I've been wondering recently about how my choice of occupation affects me beyond issues of finance and time. I am a computer geek by day - a software engineer. I spend most of my time in front of a computer programming, and testing my code. I've worked for three different companies now and the work has been varied to a degree and the responseabilities have been different.
Where I an now I (currently) have the least amount of managing other people and via reflects on the amount of interaction with my colleagues. However in general I work on projects by myself and apart from the occasional question and planning meeting there isn't a lot of conversation happening. Some of that is the people I work with (my previous job had a lot more chatter) but my wife has commented in the past how deathly quite it is (particularly compared to an English teacher's office).
That sort of quiet occasional social interaction is also my preference. I prefer a quiet night in with my wife and the computer rather than going out a being sociable with people I only know a little. I know I'm an intravert and so I don't get recharged by social activity. But would I be different if I was in a job that was much more based around people interaction?
The example I was thinking of when having there thoughts was being a doctor. When the time for choosing university courses came up a couple of people told me that I'd make a good doctor. They were basing that off my friendly personable nature however I have a bit of an aversion to blood - I won't watch those real medical shows. Would having a job that involved interacting with other mean I'd be needing more social interaction?
I certainly can't turn back the clock now (7 plus years of more study is not going to happen) so all I can really do is speculate. It is probably another chicken and egg problem my personality could have affected my carrieer choice or my job could have influenced my personality. As with all thing related to human behaviour it really can't be broken down into a binary equation and in all likelyhood it is probably more affected by my family and friends than anything else!
I really can't answer I'm just throwing this out to the ether.
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
Thursday, July 19, 2007
New home for technical stuff
A friend of mine has started up his own blog hosting site - so I've decided to split my blogging. Technical stuff will now be over there, in the second drawer. Here will be the random thoughts that come out of the third drawer.
So go visit The Second Drawer for reading my technical stuff... and while you are there you can help my friend out by clicking on some of the google ads!
So go visit The Second Drawer for reading my technical stuff... and while you are there you can help my friend out by clicking on some of the google ads!
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Who's guess?
I'm currently watching The Great Global Warming Swindle on the ABC. It all appears like they are just making guesses... probably in both directions. Such historical science involves so many estimates, so many guesses.
I saw it when I was working for CSIRO - my boss was a modeler, constantly analysing the historical data and feeding in parameters to try and predict crop yields so that a good model could be determined to help establish the relationship between those parameters and the outcome. From that practical steps could be performed. Published in a journal there will be a reference to me because I wrote some simulation software as work experience before I began there. I think it is good work.
BUT the software that my boss used (not the software I wrote) had hundreds, if not thousands, of parameters. You take such a complex system as our world and in particular weather systems and it is hard to make predictable models that really show what is the cause and the relationship between these parameters.
So does this mean we can sit back on our hands? No. I think like everything else it needs to be done with consideration and moderation though. There is always someone that is looking to capitalise from any opportunity, and many already are (for better or for ill). Living greener is always a benefit, however I do see the one point that was made about the developing nations being disadvantaged. Certainly there is a need here that needs to be addressed. They hold one advantage however - they can make the jump of the last 30 years of development, where we have learnt the hard way, and use the modern technologies. The cost is still prohibitive, but if it is determined that this is the way forward then subsidising the alternative power sources is a requirement.
It is interesting that the discussion of alternative energy sources has almost died out. Have we forgotten that we are using non-renewable energy now? That in itself is good reason to develop and promote the development of alternative, renewable energy sources.
I think it was an interesting show, and interesting discussion (if it could be called discussion, there was very little listening going on, and a hell of a lot of stating opinion) . It seems like there is a lot of misleading "evidence" on both sides of the fence (I remember reading some comments on Gore's doco - which I should watch at some point). I certainly site to the left side of the argument still, but as one of the commentators said, it is our position to remain skeptical.
I saw it when I was working for CSIRO - my boss was a modeler, constantly analysing the historical data and feeding in parameters to try and predict crop yields so that a good model could be determined to help establish the relationship between those parameters and the outcome. From that practical steps could be performed. Published in a journal there will be a reference to me because I wrote some simulation software as work experience before I began there. I think it is good work.
BUT the software that my boss used (not the software I wrote) had hundreds, if not thousands, of parameters. You take such a complex system as our world and in particular weather systems and it is hard to make predictable models that really show what is the cause and the relationship between these parameters.
So does this mean we can sit back on our hands? No. I think like everything else it needs to be done with consideration and moderation though. There is always someone that is looking to capitalise from any opportunity, and many already are (for better or for ill). Living greener is always a benefit, however I do see the one point that was made about the developing nations being disadvantaged. Certainly there is a need here that needs to be addressed. They hold one advantage however - they can make the jump of the last 30 years of development, where we have learnt the hard way, and use the modern technologies. The cost is still prohibitive, but if it is determined that this is the way forward then subsidising the alternative power sources is a requirement.
It is interesting that the discussion of alternative energy sources has almost died out. Have we forgotten that we are using non-renewable energy now? That in itself is good reason to develop and promote the development of alternative, renewable energy sources.
I think it was an interesting show, and interesting discussion (if it could be called discussion, there was very little listening going on, and a hell of a lot of stating opinion) . It seems like there is a lot of misleading "evidence" on both sides of the fence (I remember reading some comments on Gore's doco - which I should watch at some point). I certainly site to the left side of the argument still, but as one of the commentators said, it is our position to remain skeptical.
Thursday, July 05, 2007
The right question.
Warning: Technical content included.
The Internet has a whole crap load of information on it... and wading through it can be a difficult task, and is a skill that has to be acquired. Google has made it easier, and for that I respect them.
But it all comes down to asking the right question.
The issue I've been struggling with recently is to do with pure virtual destructors in C++. In my previous job I worked almost exclusively with Java and so my C++ knowledge comes only from uni days... which was pre STL to give a time frame for it. For the last year and a bit I've been working with a mixed C++ and PHP environment... with some legacy Borland Kylix thrown in to give me white hair. Recently I've been trying to work through the design and reimplementation of our backend which I've been trying to do using the best of OO. This means lots of C++ classes and good inheritance models... and trying to understand some of the basics of inheritance coming from a Java background. This means I refer to things as interfaces etc. The main thing with this, I've not really understood is how and when to use virtual destructors. From my understanding if you wanted the equivalent to a Java interface you would declare the class with a pure virtual destructor (
So given my ignorance I finally worked out the question to ask - when to use a pure virtual destructor. A quick google came up with this link: http://www.gotw.ca/gotw/031.htm which filled in the missing detail:
If the class should be abstract (you want to prevent instantiating it) but it doesn't happen to have any other pure virtual functions, a common technique to make the destructor pure virtual ...
Of course, any derived class' destructor must call the base class' destructor, and so the destructor must still be defined (even if it's empty):
So in summary the points I learnt as a Java person moving into C++ land:
The Internet has a whole crap load of information on it... and wading through it can be a difficult task, and is a skill that has to be acquired. Google has made it easier, and for that I respect them.
But it all comes down to asking the right question.
The issue I've been struggling with recently is to do with pure virtual destructors in C++. In my previous job I worked almost exclusively with Java and so my C++ knowledge comes only from uni days... which was pre STL to give a time frame for it. For the last year and a bit I've been working with a mixed C++ and PHP environment... with some legacy Borland Kylix thrown in to give me white hair. Recently I've been trying to work through the design and reimplementation of our backend which I've been trying to do using the best of OO. This means lots of C++ classes and good inheritance models... and trying to understand some of the basics of inheritance coming from a Java background. This means I refer to things as interfaces etc. The main thing with this, I've not really understood is how and when to use virtual destructors. From my understanding if you wanted the equivalent to a Java interface you would declare the class with a pure virtual destructor (
virtual ~MyClass() = 0). If I forgot to make the virtual destructor the GNU compiler with -Wall would politely remind me that I hadn't specified a virtual destructor when I had virtual methods. Which I would then do by making the the destructor a pure virtual... which would then give me errors at run time saying that it tried to execute a pure virtual destructor. Also I've been implementing plugin systems (using dlopen) and these would not work with pure virtual destructors. Its all confusing.So given my ignorance I finally worked out the question to ask - when to use a pure virtual destructor. A quick google came up with this link: http://www.gotw.ca/gotw/031.htm which filled in the missing detail:
If the class should be abstract (you want to prevent instantiating it) but it doesn't happen to have any other pure virtual functions, a common technique to make the destructor pure virtual ...
Of course, any derived class' destructor must call the base class' destructor, and so the destructor must still be defined (even if it's empty):
So in summary the points I learnt as a Java person moving into C++ land:
- There is no such things as an Interface in C++ - everything is an abstract class - and that is ok because C++ allows for multiple inheritance
- The closest thing to an Interface is a class with only pure virtuals - but you still must have implementation for the destructor!!
I love Objects
Warning: Technical content included.
I've been paid to be a software developer for almost 7 years now and the truth of the matter is that all through that time I've been following the OO design principles, knowing the benefits and only occasionally making use of some of the large advantages. But two nights ago (I've been meaning to post since then) it came to my rescue.
A bit of background - I've been developing a website for a friends printing business in my spare time (www.rooprint.com.au). I threw myself into it going through a proper design and have spent some good hours setting up a good framework for the website with PHP as the backend because of the options with his web hosting company. I normally avoid anything HTML related, because cross browser development is down-right evil... but having been playing around with it at work I got excited by the prospects of AJAX for a second or two (the site currently only partially works in any other browser than firefox - I'll probably post more about this later).
Anyway I had the site up to a stage where I needed to put it on the net for me to show my friend, and also to allow me to test all those evil browsers that don't work. So after battling through a local install of PEAR and then HTML_AJAX within the local user area I came to try and view my lovely creation and learnt the hard way that the hosting company only really has PHP support on the server so they can run PHPMyAdmin. What does this mean? That the MySQL PDO driver wasn't installed, and "couldn't" be installed.
Thankfully I had followed good OO design principles and written a wrapper class for all database queries. With a little bit of work and a lot of learning about the mysqli PHP extension I rewrote the class with use mysqli and whacked it in and all works peachy - no changes to the actually code running around it. Well I did make one change - I decided not to implement the equivalent wrapped call to
Woot OO!
I've been paid to be a software developer for almost 7 years now and the truth of the matter is that all through that time I've been following the OO design principles, knowing the benefits and only occasionally making use of some of the large advantages. But two nights ago (I've been meaning to post since then) it came to my rescue.
A bit of background - I've been developing a website for a friends printing business in my spare time (www.rooprint.com.au). I threw myself into it going through a proper design and have spent some good hours setting up a good framework for the website with PHP as the backend because of the options with his web hosting company. I normally avoid anything HTML related, because cross browser development is down-right evil... but having been playing around with it at work I got excited by the prospects of AJAX for a second or two (the site currently only partially works in any other browser than firefox - I'll probably post more about this later).
Anyway I had the site up to a stage where I needed to put it on the net for me to show my friend, and also to allow me to test all those evil browsers that don't work. So after battling through a local install of PEAR and then HTML_AJAX within the local user area I came to try and view my lovely creation and learnt the hard way that the hosting company only really has PHP support on the server so they can run PHPMyAdmin. What does this mean? That the MySQL PDO driver wasn't installed, and "couldn't" be installed.
Thankfully I had followed good OO design principles and written a wrapper class for all database queries. With a little bit of work and a lot of learning about the mysqli PHP extension I rewrote the class with use mysqli and whacked it in and all works peachy - no changes to the actually code running around it. Well I did make one change - I decided not to implement the equivalent wrapped call to
pdo_statement->execute(array) which I was using in one instance rather than binding the parameters individually.Woot OO!
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
New name and lost dogs
Ok... so I haven't had much luck blogging yet... but it is time to try again. So with a fresh name, and a new start we shall begin. Rule the page, and put my name at the top.
Welcome to 'The Third Drawer'
If you check the description you'll see why it holds such a name. But to give a bit of an aim for this... well I shall be writing whatever I feel like here, some useful, some not, some descriptive, some explorative (that word isn't in Firefox's dictionary... so if I'm the first to use it - well done me)... basically a bit of everything that I have in my third drawer.
Now to tell a little story:
So I'm just sitting here... when I should be getting ready for work... with a slight headache, but an amazing weight lifted from my shoulders... which is currently sitting next to me huffing.
Yes, I had that good practice for parenthood. I was walking my dog as I do every morning, down to the nearby school ovals where I let him off his lead and he diligently follows me around and our regular route of the 3 ovals. Sometimes he'll lag behind and I have to call him and (if he is being obedient) he will run and catch up to me. However today he was following me fairly closely, and as usual I was walking through the brief stretch of trees (thinking about our friends new baby - congrats j, s & g, and welcome to the world brjb), keeping on eye on the boxer in front of us. I passed through the stand of trees and turned to check where Flynn was... and I couldn't see him. Now this isn't normally a worry so after whistling for him, I continued on for a little bit, and turned and looked for him again. To cut a long story short, in the space of maybe a minute he had disappeared.
Anyway I started the search for him, wandering through the trees whistling and calling for him. He had completely disappeared. Panic started to set in and I (not wanting to looked stressed) started wandering relatively aimless back and forth around the two ovals he must have been on. I prayed to find him, and fought back the tears, started to wonder if I had been half asleep when I left and actually forgotten to bring him, and eventually concluded that he must have been stolen - it was the only way he could have disappeared so quickly.
I kept wandering and decided I should head home to check if he was there before jumping in the car and driving the nearby streets to see if he had decided to visit a neighbourhood dog... still trying to remain calm and in control... and fighting back the tears. About 2 houses away from home I heard a yip (he is learning not to bark and hasn't learnt the difference between his two red collars yet!)... and started running. There he was sitting on the front mat where he had been for a while. Thank God and what a naughty boy! It was one of those moments where you want to smack them and hug them at the same time...
After laughing at me, and consoling me, my wife quipped 'Its all good practice for being a dad - I'm sure one day we'll lose our kid and have to find him'.
So I'm sure after a few therapy sessions I'll recover. But for now I should get up and get on with my day. Time to feed the naughty dog!
Welcome to 'The Third Drawer'
If you check the description you'll see why it holds such a name. But to give a bit of an aim for this... well I shall be writing whatever I feel like here, some useful, some not, some descriptive, some explorative (that word isn't in Firefox's dictionary... so if I'm the first to use it - well done me)... basically a bit of everything that I have in my third drawer.
Now to tell a little story:
So I'm just sitting here... when I should be getting ready for work... with a slight headache, but an amazing weight lifted from my shoulders... which is currently sitting next to me huffing.
Yes, I had that good practice for parenthood. I was walking my dog as I do every morning, down to the nearby school ovals where I let him off his lead and he diligently follows me around and our regular route of the 3 ovals. Sometimes he'll lag behind and I have to call him and (if he is being obedient) he will run and catch up to me. However today he was following me fairly closely, and as usual I was walking through the brief stretch of trees (thinking about our friends new baby - congrats j, s & g, and welcome to the world brjb), keeping on eye on the boxer in front of us. I passed through the stand of trees and turned to check where Flynn was... and I couldn't see him. Now this isn't normally a worry so after whistling for him, I continued on for a little bit, and turned and looked for him again. To cut a long story short, in the space of maybe a minute he had disappeared.
Anyway I started the search for him, wandering through the trees whistling and calling for him. He had completely disappeared. Panic started to set in and I (not wanting to looked stressed) started wandering relatively aimless back and forth around the two ovals he must have been on. I prayed to find him, and fought back the tears, started to wonder if I had been half asleep when I left and actually forgotten to bring him, and eventually concluded that he must have been stolen - it was the only way he could have disappeared so quickly.
I kept wandering and decided I should head home to check if he was there before jumping in the car and driving the nearby streets to see if he had decided to visit a neighbourhood dog... still trying to remain calm and in control... and fighting back the tears. About 2 houses away from home I heard a yip (he is learning not to bark and hasn't learnt the difference between his two red collars yet!)... and started running. There he was sitting on the front mat where he had been for a while. Thank God and what a naughty boy! It was one of those moments where you want to smack them and hug them at the same time...
After laughing at me, and consoling me, my wife quipped 'Its all good practice for being a dad - I'm sure one day we'll lose our kid and have to find him'.
So I'm sure after a few therapy sessions I'll recover. But for now I should get up and get on with my day. Time to feed the naughty dog!
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Habit and Discipline
Well I'm going to try again. It is strange the cycles I try and bring myself into, but so rarely do I stop to think any more. I was reading a website (www.286generation.com) which looks like it (at least started from) a uni group. It reads in the description about 286 generation as follows:
"... Each statement is built around the central value of living for the glory of God. Following each declaration statement is a prayer, emphasizing that the pursuit of these commitments is a process as well. Each prayer calls us to a greater dependence on the inside work of God to transform our desires into realities. This kind of thinking represents a significant shift away from that of promising God what we are going to do for him, as thought we could successfully accomplish such promises in our own strength, ..."
That last statement is so true. Some people have the self discipline, but not me, all I can hope for is the ability to take the small steps and get into the habit of something to keep me going in my own strength. Habits are useful, but the fear I always have is that it then becomes something done out of habit only, and it loses its meaning. The cry of my heart is to fill me with the desire to serve God faithfully, Lord give me the strength to carry on longer than the echos of the cry.
"... Each statement is built around the central value of living for the glory of God. Following each declaration statement is a prayer, emphasizing that the pursuit of these commitments is a process as well. Each prayer calls us to a greater dependence on the inside work of God to transform our desires into realities. This kind of thinking represents a significant shift away from that of promising God what we are going to do for him, as thought we could successfully accomplish such promises in our own strength, ..."
That last statement is so true. Some people have the self discipline, but not me, all I can hope for is the ability to take the small steps and get into the habit of something to keep me going in my own strength. Habits are useful, but the fear I always have is that it then becomes something done out of habit only, and it loses its meaning. The cry of my heart is to fill me with the desire to serve God faithfully, Lord give me the strength to carry on longer than the echos of the cry.
Monday, January 30, 2006
Fear of Robots
I was listening to Coldplay's latest album X & Y again (definitely my favourite album of 2005) and the words of Twisted Logic in particular (no I won't comment on the words to Square One which could possibly describe my blogging).
hundreds of years in the future
there could be computers
looking for life on earth
so don't fight for the wrong side
These words made me think about the way the future and robots are displayed - one reoccuring theme is that computers will rebel and try and take over the world (Terminator, The Matrix, Battlestar Galatica). Why do we come back to this common theme - is it because we don't believe that we can make something that isn't tainted - if we are capable of such abhorent acts as to try to decimate other races, what hope is there for any of our creations. Or is it a reflection on our own fallen status regarding God. He made us, yet look how we turned out - he is perfect, so if we are fallen will not our creation be an even worse abomination.
The idealist view of the future is that computers (aka robots) could eventually take over the jobs and people and we'd all be living a more comfortable lifestyle. Having a job that works with computers 8ish hours a day, I can say they generally produce more work, but on the other side I now work for an automation company - so that is our objective... its just a case of coercing the computers to do what we want. And that is always the trick - computers need to start actually learning, rather than just following the rules by which we define them. It'll be interesting to see what the future of computing holds - particularly non-binary computing, allowing computers to have that grey, than allows us to make decisions even when we don't have all the facts.
hundreds of years in the future
there could be computers
looking for life on earth
so don't fight for the wrong side
These words made me think about the way the future and robots are displayed - one reoccuring theme is that computers will rebel and try and take over the world (Terminator, The Matrix, Battlestar Galatica). Why do we come back to this common theme - is it because we don't believe that we can make something that isn't tainted - if we are capable of such abhorent acts as to try to decimate other races, what hope is there for any of our creations. Or is it a reflection on our own fallen status regarding God. He made us, yet look how we turned out - he is perfect, so if we are fallen will not our creation be an even worse abomination.
The idealist view of the future is that computers (aka robots) could eventually take over the jobs and people and we'd all be living a more comfortable lifestyle. Having a job that works with computers 8ish hours a day, I can say they generally produce more work, but on the other side I now work for an automation company - so that is our objective... its just a case of coercing the computers to do what we want. And that is always the trick - computers need to start actually learning, rather than just following the rules by which we define them. It'll be interesting to see what the future of computing holds - particularly non-binary computing, allowing computers to have that grey, than allows us to make decisions even when we don't have all the facts.
Starting anew
It is strange that for me New Year's resolutions have never been something I've held onto, and this year apart from being awake for the new year I didn't even really celebrate it. But what I have found recently is that there are more appropriate times for change - such as now - when my wife (who needs a good internet name!) is starting the new school year and we are having to wake up early again we are taking the opportunity to change our routine. For instance we are sacrificing half and hour in the morning (yes getting up earlier) so that we can both take Mr Flynn out for his daily walk.
I was also thinking today - perhaps associated with the subsequent lack of sleep - that I make a few changes in the way I do things - one is to try and spend less time in computer related activities and spend more time thinking and being creative. Hence this blog... it is a new start when the old one (http://jimmyblittle.blogspot.com) failed - I didn't quite have the creative output I thought I did, to turn my thoughts into a story... at least on a regular basis. So I'm trying this out, and we'll see where we go.
So I'm starting anew - and at the probably more appropriate time for us southern hemisphere people who have a break over Christmas, since there is normally no routine until about this time of year.
Last point - the title of this blog is a tribute to McG who once said that getting anything remotely personal out of me was 'like getting blood out of a stone'. Hopefully there'll be a little of me showing through.
Gameldar.
I was also thinking today - perhaps associated with the subsequent lack of sleep - that I make a few changes in the way I do things - one is to try and spend less time in computer related activities and spend more time thinking and being creative. Hence this blog... it is a new start when the old one (http://jimmyblittle.blogspot.com) failed - I didn't quite have the creative output I thought I did, to turn my thoughts into a story... at least on a regular basis. So I'm trying this out, and we'll see where we go.
So I'm starting anew - and at the probably more appropriate time for us southern hemisphere people who have a break over Christmas, since there is normally no routine until about this time of year.
Last point - the title of this blog is a tribute to McG who once said that getting anything remotely personal out of me was 'like getting blood out of a stone'. Hopefully there'll be a little of me showing through.
Gameldar.
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