Archive for the ‘blog’ Category

The Experiment Ends

Tuesday, December 30th, 2008

So I’ve been posting to robdickerson.blogspot.com for a while, to get the feel for how it would work out. I think I’m going to give up on Blogspot though.

  • I have little control over how the blogspot page is set up. I want more robust handling for code listings and console interaction display, and I have posts languishing in purgatory because I’m not happy with how Blogspot displays them.
  • I think categorizing my posts is enough to distinguish software stuff from other stuff. I think my fear of topic-dilution is unfounded. As it stands now, I barely post enough to fill a single blog anyway, so I’m not really at risk of over-inundating this space.
  • I feel it would be aesthetically pleasing to have a third argument, but I don’t. It’s my site, I don’t need to explain myself.

I’ll probably repost a couple things I liked from robdickerson.blogspot.com here, then let the Blogspot site wither away.

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Programming Rob

Monday, September 8th, 2008

When it comes to writing posts on this site, most usually fall into the “software” category or the “everything else” category of my life.

So, depending on your point of view, this is either

  1. A personal blog with a bunch of boring technical stuff interspersed, or
  2. A software blog with a bunch of irrelevant personal stuff interspersed

In light of that observation, I’ve decided to experiment with another site where I can just write about software, leaving this site open for the “everything else” category.

The site is: http://robdickerson.blogspot.com

(Oh, and I also wanted to experiment with a setup where I don’t have to maintain a Wordpress install. :P )

We’ll see how it goes.

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First Post!

Thursday, September 28th, 2006

Well, I guess I started a weblog.

I figure I owe it to society. When you get right down to it, my life is just too exciting to not be shared with other people via the Internet. In fact, I was watching Star Wars the other day, and I had to stifle yawns because epic space adventures in a galaxy far, far away seem kind of mundane in comparison to the everyday activities of Rob.

To illustrate, let’s play a little game; I’ll describe to you two scenes, one from my day today, the other from 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back. See if you can guess which is mine.

Ready?

Scene A:

It was a rainy Thursday morning. Against a backdrop of grayish-beige cubicle walls, I focused on an exception my code was throwing. Well, I focused as well as I could, considering the guy in the next cube over was constantly clipping his fingernails. THIS IS AN OFFICE NOT A BATHROOM WILLIAM! Looking at the stack trace, it was obvious the overflow had to be the result of an infinite recursion. This didn’t really make sense, unless — could there be a loop in the network flow? Of course. I had been thinking the network was structured acyclically, but I’d forgotten about some switching scenarios. I made some modifications to my code and recompiled; the tracing now worked correctly.

Scene B:

As the Imperial Stormtroopers were escorted down the corridor, the Wookie wheeled to face me and put his paws around my neck. Ever since the arrival of the Galactic Empire had disrupted life on my small mining outpost, I had found myself pushed into a deal that was getting worse all the time. Seeing Han’s twisted expression in the freezing chamber was the final straw; I knew I had to find a way to rescue him. The Wookie’s grasp on my neck tightened, and I felt my feet rise from the ground. Grabbing his massive forearms, I managed to find enough air to speak. “Han…,” I gasped. “There’s still a chance to save Han!” I directed the Princess to the East Platform, unaware that it would be many months and hundreds of light years before he would again be free of his carbonite encasement.

Go ahead and take some time to decide. I’ll wait.

Give up? The answer is Scene A. Well, originally I had intended Scene A to be the answer, but now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure I’ve done that second one too. Really, either choice is probably correct.

See what I mean about my life being so exciting? And now you too can share in the adventure, just by visiting this site.

You’re welcome.

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