Ruminations

One of the best explanations I’ve ever seen of the appeal of what I currently get to do as a profession.

Why is programming fun? What delights may its practitioner expect as his reward?

First is the sheer joy of making things. As the child delights in his mud pie, so the adult enjoys building things, especially things of his own design. I think this delight must be an image of God’s delight in making things, a delight shown in the distinctness and newness of each leaf and each snowflake.

Second is the pleasure of making things that are useful to other people. Deep within, we want others to use our work and to find it helpful. In this respect the programming system is not essentially different from the child’s first clay pencil holder “for Daddy’s office.”

Third is the fascination of fashioning complex puzzle-like objects of interlocking moving parts and watching them work in subtle cycles, playing out the consequences of principles built in from the beginning. The programmed computer has all the fascination of the pinball machine or the jukebox mechanism, carried to the ultimate.

Fourth is the joy of always learning, which springs from the nonrepeating nature of the task. In one way or another the problem is ever new, and its solver learns something: sometimes practical, sometimes theoretical, and sometimes both.

Finally, there is the delight of working in such a tractable medium. The programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff. He builds his castles in the air, from air, creating by exertion of the imagination. Few media of creation are so flexible, so easy to polish and rework, so readily capable of realizing grand conceptual structures. (As we shall see later, this very tractability has its own problems.)

Yet the program construct, unlike the poet’s words, is real in the sense that it moves and works, producing visible outputs separate from the construct itself. It prints results, draws pictures, produces sounds, moves arms. The magic of myth and legend has come true in our time. One types the correct incantation on a keyboard, and a display screen comes to life, showing things that never were nor could be.

Programming then is fun because it gratifies creative longings built deep within us and delights sensibilities we have in common with all men.

From The Mythical Man-Month, by Frederick P. Brooks, via Federico Grilli

Our dear Abigail’s birthday is just around the corner. If you’ve been looking for ideas, here’s her official illustrated gift-giving guide:

…we didn’t have fancy 3D graphics! We had half-acre pixels and 8 colors and we liked it!

Today while visiting garage sales with my lovely bride, I stumbled across an October 1982 National Geographic with these ads for game consoles of the day. I was 12 when these ads were run, and remember fondly many hours whiled away with friends playing both Atari and Intellivision. (I never did much with the Odyssey², probably because I saw these ads and the “wizard” gave me nightmares.)

In 1982, these screenshots actually looked different from each other.

The Wizard has a Power Supply stuck to his fingers. Also, his legal department apparently lacked the acumen to get a proper "Wizard of Wor" license.

If the first word you typed upon getting the speech synthesizer module for the Odyssey² was "Geewizbang", it's a pretty good bet you had no friends.

As some of you already know, Liam and I are designing a card game. It’s called “1945″, and is an easy to learn, fun to play, strategic game in which each player captures territories using a combination of armed forces, subterfuge, and special abilities.

We’ve been working on it since last summer, and have been getting enthusiastic responses and excellent suggestions for improvements from the folks who have graciously tried out our rough prototypes. We’ve recently enlisted Emily to do the artwork for the game, and after having received our first set of cards from the printer (with only 10% of the final art), are pretty excited about how it’s all starting to come together.

I don’t want to spam my personal contacts whenever we reach a milestone, but if you’d like to keep up on our progress, help test it, or have any ideas for the best ways to produce and promote such a thing, we’d love to hear from you. You can keep up on our progress through:

• The Webpage (www.1945cardgame.com/)
• The Facebook Page (www.facebook.com/1945cardgame) (Like it to get updates)
• The Twitter Feed (www.twitter.com/1945cardgame)

Big thanks to everyone who has played and supported us this far. We hope to release the game by Autumn.

Emily’s 20th birthday is coming up, and she has, with her usual creative zeal, crafted a lovely and entertaining wish list:

Each Summer, while the kids are out of school, I arrange a full day out with each of them. Sometimes that means taking a day off of work; on other occasions we squeeze it in on a Saturday. Regardless of when it is, it’s one of the things I look forward to a ton each year (and seems to be a highlight for the young people too).

This year, the first adventure was with Liam. Thanks to Kevin Huffaker, a friend of mine from the university who is not only an amazing polymath but also a tremendously generous guy, we were able to start our day with a SCUBA primer. Neither Liam nor I had ever been before. We both love being in the water, and found the experience utterly delightful. While the river was running low and water conditions turned cloudy pretty quickly as people upstream swam around, we had a great time learning how to control our buoyancy and seeing a bit of the river from a new vantage point.

From there, we treated Kevin to lunch at Valentino’s, Liam’s favorite pizza place in San Marcos, and then caught the then-current Harry Potter movie. A trip to the Blazer Tag center up in Austin was next, where he and I emerged 1st and 2nd in our game with 30 other people. (All those video games do pay off!) The center in Austin is one of the best arenas I’ve been to, and was a ton of fun. We finished off the day with a visit to the Nazi Pirate at Peter Pan mini golf, where I was able to salvage a bit of my honor after the thumping Liam gave me at laser tag.

Next up was my day out with Maggie. She loves nothing more than to be in the water, so Schlitterbahn has been the natural destination for us for many years. Repeatedly voted best waterpark in the country, it’s only 20 minutes away from our house, and is a much more agreeable experience than many amusement parks these days. (Free parking, bring your own picnic, and new stuff every year.) We were a bit disappointed to see that Family Blaster, a ride that uses high-powered jets of water to shoot a raft containing up to 6 people up a hill, had been retired, but we did spend a delightful day climbing on floating crocodiles, navigating our tubes down 20-minute long tube chutes, and slipping down slides. We even invented a word game while we were waiting in line that’s become a standard in-car activity for our family.

I took Abigail out next. Our first stop was Tacodeli, a vegetarian-friendly taco joint that’s both delicious and a quintessentially Austin experience. After that, we wandered Barton Creek mall for a bit, and then went to see Cowboys & Aliens, which I’d been looking forward to since seeing the first preview. Our next stop was Mozart’s, a wonderful coffee shop on the banks of Town Lake. We got tasty beverages, I introduced Abby to cannoli (one of my favorite treats), and we both pulled out guitars and played and sang together down by the water while the turtles looked on appreciatively. When our fingers tired, we moved on to Pinballz (the best arcade I’ve ever visited) and played Addams Family, Twilight Zone, and other pinball classics. Our last stop for the day was at the Alamo Drafthouse for Abby’s first Master Pancake Theater show: Twilight! She was a fan of the books, and had been disappointed by the first movie, so I figured a lampooning would be the ideal way to enjoy the second. She agreed.

In addition to the goal of simply having a grand time, I also set Abby and I the task of both taking lots of photos along the way, and picking out our favorites along the way to edit and post on Facebook as a record of our day together. Here are the 8 shots we deemed best.

Unfortunately, I had a dreadful time coordinating Emily’s and my calendars, but in March of the next year, we finally managed to find a day we both had open. After hearing of Liam’s mini-adventure, Emily was keen to try SCUBA as well, so we rounded up Kevin again and my friend Jason and set off for a larger-scale run: near the headwaters of the San Marcos River down to the whitewater course at the other end of town. Since we’d finally had some rain after a tremendous drought, the water was running clear and fast, and we had beautiful visibility as we swam under waterfalls, through valleys of endangered Texas Wild Rice, and past a variety of water creatures. Emily filled a bag with treasures she found in the water, and I reveled in the opportunity to see the river as we never had before.

After our swim, we regrouped at the house while eating big Subway sandwiches, and then Emily and I went north for her first Master Pancake Theater show: Back to the Future. The lads did a terrific job with it, and we had a great time eating, drinking, and laughing our heads off. We even got the surprise treat of getting to overhear some of a Young the Giant show as we walked past — a favorite of Emily’s that she hadn’t even known was playing that night.

I had a terrific time getting to enjoy each of our kiddos individually, and treat them to some unique experiences they all enjoyed. Thanks, squirrels, for the great time. Now, let’s get cracking and plan this year’s adventures!

Last night, Kathy and I stopped by a neighborhood in downtown San Marcos to see this:

The project was done by a typography class at Texas State University, and included this historical home, a neighborhood church, and an old jail. Students had researched the history of each of the structures, and then devised projected sequences that told about the history of and future plans for each structure. It was a surprisingly engaging way to learn a bit more about our fair city.

Read more details about the project here.

A while back, I wrote a bit about Two Heroes of mine. Now, the San Marcos paper has a story about Thrine Soto, one of the people I wrote about. She’s a 93 year old woman who volunteers regularly at the food bank, and has been doing so for 30 years. Enjoy!

My friend Jason is continually after me to update my weblog. Acting on the assumption that a sample size of one is statistically valid, I’m going to assume that the rest of the world is just as interested and post a family update, cribbing liberally from a recent letter to my dear sister-in-law. (Martha, you are excused from reading this post.)

Kathy has begun an internship at Criss Cole rehab center for the blind up in Austin, and is enjoying it quite a bit (aside from the commute). Her first two weeks there were spent with a blindfold on as she went through many of the experiences that the clients there would have, including wood shop. (I’ll pause for a moment while you connect the dots and make the requisite astonished face.) She came home with some nice pieces of work and all of her fingers, so I count it a success.

I’m well into my new job at Mutual Mobile, a company that makes apps for iPhone, iPad, and Android phones. It’s a lot of fun. I’m surrounded by a ton of super-smart, very engaged folks there, and am learning a ton. Taking the bus up to Austin daily has been an interesting experience. Although the on-board Internet seems to work only about 60% of the time, I’m still generally able to make good use of the time reading books, listening to podcasts, or catching up on some reading and writing.

Emily has recently started a couple of college classes at Austin Community College, and seems to be both enjoying them and doing really well. She’s continuing to work at Rue 21 at the nearby outlet mall, as well as exercising her formidable art skills on her own time. Though we don’t see as much of her since she moved out to the garage apartment, she’s still a help around the house, and we’re glad to still have her close.

Abigail recently performed for her first open mic night, and did a great job. She sang and played guitar for Hey Jude (Beatles), On and On (Stephen Bishop), and a song she wrote herself. She’s keen to try another one soon. She’s also in a production of The Crucible at her High School, with the first performance tonight. It’s great fun to see her exploring these various artistic avenues and enjoying them so much!

Liam is doing a bang-up job in band, where he plays French Horn, following in his mother, aunt’s, and sister’s footsteps. Though he’s in 7th grade, he also gets to play with the 8th grade band, and sits first chair in his section. In addition, he’s been playing tennis this year, and is enjoying it a fair bit, though I’ve had no luck getting him out on the court with me lately. (I may be too little challenge for him these days.) He recently turned 13, and has been enjoying the increased freedom that comes with that advanced age.

Maggie is a particular favorite of her teachers, and has developed a good deal of enthusiasm for reading. She enjoys dabbling in all kinds of creative pursuits, including cooking, drawing, writing stories, playing pennywhistle, and building fairy houses. She’s a particular friend to animals, built an impressive fort out of scrap from our old deck in the backyard the other day, and is almost always the first to offer help when someone needs it.

While Kathy’s internship schedule has made it tough for her and I to have as much time together as we prefer, I’ve really been enjoying the evenings I have with the kiddos, and am struck again by what a joy it is to watch them growing into distinct, fascinating human beings. I love being around these folks. If families were chosen, rather than determined by a fascinating mix of genetics, mine would look no different.