Pipeline evolution

Over the last couple of weeks I've been writing and changing a bunch of software trying to answer some research questions. I find the visual evolution of this pipeline interesting. Maybe you will too.

Sneak peak of the first chart:

$76M? Thanks Catalyst!

Woot! Catalyst, our favorite Perl web development framework, served us well in 2009:

Over $76 million in revenue was booked through omnihotels.com, a 13.5% increase over the previous year; 460,902 room nights were booked during 2009, representing a 28% increase.

...so complex that you need a large IDE to comprehend it

This is an excerpt from an Omaha.pm thread today.

We're discussing Eliminating Inheritance Via Smalltalk-Style Traits by Curtis "Ovid" Poe.

In his paper, Curtis wrote:
Anyone forced to use "vi" (not even "vim") while trying to create an emergency patch of broken code over a slow telnet connection at 2:30 in the morning is going to get very irritated if your codebase is so complex that you need a large IDE to comprehend it.

Trey wrote:
That is kind of silly. If you're shop is using IDE and developing under that sort of framework, your support people should be familiar with the code and the methods used to program it/maintain it.

Agreed. And have the capacity to perform emergency maintenance remotely via whatever means are necessary to do so.

I don't think he's arguing that slow Internet connections are a good idea. I think he's saying they happen.

Trey wrote:
That's sort of like saying that somebody is going to be irritated because they can't stoke up a hydroelectric plant with bellows...So what??

I love your analogy. :) So what? So your business is losing money in the scenario he describes.

I see this an indictment of relying too heavily on fancy developer tools to gloss over crappy code. If my code sucks in text form, but when I right-click on it a million lines of code in my IDE jumps to my rescue and explains it to me in pretty colors, then I'm helpless without that IDE. That sounds like a bad idea.

In the stack of technology ignorance and dependency I've planted my flag here:

- I don't really know or care about sub-atomic particles.
- I don't really know or care how electrons flow through conductors.
- I don't really know or care about chip design.
- I don't really know or care how hard drives, memory, and monitors actually work.
- I don't really know or care how the Linux kernel works.
- I don't really know or care how perl is written (in C).
- I don't really know or care how most of perl's core packages work (in Perl/XS/C).
- I don't really know deeply or care how most of the CPAN modules I use work (in Perl/XS/C).
- I know EXACTLY how the text of the Perl I wrote works. I do recursive grep's through text files to find out anything I need to know.
- Syntax highlighting is a crutch for the weak.
- Method auto-discovery is a crutch for the weak.
- Per-keystroke debugging is a crutch for the weak.
- Re-runnable images of crashes are a crutch for the weak.
- All that other fancy crap in your IDE is fancy crap I don't need. For the weak. :)

Objectively, my gut-opinions about exactly where that line is are silly. Aren't they?

If you take me and my Apple laptop running Terminal.app to ssh into a server and run vi, and next to me you sit a .NET guy running the latest Visual Studio on a mapped drive; is the total complexity of my dependency stack much smaller than his? (OS X is how many millions of lines of code?)

I don't know. I've now spent an hour arguing with myself about it. :)

In any event, I don't thing it's the use or avoidance of an IDE that makes good or poor code. You can create beautiful or ugly code with the simplest or fanciest of tools.

I do think he has a point. If your "...codebase is so complex that you need a large IDE to comprehend it." Then you're doing something wrong. Use an IDE because you want to, not because it's impossible to survive your mess without it.

/me shakes his fist at XML Spy addicts

Ponder,

j

Omaha's First-Ever Catalyst Workshop: Success!

And there was much rejoicing!

I thoroughly enjoyed presenting the workshop. Thanks for coming! We'll have to do it again (or an advanced / specific topics version) someday soonish?

See you in January!

I'm suing Facebook

Great. Now I'm suing Facebook for an application I've never used or even heard of, and it's up to me to opt out via snail mail.

It's disgusting how many leeches on society are getting rich off of me and millions of my fellow citizens who are defaulted and locked into (or at least penalized if we try to extract ourselves from) things unless we take action against them. I'm looking at you Wall Street, 401K, IRA. I'm looking at you, class action lawyers.

If you want to get rich being a slimeball, fine. But leave me out of it.

Incidentally, did I mention that it's annoying that a typo on a store credit card application 2 years ago has destroyed the credit history of MY social security number? That too, I find distasteful.

Bah! Humbug!

Omaha's first-ever Catalyst Wed Dev Workshop

Trying a new format at next month's meeting:

http://jays.net/wiki/Catalyst_Workshop

Wish me luck! Should be fun. :)

Future Perl snuck up on me

Apparently I'm out of touch. Look at all this Perl6:: stuff implemented in Perl5. For example, Catalyst uses Perl6::Junction.

And Moose is starting to look like Perl7 to me. Here perigrin explains what this code is doing.

These ain't your momma's Perl. Heck, these ain't even 2005's Perl. :)