. However, I can now play with vector-drawing once again, thanks to the widespread adoption of SVG.

Anyway, this post is just a heads-up: I'm fiddling with SVG-scripting with Javascript, and I plan to write a tutorial about it soon. Thus far, I haven't found a basic tutorial on integrating HTML, SVG, and Javasript, and I hope my tutorial will remedy this perceived shortage. Of course, the tutorial is really just an excuse to play with Javascript and SVG, but I will continue to delude myself with words of altruism and selflessness. Helping people, that's what I'm doing...

Programming is more than pointers and recursion

I apologize for last week's dry and boring post. This isn't a news blog, and it won't become one. I chose that topic because I was desperate to write about something relevant to programmers and the tech community, not because I wanted to write about it. Now I will only write about topics that interest me, topics that I can offer a unique perspective on. I won't become a me-too blogger.

...and now, for the reason you're reading this.

Today, I read a 2005 post from the venerable software-development blog Joel on Software about the problems with colleges teaching Computer Science through Java. I recommend you read the article before this post, but, to summarize, Spolsky says that because Java doesn't emphasize pointers and recursion, it isn't a suitable language through which to teach Computer Science. Here's why he's wrong.

Programming is more than just solving puzzles

First and foremost, I disagree with his view on the purpose of a CS program. He thinks that the goal of a college's CS program should be to weed out the students who aren't smart enough to succeed as programmers. Furthermore, he recommends that pointers and recursion should be taught as soon as possible to scare off the posers. That's poppycock.

The goal of a CS program should be to teach students how to develop high-quality software. Far too many programmers have no idea how to write readable code, much less create a large, functional system with lots of moving parts. Programming is intrinsically difficult, but teaching students only the most arcane and complex parts of the programming discipline scares away many potentially great programmers.

According to Steve McConnell, author of Code Complete, the best programmers are not necessarily the most intelligent, but the most humble. Someone who understands his mental limitations will use every technique available to simplify his code, reducing its complexity and thereby increasing its quality. Complexity is probably the number-one enemy of software quality.

Pointers and recursion aren't intrinsic to programming

All the CS theory and most of the content on pointers and recursion will never be used by the average CS graduate. Spolsky even says so:

Now, I freely admit that programming with pointers is not needed in 90% of the code written today, and in fact, it's downright dangerous in production code. OK. That's fine. And functional programming is just not used much in practice. Agreed.

He then says that these concepts teach students the mental flexibility to view a problem at several levels of abstraction simultaneously. I think this type of "mental flexibility" might account for some of the bad code recent CS graduates write. A graduate's "mental flexibility" could tempt him to demonstrate his new CS skills by writing overly complex code that functions on multiple levels of abstraction. As I said above, intelligence doesn't correlate strongly with a programming success, but ego certainly correlates with failure.

Please don't misunderstand my point. I believe that some of the most difficult areas of programming are the most important (and interesting.) I look forward to learning about recursion and its power. I plan on taking plenty of CS theory classes, learning about even the most esoteric aspects of computer programming. However, I don't think every student would benefit from this type of information. Because these topics aren't necessary to write great applications, I don't think they should be necessary to graduate from a CS program.

This post may, in fact, be completely off-base and unsupported by the facts. However, I've decided to make this blog more personal by sharing more of my opinions and writing about things I care about. I have been worried about writing content that's relevant to my intended audience, but right now, I simply don't spend enough time writing code and playing with my computer to generate a suitable flow of relevant posts. I'm reclaiming this blog as a tool against my personal battle with obscurity.

Edit: I was sorely mistaken. This post is the misguided rant of a readability zealot. See my current position here.

Idea Library: Spread Linux by revitalizing slow computers

I create lots of ideas. I'll think up a plan to accomplish a goal or start a business, ponder it for a couple of days, think of a problem with the idea, and move on to the next idea. However, I occasionally develop an idea that stands up to my scrutiny.

Until now, I've summarized these ideas in a Remember the Milk to-do list, planning to implement them myself "after this assignment" or "once I finish this project". However, I've now realized I simply don't have time to work on all of them, so I'm sharing them with you.

I'll publish the ideas here with the tag "idea library" so that you can easily find them. My idea posts won't have the same quality as the rest of my posts, and it's possible that my ideas will be full of glaring oversights or obvious flaws. Nonetheless, I think that some of my ideas have real potential, even if I don't have the time or resources to implement them.

That's why I chose the tag "idea library": I wanted to give other people the chance to use my ideas. If you'd like to implement one, please contact me at [redacted] so that we can discuss terms. Because I won't publish ideas I can execute myself, I will probably give you any published idea you ask for. I'm publishing these ideas not to entertain you but to give you a chance to use them.

My first idea addresses a problem for the open source community: Windows has a stranglehold on the OS market. Far too many people have no idea that they can leave Windows without buying a new computer, and most of the people who are aware of Linux don't have the skill or incentive to install it.

I propose that the Linux community should offer to speed up people's slow, obsolete, or damaged Windows computers by installing Ubuntu (or another desktop-focused Linux distro). People will agree to risk their computers if the computers aren't usable.

A flyer on a bulletin board could promise to redeem old computers by dramatically reducing start-up and loading times, allowing quick web browsing and email access, and eliminating malware of all types. The customer could pay $20 for installation plus $10 for the recovery CD and $40 for data preservation (through dual-booting). Many people would gladly pay $20 to give their old computer another chance at usefulness.

I would charge that little because I need the Linux experience and I'd like to encourage the adoption of Linux.I would also write a quick tutorial to show the new users how to use the essential functions. Ideally, I would convince a computer repair shop to refer customers with hopelessly obsolete computers to me. I don't think this could be a money-making project, but I would enjoy the experience.

Obviously, you don't have to contact me to use this idea, but I would still appreciate a comment if you decide to try it.

Under construction. Watch for falling debris.

I have been dissatisfied with my blog's layout for a long time, but I've never taken the time to work on it, until now. I present the new grid-based three-column blogger layout "Whitespace is good"! This is an alpha version, so there are plenty of problems to be solved and features to be implemented. I intend on allowing people to modify the text color and formatting through Blogger's layout feature, but I'm not quite there yet.

I'm going to release this template under the Apache 2.0 open source license, but I'm not satisfied with it yet. I still have to test all the major widgets on it, fix a couple of minor layout glitches, and actually allow users to modify the colors and font formatting.

If you don't use IE and you find layout problems with this style, tell me and I might be able to fix them. If you do use IE, this isn't the blog for you.

I'm back!

Well, so much for that plan. I completely fell off the wagon and abandoned my blog a couple days after I promised more content. However, the good news is that nobody reads my blog anyway, so I didn't disappoint anybody.

Now, for another empty promise nobody will ever read: from now on, I will try to remember to write a post on my blog every other day and write two tweets a day. You can find my Twitter feed here, just in case you're a spam bot looking for a random Twitter feed to follow.

New Plan

I apologize to anybody who has attempted to follow this blog. I have been very indifferent toward blog writing for the last couple of weeks, so there hasn't been any new content for quite some time.

However, I have now set myself some arbitrary goals for blog writing and twittering. I will try to remember to write at least one blog post every other day and two tweets per day. I want to rely on more than just the Kirupa forum to establish my reputation.

And now, the excuse. Unfortunately, I'm about to travel to Louisiana to visit my family over Christmas, so I'll be unlikely to hit my goal over for about two weeks. I'll still try, but I can't make any promises.

Tomorrow, I'll be writing about my XML-backed AS3 game engine. You may or may not want to miss it, depending on whether you're interested in that sort of thing. It's your choice.

Welcome to Obscurity!

Hello, and welcome to my blog. This blog will have no discernable theme, other than things that interest me. It will delve into my opinions and ideas about science, technology, programming, web design, and the internet as a whole. I do not expect success, so if you actually enjoy this blog and wish it to continue, you'll have to post something, or I'll probably give up eventually. Welcome to obscurity!