Daily Journaling Notes
<p>Jeremy Hylton <a
href="http://www.python.org/%7Ejeremy/weblog/031009b.html">notes</a>
the importance of keeping good notes, along with a good chunk of sound
advice from the article <a
href="http://www.acmqueue.org/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=69">Coding
Smart: People vs. Tools</a> by Donn M. Seeley, which I finally
got around to reading. I'd love to hear his review of <a
href="http://www.cvstrac.org/">CVSTrac,</a> and whether it's
feasible <a href="http://zwiki.org/CVSTrac">in a Zope
scenario</a>.</p>
<p>Ed Taekema has <a
href="http://www.pycs.net/users/0000177/weblog/2003/10/16.html">noted
</a>the use of wiki's in this area, along with several related
articles.</p>
<p>'Coding Smart' felt slightly dogmatic, but appropriately so.
The initial <em>watch out--that new languages may kill your
development time</em>
bugged me, as it's one of the reasons I've used to avoid writing
testing apps in Python and redundantly tested manually. His other
point
that the new language may not be transferable to other workers I feel
is a non-issue with Python. Idioms. Ouch, they are the difference
between "Pythonic" and Python, eh? I admit here I was setbacked. Was
this general purpose programming language was leading down another
esoteric path, reducing my psuedocodish Python to n00bish dribble or
<a
href="http://www.enac.northwestern.edu/%7Etew/archives/000072.html">unreadable</a>
<a
href="http://www.python.org/doc/current/tut/node6.html#SECTION006750000000000000000">shortcuts</a>?
(*What cocky programmer wouldn't claim to be able to pick up another
language in a few days, let alone <a
href="http://fishbowl.pastiche.org/2003/10/08/sig_quote_of_the_day">debug
it</a>? ) </p>
<p>Later Seeley moved into "use psuedo-code", which I dug but
raised an
eyebrow to, Given Python's readable code and experiment and validation
capabilities. Python does add a lot of value here, and of course not
everwhere. I'd like to tie in frustrations of trying to communicate in
user stories when peer coder speaks in schema tweeks and algorithms,
or
that generally good problem statements inherit the solution, but
won't.
Peer reviews are also cool when common values are apparent and
personal
dogma is chained.</p>
<p>Outlining. +1. This is what <a
href="http://www.pycs.net/sqr/2003/09/24.html%20">I use Word
</a>for.</p>
<p>My college business professor (and many others) repeatedly
recommended keeping a profesional journal. I've never been able to
keep
up a paper journal. My <a
href="http://zwiki.org/PersonalWikiExplanation">personal wiki
</a>is
primarily "notes to self" and similar links. Good notes in change logs
are critical, and prefer then to be tacked within the source, as a
"blog within a file" type of thing. Code diff's are no replacement,
and
are far from convenient--<em>especially</em> when trying to
grok code and it's hi<em>story</em>. My personal wiki has a
<a href="http://webseitz.fluxent.com/wiki/FrontPage">blog
apsect</a>
with entry form on the front page. This causes more blog and less
wiki,
but without it the time it took me to figure out where to put the
resource would derail many of my intentions.</p>
<p>Thought of the day: When folks complain about documentation,
what part of knowlege management has failed?</p>
9:19:08 PM  ,
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