I have a solution to the problem and Windows 8 gave me some inspiration. I was thinking about writing a Windows 8 app that implemented some of the features of Calibre, but thought it would be a lot of work with little pay off. I want to work on Windows 8 apps, but I don’t think right now is a good time. That doesn’t mean that the solution couldn’t be web based and it also means that the Windows 8 solution will be mostly complete.

The goal shouldn’t be to replace Calibre. I know that is foolish. Calibre is awesome at what it does and has plenty of time and effort going into it. What I want is a easier library management, searching, and content server. I’ll be stripping out the majority of the features of Calibre and focusing on simply the library element and the content server. Therefore it really won’t be Calibre, it will be a separate product that clones the content server for devices that support it.

It’ll also depend on Calibre, since I’m not going to be implementing the e-book conversion. Calibre has a command line conversion tool that I will use. Thus using the best feature of Calibre and not spending months developing my own conversion tool.

I’m working on the throwaway first version and have the directory structure. I’ll be using web.py for the web controller, Mako for the views, and SQLAlchemy for the Model library. Given the awesomeness of Django, I might switch to that at some point. I simply want to prototype a version and see how well it goes.

I found out one of the use cases for my dislike of Calibre. The problem is that it often copies files for its library for organization. The issue I think is that the original file still exists, creating duplicates. The reason, I was told by an independent party, that if you had a temporary location: removable or network drive, then it is better to move the file to a location known by Calibre. The issue is that it also does this with hard disk drives that won’t be removed at any point in the near future.

It seems then, that I have to check whether the drive I’m on is a hard disk or removable. If it is even possible to know. I think I’m going to ask, until I research a way to figure out how to tell whether a drive is removable that is also cross-platform. I think this must be the reason for its decision. It simply seems inefficient and could create a circular problem when the Calibre library is in the directory you are pulling the books.

Actually, I think I have a solution, but it isn’t something I’m going to do in the first version. On Windows at least there are various options and one of them is to access the Removable Drive option list and provide an option for loading the e-books on the removable drive to another location. The first version will have an option in the settings to allow for transferring a location to the content library location.

I think this compromise would be neat. I can’t wait to get started on the e-book library management. I’ll probably be spending the next couple of days working on this and see how far I get. It isn’t however the two projects I wanted to work on. However, the work on this will help with the project I’m having the most difficulty motivating myself.

The name “Bullet” is a play on Calibre and is tentative until I find a better name or end up liking the name and keeping it.

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I was already thinking about using ZendFramework 1.11, but since ZF2 is at the beta stage, I think I’ll just jump on that wagon since my project isn’t going to be ready for another few months anyway. ZendFramework2 also has all of the primary base features I’m looking for. I’ll probably have to hack some implementation details for missing features that will be released in a few months as the version matures.

Still, I should be able to hack together a prototype and hopefully be able to implement many of the features I have planned during my vacation break. Well, I’m unsure how far I’ll get, if I do have something, it is unlikely I’ll be able to release it since, the project will unfortunately be unstable until ZF2 is released. I figure I’ll probably release something after 3 months anyway. The primary pieces I’ll be using, the Controller, plugin and modules are fairly stable now (I believe), so it is possible to release something.

I’m also guessing that the authentication interfaces and adapters are fairly okay to implement or extend, so it is possible I’ll be able to implement authentication. Something I was planning on doing anyway for shits and giggles. I’m unsure how far developed the database component is, but I’ll probably build my own anyway in case I want to move to CodeIgniter or Fuel later.

Besides that, I hope to start Python. I figure if I work 8 hours on the directory project a day and then 4 to 8 hours on the Python project. I should have worked a pretty productive vacation. Also the projects should be mature enough to warrant further development for the next couple of months. I’ll have to pick a project to continue after this week, since it is unwise to focus my attention on more than one project at a time.

I had wanted to complete the HTTP library project and at least have something complete. However, I lost motivation on that once I start thinking more about the Directory and Trac project. I have far too many projects on my mind. I was kind of hoping to complete the HTTP library project and get that stable and off of my mind. However, I’m hoping to show the Directory project and Python project some love this week and see how well I progress.

Most likely I’ll go back to the HTTP library project one or two days and finish up majority of the foundation coding and have something that could be released before the end of this month. Well that is the plan at least. Even if I keep scattering my plans based on what I’m feel like coding this moment.

At some point I really want to do something with Calibre, but I’m unsure what. Probably nothing for the next couple of months. I want to do some D programming, but these PHP and Python projects keep raising to the top of my thoughts. If I can remove them or get to them to the point where other people can take over, then I think I’ll be happy.

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I’ve been thinking about this too often and I think it would be better to just write my ideas and move on. As always, I don’t believe my opinion is valid, until the author decides, well nothing is right or wrong. It is possible that the author might even incorporate a really good idea into their story in their own way. Not that you would know, unless the author states that to be the case. Regardless, I have been thinking about Cosmere Universe a bit.

Major Spoilers, read at your own risk

Theory About Adonalsium And Cosmere History

I’m unsure where I heard it, I believe it came from one of the books Brandon Sanderson wrote or might have been from The Way of Kings, if any of his books at all. The idea is with sufficiently advanced technology, how would you know it isn’t magic? If you were to send back a TV to medieval times, they would probably think you were a witch and that it worked on Magic.

The idea of Adonalsium is similar to me. From the text of The Way of Kings, what if Adonalsium was a device of technology created by beings and it went horribly wrong? The Shards were men at one time and therefore it holds to some reason that they were mortal and came across the power somehow.

There are other theories, of course. Given Japanese mythology found in games and other science fiction, it is possible that the explorers came across Adonalsium in their journeys and never created it. Experimenting with either the device or substance caused the shattering of the device or substance into shards which were absorbed into the men and women around the Adonalsium.

I do quite frankly hope Brandon doesn’t state the beginnings as Earth. It is great when it was the first time and if he does end the mystery that way, then hopefully it is the first time someone has came across it. I’m not saying it is terrible to do that, The Sigilverse did it that way and it wasn’t terrible. I did groan, but meh, I also think that any explanation will be disappointing. It is nice to discuss the possibilities.

My point is simply that given the current understanding that Adonalsium could be technology far more advanced than anything in the current worlds. Well, the same could be said about the Cosmere. If you discovered that you could travel through what requires “magical” means, then how else would you explain it? That is to say that it could simply be another name or explanation for “Hyperspace”.

Why My Theory Is Slightly Flawed

Brandon Sanderson doesn’t follow normal rules of science fiction and fantasy. His worlds combine elements of both actually. Not completely fantasy in the traditional sense and not completely science fiction either. The problem is that the Gods really are Gods and the magic really is magic. It would make sense then that technology wouldn’t be in the traditional sense either.

What is obvious is that there use a single world where the Adonalsium existed, whole and unbroken. Events long before any of the current books, something happened that both fragmented Adonalsium and made “gods” of men. I’m interested in knowing the history, because it seems quite intriguing. Given what Brandon has been capable of in his previous books, I expect something I hadn’t even thought of. I suppose it is a limitation of my mental comprehension and lack of creativity.

Damnation

There are hints in the book. Damnation must be an physical place, because after all, it is possible to bring the dead back to life. It is after all extremely difficult to do and seems to require the power of Gods to do it. The fact that it is possible proves that the dead do exist on another plane accessible by Gods and in theory by some forms of magical systems.

It is in my opinion possible that the easiest way to travel the Shardsmere is death. It is possible that everyone ends up at the same place in death and it is a terrible, terrible place. However, given the similarities of Damnation to Hell, it is probable that the atheist or anti-Damnation might exist. There has been so far, no proof of this. Most likely Damnation is all fire and brimstone because of Rayse taking it over and making it so. If Damnation exists on the Spiritual plane of the Cosmere, then it makes sense that Gods would have control over how it functions and looks.

Gods have limitations. Rayse can’t simply thread over the other Gods and can’t go against his shards nature. I find it difficult however to believe that the Spiritual realm would be limited in dimension.

Not a lot of information to go off of. I kind of like the stories where people exist waiting to be born, kind of like the old mythology tales of Greek Gods. Again, not a lot of information on the Spiritual realm, so far.

Why I Enjoy The Cosmere

I enjoyed the Sigilverse a lot when it came out. I couldn’t help but to think, “The only thing better than this would be if it was in book form! That way you could extend the universe in ways you couldn’t in comic form.” To me The Cosmere is that idea come to fruition. The Branson Sanderson books in the Cosmere isn’t exactly what I was hoping for, since I kind of wishing for Sigilverse stories by many authors, kind of like Star Wars extended universe.

The main reason I think is the foundation that Brandon Sanderson is setting up for future authors. It is possible that having a multiverse could get old very fast, depending on how many shitty authors try to saturate the genre. The only other problem is that there are just so many ideas for multiverses, or at least from what I can predict. I think that with every multiverse that is created and extended, it is possible that the ideas will become better. You can see the evolution of Fantasy, Science Fiction, Zombies, Vampires, etc where the modern interpretation makes the classics seem dull.

The only problem I have really, is that Brandon has set up his multiverse with many books and many of them aren’t even written and let alone published. It will probably see him make a lot of money, but I do hope that he lives a long, long time. I also hope I live a long time as well. The build up and anticipation so far has me wondering, “What will the final history of Cosmere be?”

Why I’m Most Likely Wrong

The problem is that I assume that each planet is in its own universe, creating a multiverse (not the correct term for it, but whatever). Even if each planet is part of the same universe or even same galaxy I don’t think it matters. Given the distances and improbability of interstellar travel, the distance between the planets doesn’t matter. It is simply a matter that the shardsmere be the only want to travel since normal technology would never allow you to traverse the distance if multiple universes or even multiple galaxies. Well, this does assume normal physics rules and I know that doesn’t apply in science fiction.

One of the themes that I think Brandon uses is that the mind allows for interesting possibilities. Meaning that it is possible only with the mind what will never be possible with technology. Using a short story. It might be assumed that Shardsmere is the only way to traverse large distances or even multiple universes.

Native Inhabitants

I’m starting to go off on tangents, but I like to get as much thoughts out as possible since many of them are wrong or at least not well thought through. At the very least, I hope to get them out of my mind so I can think about other subjects. Also, I’ll like to put my own thoughts and interpretations out there before I go off and read other theories from people.

Regardless, I’ve assumed that like in Mistborn, that the humans were created. I’m starting to think this is incorrect, except maybe in Mistborn planet, where the gods did in fact create the people on the planet in the likeness they seen before.

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Disclaimer: Obviously, I haven’t seen the movie and basing this post off of the trailer, which is ironic given the accusation. I will revise this post once I watch the movie Friday. I just want to get my initial thoughts out to the one or two people who might accidentally come across this. As always, this post is for myself and anyone is welcome to comment or join in.

What I Believe The Theme Is

I believe the creators of the movie believe the movie is about Capitalism and the inherit evils within Capitalism. Given the recent unrelated events on Wall Street and around the World and USA, this movie might hit the right nerve with people. The problem, I think is that the allegory use of time instead of money is so exaggerated that the economic system they truly appear to represent in the movie is actually communism. The irony is that they created something similar to Animal Farm (according to what is in the Trailer), that I don’t think the message they are attempting to get across works.

It is without a doubt that people are going to read into the movie what they will and the point that people might believe it is hitting against Capitalism or Communism, depending on what they perceive. Or people might just enjoy it for what it is, a Sci-Fi movie with a really awesome concept where the plot device mostly takes a backseat, hopefully.

What I Believe the Premise Is

The premise is that Capitalism is evil with its creating of the two tier working class verses upper class society. Capitalism keeps the working class poor, while filling the pockets of the rich. From the trailer, it appears that the bosses keep the working class down by institutionalizing increasingly higher and higher quotas for which the workers are basically slaves. The working class is shown, what little is shown, working their asses off, while contrasting to the upper class who appear to barely work at all.

Why The Premise Is Flawed

The premise is flawed based on the economic fantasy that is created in the movie. If the writers are in fact stating that the system is Capitalism, instead of what it actually appears to be, Communism, then they are using the wrong system or at least creating a satire of Capitalism so extreme that it might as well be Communism. If I am correct, then I predict that the movie won’t even touch upon the alternatives to how a person join the “High Society” and given that most workers die before they are 30, aren’t even given a chance even embrace the alternatives.

It wouldn’t be an interesting movie anyway. Who wants to watch a movie where a person is repressed, develops an awesome idea, markets that idea and then makes a ton of capital from that idea? Not me, it would be boring as shit. Actually, watching a movie about a guy taking a shit would probably be more interesting than that movie. Regardless, still they would allude to the idea by taking briefly about some guy who actually achieved it. That would be Capitalism.

Why The Movie Is Actually Communism

I’m not talking about the unrealistic impossible communism where everyone shares everything and everything is peace love and free sex. I’m talking about the real world communism where you have two classes, sounds similar to the movie right? I’m talking about the Soviet Russia, China, Cuba, North Korea, etc. I’m going to ignore China for the most part since they’ve since adopted many Free Market ideas since the past decade or two and are doing quite well because of it.

The problem with Communism is for the most part it is run by people. The people who run the government do not want to be subject to the same “equality” of their citizens, which means you end up with a two tier system. See Soviet Russia, Cuba, North Korea, etc, with exception of China in the recent years. The problem also is that there is no graduation system from the class. If everyone is equally poor, because the finite wealth that exists after the higher class takes their share is spread equally. Is it really better since no one can move up?

It is fair system. Everyone exists at the same level of poverty or if the rulers were actually competent and the levels were great for everyone, it might put everyone at some level of middle class. Which ironically is where most people in the US are at anyway. What it takes away is the incentive to work hard to move up. If all you had to do was work at the same pace as everyone else with no reward to work hard, then why should you? A few will work hard, simply because that is their nature, but I doubt 1) it will last long and 2) other people would enjoy being shown up.

From the trailer, it does not appear that workers are able to move up from their class. From the “cop”, it is assumed that if you didn’t have a lot of time and then get a lot of time, that you obviously stole it from someone who did. The fact that time (money) is regulated in such a way to prevent one class from raising above their class appears support the claim of Communism.

Why Movies Get Capitalism Wrong

This is not the first movie to bash Capitalism in a incorrect way. I remember a number of years ago a movie where the main character is frozen and wakes up 500 years in the future to where he is the smartest people alive. That movie blames Capitalism and its inherit greed with creating more and more solutions which dumb down consumers and create products people don’t need to gain more and more money. Also has the side effect of inflating the monetary system to where a dollar is virtually worthless. Well, I could be wrong. It was either that or Governments general stupidity with lobbies and inherit corruption.

The beauty of Capitalism, is that if you have a good idea, put in the time and effort to prototype it. You either save up the money to start a company or use the prototype to gain capital from investors, whom in turn fund your company to one day get a return on their investment. Anyone can do this or at least anyone who has a good enough idea, can either save up the money or convince enough people to invest and run the company in such a way to be in the black after a few years and start growing year after year.

How “In Time” Might End

The reason why I like the movie is that the main character is a reluctant hero, which by events out of his control turns him into a modern Robin Hood. You are supposed to believe that the main character not only should give away time for free, but that time should be available to everyone regardless of how hard they work. You are supposed to feel revulsion against the “High Society” for being lazy bums who milk the working class like slaves. You are supposed to think that the cop is the bad guy and the guy who dies in the beginning is a martyr worthy of a freakin’ statue or at least a religion.

My thoughts, the cop is going to die, horribly. The main male character is going to have crazy amounts of sex with the female lead, which will be totally hot and not at all rape because she is totally willing even if technically the male lead kidnapped her and is keeping her against her will. The main male character will either go on to distribute all of the time to all of the people and not at all find that the equal distribute means that everyone dies at 35, but probably around 70 or 80 or institute a change in the system where people are more free and capable of living longer, which is practically the same thing.

By having the “evil” cop quote the supporters of Capitalism, it will prime the minds of the audience that actual logic supporting Capitalism is “evil” because that “evil” cop said the same thing.

Cracked.com will add the “evil” cop to their list of “Villians Who Were Actually Right”.

How I Want “In Time” To End

I want Justin’s character to be horribly raped while the female lead watches horrified and then watches as the female lead is shot in the face and he is shot in the gut to die a slow horrible death while thinking about how bad he failed.

Or at least shot in the face while almost succeeding at the end. Then the woman feigns ignorance and goes back to her life pondering what might have been. Then like several years later, shit hits the fan and the working class raises up and is slaughtered. They finally realize that he who has the big guns usually wins hands down and if you think your life was bad before, just wait until you attempt to raise up and find out how bad it really can be.

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I’m going to spend the next couple of weeks completing or finalizing the HTTP Library for PHP. The reason for the delay has been that I was unsure that the direction I was heading was the correct one. After realizing that yes, it was the wrong direction, I had to figure out a better path to take the library. It has been many months, but I believe I finally have a good implementation for completing the library. It also seems that I’ll be able to refactor a lot of my existing code and hopefully release a working version within a few weeks.

Well, refactoring might not be the correct term since I’m scraping a lot of the classes, creating new classes and consolidating a lot of code into 3 main classes while creating new “Feature” classes for other parts. The Transports will probably also be completely rewritten for the “Feature” classes functionality.

The key is the ability in PHP to access protected class members, even if the instance is not the same. I found this by accident while creating an ORM Database class and wanted to access the table name and other properties without making the members public. After testing that the code does in fact work as it should, I abused the hell out of it to great affect. I’m unsure whether it is a bug in PHP and if it will continue to be available.

I’m guessing that the behavior is intentional since it is “correct” in the technical sense. I’m unsure if purists would be accepting of the behavior as it does appear to violate encapsulation in the pedantic sense. Technically, there shouldn’t be anything wrong with the behavior since the members are protected and the child classes inheriting the parent are in fact interacting with the protected members. I’ll post more information once I complete the library and have a set of code available.

Plans

Right now, I’m current going through and cleaning up the code and created a base class for the request and response classes to inherit. The feature classes will also inherit the class, which hopefully will allow for some neat magic functionality to happen behind the scenes without having to do some tomfoolery. It will actually be nice, since I’ll be reducing the classes to 4 main classes, instead of multiple subclasses. The problem was that the old version had to pass the body and headers, along with the request classes to get the plugins to work correctly.

If my theory works, The plugins will be simple and reduce the esoteric code in some of the classes into their own contained classes. My goal actually is to strip the code down to the bare functionality and get the transports running tests. Once that is finished, go back and start implementing the features. In a sense, the transports will still be independent and the request class is a wrapper for the sending the correct data to the transports.

Inline Documentation

I’m adding inline documentation to places where it is missing and whenever I add a class member, I’m adding inline documentation. I’m hoping that with version 0.4, I can simply focus on getting a stable version and work on unit tests and additional “Feature” classes. I’m thinking that version 0.4 will be the stable beta version, which I’m going to market to early adopters. Once I get enough people using the product or I’m using the product for several months without any issues, I’ll release version 1.0.

User Guide

I’m going for the gold standard with this and the other libraries. Meaning, I’m not releasing the final version until a proper documentation, which includes an user guide for developers on how to use the library. I don’t believe the user guide will be all that large, since the functionality is going to be reduced.

Unit Tests

I’m going to have to modify the existing unit tests to work with the refactored code. I’m also going to have to finish the tests that are missing for classes. Like the Inline Documentation, I don’t believe this will be all that difficult and I’m up to writing the new tests. I know where I’m heading and most of the code and tests are done that it isn’t as daunting a task as it was months ago. I look forward to releasing a product that is professional with a level of unit tests of what a professional product might have.

Well, it is a library, so certain level of testing won’t be possible, but I’m kind of hoping that people look at the quality of the documentation and testing as a factor for using the library. I’m unsure if this will be a factor towards someone using the library or not. However, I’m going to market this as one of the features.

Timeline

I’ll give it two weeks. Tomorrow I hope to have more of the Message, Request and Response code completed pulled from Settings, Header and Body classes. After that, I’ll have to go back and modify the unit tests and run them. If I have time tomorow, I’ll look into modifying the transports. If not, then really majority of the remaining time this week will be attempting to get the transports working. Once the Transports are working, I’m going to focus back on refactoring and moving the remaining code to “Feature” classes.

If the code isn’t completed in two weeks, then I’ll probably set it aside and continue reading for a bit. If it looks like another week would finish the project (library code works and unit tests are done, but only requires user guide), then I think I might go ahead and spend the extra week. I just don’t want to get caught up with the project for a month or two when I have other projects to work on.

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The past 3 weeks has been busy with listening to books. I’ve listened to “Coping with Difficult People” by Robert Bramson, “21 Ways to Defuse Anger and Calm People Down” by Michael Staver, “The Believing Brain” by Michael Shermer, “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable” by Patrick Lencioni, “Your Brain at Work” by David Rock, “Verbal Art of Self Defense” by Suzette Haden Elgin and “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie.

I’ve noticed some similarities with some of the subjects with the books. The book, “Your Brain at Work” discusses at one point the anger people have and “21 Ways to Defuse Anger” actually discusses and deals with that subject a bit more. “Your Brain at Work” also discusses some of the ideas further emphasized in “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” and quite possibly “How to Win Friends”.

It is interesting to me how there is some overlap with the books, where one book does not explain the brain fundamentals in “21 Ways” and “Five Dysfunctions”, it is explained in “Your Brain at Work”. It is helpful to fill in the gaps and relate the topics together. Interesting “Brain Bugs” does also help with the inner workings as well explaining how the brain works or doesn’t work.

What is interesting is that with all of these books with dealing with people, the common thread is that you don’t deal with people by being mean or being a jerk. This causes the opposite affect as the brain rejects the idea as it is triggering its threat response. The best way to deal with someone is by getting their dopamine levels raised. You can train someone better with treats and praise without them even realizing what you are doing.

Not quite manipulation, since from some of the books, people can tell when someone is faking. Much like when people realize someone isn’t truly smiling. The brain knows what people can’t quite put in words triggering a response that isn’t normally favorable to the one attempting to do the manipulation. Of course, this does work, but generally triggers the threat response without the person realizing why.

My normal response has been, “Tough Love” and I’m realizing now the reason it has never worked. I simply thought, incorrectly, that if they knew how right I was and competent and logical my solution was that the person would understand and follow through with my plan. However, it is the way you say things that drive people against or for you. The problem, I suppose, is that it takes a lot of practice and while I’m putting some of the ideas into how I deal with people, I still tend to revert back to my asshole self.

People are motivated by many things and I think the “Verbal Art of Self Defense” says it best, “Assume that the person says is true for them.” To often we don’t do that and it leads to misunderstandings.

It is frustrating when you are talking to someone and they (you think) assume that you are an idiot and reject what you are saying as wrong based on the premise of missing information. Instead of questioning their train of thought and asking for further clarification, the thought patterns leads down one of trolling. You end up thinking the person is unfair, since the person never let you explain your idea and kept insulting it and they simply continue thinking you don’t know what you are talking about.

Spin this around and applying the Verbal art of Self Defense, we can probably apply some of the rules from 21 Ways to Defuse Anger and approach this conversation a different way that leads the person to understanding your train of thought and accepting your idea. It is difficult. “Your Brain at Work” does discuss many techniques for how to remain calm and continue thinking with a cool head, but it takes practice. It takes never being angry, because anger prevents the thought flow. More than that it takes working through your anger so that it doesn’t simply remain in the background waiting to boil over. It is very difficult.

To often I remember becoming so angry that I couldn’t think straight. Of course, both “Your Brain at Work” and “21 Ways to Defuse Anger” explain why, more so in “Your Brain at Work” and alluded to in “21 Ways”.

It is interesting that by listening to these books after each other that it makes more sense. The Verbal Art of Self Defense and 21 Ways to Defuse Anger talks about practical ways to handle situations, however understanding the underlying reasons why your brain acts the way it does helps too.

I find this topic interesting and it is nice that these books are short and are, I think, made to be listened to over and over again. Which I think is how the ideas really start to stick. Applying maybe one or two techniques from each book will probably be better since you will be better off as a person and in relationships. I also think that the full wealth of the books will be researching them as you would a bible until the techniques and information in the books or audio listens become second nature.

It is difficult to change one’s behavior. I know this intimately well. Taking baby steps seems to be working well for me and I look forward to hopefully being in enough situations where I can learn and apply more of what I learned from these books. It is a good thing I think to never be in a situation to need Verbal Art of Self Defense or 21 Ways to Defuse Anger, but also bad since you’ll never have the apply the techniques in order to drill them into your mind with practice.

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1. Rocket Surgery Made Easy by Steve Krug

   Started reading this, expect to finish within the next 3 or 4 days. Could be sooner depending on how much time I devote to reading the book.

2. 13 Things That Don’t Make Sense: The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries Of Our Time by Micheal Brooks

   Starting reading the book and didn’t put it down until I was far too invested in the book to put it down. The book starts off well enough, but devolves into the weird. Very simple book that doens’t get into the hard science and explanations you would find in a classroom, but it takes a risk and makes it fairly entertaining and grounds itself enough to be believable and not too far into the conspiracy or fringe science. I’m almost done with the book, so I might as well finish it. The insights are fairly interesting and could be useful in thinking outside the box.

3. A Project Guide To UX Design by Russ Unger and Carolyn Chandler

   I picked the book up, because it looked interesting after I purchased “Don’t Make Me Think” and “Rocket Surgery Made Easy” by Steve Krug. It appears to have what I’m interested in learning, so I picked it up in the hopes that it will at least start my education on further usability testing. I’m not sure how long the book is, but it looks interesting enough that I think I’ll spend the time reading the book regardless.

4. The Pragmatic Programmer by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas

   I need to finish this book. I’m about a third of the way through and I don’t think it will take much longer to complete the book. It not that the is boring, it simply reaffirms everything that I’ve been discussing and learned elsewhere. I’m sure that as I get further in the book that I’ll actually pick up something new. At the very least I understand more of the reasoning behind why others and myself recommend some of the suggestions found in the book. They put common sense in a way that is easy to explain to others. The problem I think is that you have to be in the trenches before you really appreciate the books value.

5. The Mythical Man-Month by Frederick P. Brooks

   I hate essay books, since they are rarely coherent and detailed enough to be useful. I don’t think the same problem applies to this book, but it is still a little demotivating. It will be one of the last books I read since I think I’ll learn a lot from the book and the information will be useful. I have started the book and it is interesting enough with the first chapter. I’ll just rather read Clean Code instead.

6. Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship by Robert C Martin (with others)

   Another set of concepts I’ve been attempting to get across at work for the longest time. Writing clean code the first time is important to not require rewriting code a second time or implementing something clean enough to not require rewriting to enhance or add new features. Definitively already a lot of great concepts and I’m interested in learning more about to express myself. What I’ve learned while in the trenches doesn’t come close to the gold mine of information in this book, so I look forward to improving upon what I already know. I’m also interested in code smells, so that I can articulate why code should not be implemented a particular way.

7. About Face 3 – The Essentials of Interaction Design
8. GUI Bloopers and Web Bloopers

   These are two books, but I’ve already started them and haven’t finished them. I hope to do so before moving on.

I’m sure I’m not going to follow these list completely and will probably look at other books that look interesting. The problem is that I so many books to look at and I have limited time. I’m not longer in a hurry to learn Python. I’ll probably go back to my web programming roots and sharpen what I know about HTML and CSS, while attempting to learn something or two about web design.

There are also software engineering concepts I could look at. I never went to school and these books will fill the gaps in my lack of education. It might be useful in speaking to professionals. Then again, I’ll probably read the two or three books I have on refactoring after I read these.

I’ll probably go through my catalog of books and give each a brief review and see how well they stack up. The books will be graded on how long the book is, how well the concepts are written, how old the book is, how well the book is known and my interest in continuing or starting that subject. I’m more interested in learning how to be a better programmer at the moment than learning how to program.

At some point my interest is going to jump to HTML and CSS combined with web design. I think at that point I’d have read all of the books I have on usability. I’ll have to include JavaScript in the mix and focus on probably creating my own JS library. Well, I’m interested in JavaScript unit tests, so I might instead jump on an existing JavaScript library or two and see what could be done to tweak these libraries. The reason I’ll probably create my own library is for throwaway code to learn the underlying concepts. If you know how something is built then taking it apart is not as difficult to put it back together again. I don’t like working with code I don’t understand the underlying mechanisms of how it works. If something breaks, then I’m unlikely to know enough to fix it or how to work around the issue.

Also, I’d like to work with the new JavaScript objects that the next generation browsers are releasing. I think I’ll probably experiment when I start the Projile project sometime in the Winter. I’ll probably remove the code before releasing, unless it is useful and works in enough browsers.

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I no longer think the place I wrote previously is the best Chinese restaurant. I should note that when I’m writing about mid-level pricing or places that charge between $5 and $9 for a dish. If you are looking for something a bit more expensive, and possibility a little better, 5 Spice is great place as well. There is another high class Chinese place, but I don’t remember the name.

Most places the Crab Rangoon is similar to the wontons, in that the shape is relatively the same and the only difference is what it is filled with. At China King, the crab rangoon has four “legs” and a base filled with cream cheese and pieces of crab (unknown if intimation or real, probably the former). Very good and includes a side of sweet sour sauce.

The egg rolls are a bit higher in quality too. Most places have what appears to be similar to the frozen egg rolls you buy at the store or what I term school food. In that the egg rolls at China King are slightly bigger, don’t have celery and has slightly bigger chunks of meat. The other egg rolls looks like they ground up everything and stuffed it in the wrapper. Of course, these can be good if cooked right and served to order.

As for the dishes, I haven’t tried everything, so there may be dishes that aren’t great, but from what I have tried, I can assume that every dish will be equally delicious. You can see the cooks making your food, which some places don’t. The food is also cooked when you order the food, so it always hot and of better quality than other places. If you call ahead, you can also save a bit of time and have the food ready when you show up.

As an aside, Springfield News-Leader has an opinion survey for best Chinese restaurant (low and high) and Lucy’s almost always wins. So really, it simply proves that it is a popularity contest as opposed to what is actually the best Chinese restaurant place. I kind of wish Lucy’s would sue me, just so I can prove how bad their food is.

I am an actual customer of China King, they did not pay me for this article. I write this simply so that someone will find them and give them their business. I would rather this place stay in business.

TODO: I need to take some pictures.

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I decided to take a break and write the networking code for the port of the Minecraft Proxy. I need to do some programming and I want to do a few experiments with D. I still need to buy the D Programming Language book, but for now, I’ll just make do with online documentation.

Goals

The goal for this weekend is to successfully get a “Hello World” application working. The second goal is to port the proxy network code from Java to D along with the multi-threading code. If the network code works fine and there is time left over, then I’ll start porting the Minecraft protocol library over and processing the data. I’m interested in seeing how the performance is for the networking code is and how much memory is used. The problem with the Java version is that an incredible amount of memory is used by default (not that Java uses all of that memory) and then it shoots up once the initial memory is used and more memory needs to be allocated.

I’m more interested in seeing the memory usage and also seeing how the idioms of D can improve the code implementation over Java. Well, I had wanted to start tonight, but I’m going to sleep.

I actually have two libraries for OpenGL, so I’ll have to evaluate the two and pick on that works well. I’ll also have to look into GUI either DUI or the other well known D library. I’m interested in whether the GUI handling in D is better than Java in that I can combine the OpenGL and multithreading of the network code with the DUI or another library. There were many problems with attempting to do this using Java and yes there are work arounds, but they don’t work well enough to justify doing so.

If the GUI and OpenGL code can be written together, then I want to start on my other master plan. That is to create a Fuzzy Logic and neural network AI code for having an account mine or help build. I think to start will be pathfinding and helping to mine. I’ll need to add code to allow for replying to chats and alerting that someone is talking to the Bot. Will make for a great research project.

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Disclaimer This isn’t so much a review of the book as it is a personal discussion of the book. I want to take notes of what I learned from the book, so that when I read the book again, I can follow my notes and skip chapters that don’t matter or matter little.

I learned a lot from the book and it filled in some missing pieces of testing that I did not know or could not completely put in words. More than anything I think the first part of the book was worth the money spent. My one problem with the book is that it speaks often of spec, everything is predicated on a written specification. Well, I don’t usually work with a specification, so the majority of the book is not useful? Well, reading between the lines, I think the author understands this point and oral discussion may not be the best spec, but there are ways around not having a specification. The author does go into how to test when there isn’t a specification, which is useful.

The book is primarily based on software testing, but I think a lot of the techniques could be applied to web based testing. The fundamentals are good to know too. The book’s first part has a chapter on the development paradigms and I learned the most layman explanations for Waterfall, Chaotic and Agile. These were very well described and I used the information practically based on this book. I’m sure that there is more to each than what is described in a single chapter, but as a summary, the book did a very good job. Of course, once I start reading more about Agile, I might find the information lacking, but summaries are supposed to lack some information.

It is an interesting conversation to describe that you tested to pass or tested to fail, but there still might be bugs. Then clarify that it is impossible to say that all of the bugs are fixed. The book actually gives a better explanation, in the form of a graph describing the amount of time need to test something to be sure that every bug is fixed. Some things would require infinite amount of tests in order to be complete certain that there is not some bug affecting the code.

The book also gives a better way to test, which is to test the inner boundaries and outer boundaries. These give you the edge cases and you can assume that everything inner to the boundary will work and hopefully that everything outer is handled well enough. The book does go into security tests and other more specialized tests, but majority of them aren’t that useful to me at this point. They will be at some point. Really, I need to practice the basics before I attempt configuration testing or language testing.

Summary of the Book

• Build a spec
• Test to pass, then test to fail, but always test to fail.
• Test off a spec
• Automate, but still do manual testing.
• You can’t test everything.
• Everything can’t be fixed, fixing needs to be weighed with the priority and severity against the deadline.
• The earlier a bug is found and fixed, the cheaper the cost to fix.
• Outsourcing some testing, compatibility, foreign-language might be cheaper, faster and better than trying to do it in-house.
• Working only within a spec, if it isn’t in the spec that it is a bug.

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