A reading of Tim Berglund’s “Oh, The Methods You’ll Compose”

Transcription: “Oh, The Methods You’ll Compose”.

When a coder sits down to start banging out code
The first thing to start crowding his cognitive load
Is whether his program will do what it should
Correctness, he says, is what makes my code good

It’s the function that captures the coder’s attention
Behaviors and inputs and outputs are mentioned
As if the one good that a coder can bring
Is to spin the right wheels on some Turing machine

And compiling and linking and running are great
(We need to do these to put food on our plate!)
But the shocker that might leave you scratching your head
Is that actual code is less written than read

We spend more of our time in maintaining our stuff
Than we ever spend writing the simplest of cruft
Which means that unless you’ve got something the matter
You’ll try to learn just a few code style patterns

So coders and countrymen, lend me your ears
As I teach you some lessons won hard through the years
From that Beckian book about implementation
And patterns that derail code suckification

Read the rest.

David Remnick’s profile of Springsteen at sixty-two a meditation on age and passion

New Yorker: David Remnick: We Are Alive: Bruce Springsteen at sixty-two:

“You are isolated, yet you desire to talk to somebody,” Springsteen said. “You are very disempowered, so you seek impact, recognition that you are alive and that you exist. We hope to send people out of the building we play in with a slightly more enhanced sense of what their options might be, emotionally, maybe communally. You empower them a little bit, they empower you. It’s all a battle against the futility and the existential loneliness! It may be that we are all huddled together around the fire and trying to fight off that sense of the inevitable. That’s what we do for one another.”

Fun read: Tor.com on why we really love Princess Leia

Tor.com: Emily Asher-Perrin: Can We Talk About Why We Really Love Princess Leia?:

Forced to be a sexual object for a crime lord? Choke him to death and get outta dodge. Find out your stealth party was spotted on by the enemy? Hunt them down with their own vehicles. Meet a strange new species that doesn’t speak your language? Share food and make friends. As we’re shown time and time again, there is nothing that this woman cannot do. She makes Luke and Han look practically incompetent if you’re actually keeping a scoreboard — Luke only has one or two solid goals that he feels obligated to follow up on, and Han spends half his time in the trilogy jamming to The Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go.” You need Leia to keep it all together.

The Atlantic Cities: “In Philadelphia, a Porch for an Entire City”

The Atlantic Cities: Kaid Benfield: In Philadelphia, a Porch for an Entire City:

If you care about green cities, you have to like a lot of what’s happening in Philadelphia lately, from land use planning to watershed management to the greening of vacant and blighted lots and, now, the opening of a lively new public space that makes the city a better place to live, work and visit. In particular, last week I learned about The Porch at 30th Street Station, a very promising new plaza just outside the city’s iconic train station. The creation of University City District, an organization dedicated to revitalization and community improvement, The Porch opened last fall and has been hopping all summer with activity. It is at once ambitious and low-key.

I’m in this team!

Jon Moore: It’s a Great Team When….

It’s a fantastic privilege to work with the team I do. We’re a cast of characters, everyone is a contributor, fighting for each others success. Leadership plays a role in that. Mission plays a role in that. And so does a belief in one another. I’m actually looking forward to going back to work after a vacation.

How rare is that?

Hidden City Philadelphia on the S.S. United States

Hidden City Philadelphia, a blog you should be reading if you’re not, has a few recent posts on the S.S. United States including pictures and an interview with Steven Ujifusa who recently had a book published about the ship.

Hidden City Philadelphia: Meredith Broussard: In Love With A Ship And Its Architect

Hidden City Philadelphia: Matthew Christopher: The View Inside (And Out) The Dazzling Ship

Related:

Plan Philly: The SS United States: Until the first blows fall