Fran's Blog

As a programmer, I am well into its different methodologies. Not all are completely serious, but all carry a message. My favourites being KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) and DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself). Something I discovered recently was that there is a Rubber Duck methodology which is described at Jaffa Monkey:

1) Beg, borrow, steal, buy, fabricate or otherwise obtain a rubber duck (bathtub variety)
2) Place rubber duck on desk and inform it you are just going to go over some code with it, if that’s all right.
3) Explain to the duck what you code is supposed to do, and then go into detail and explain things line by line
4) At some point you will tell the duck what you are doing next and then realise that that is not in fact what you are actually doing. The duck will sit there serenely, happy in the knowledge that it has helped you on your way.

Interestingly, I have been doing this for some time unknowingly. I do have a rubber duck that was given to me a few years back. His name is Baxter. Baxter sits on my desk and ponders life. He rarely leaves that spot, and sometimes gets lost in paper and thought. Until I get some work that requires some brain power, at which point he becomes my sound board.

I actually think this is a fantastic thing. So many of us internalise our thoughts, which is fine. But sometimes saying them aloud just helps. I’d recommend anyone to do this with anything that requires thought. I think Baxter might become my therapist now. Here’s to Baxter.

After the last post, I decided to have a look at Roller discos from the 80s. I searched on Flickr and my hankering was almost instantly satisfied. You really can’t fake the shots. They look like they were taken in the 80s. You can try and get the style back in modern times, but it would never look quite as real. And who introduced roller blades? That just made the hobby harder! I’ll leave you with my favourites.

I’ve been reading a couple of similar posts recently (links below) which have been talking, roughly, about the same thing. That, on the whole, successful websites are using gaming rules. Or the coolest ones anyway. I do find this interesting. We’re in an age where the first generation of gamers are now grown and well into careers. We hark back to the glory days with some excitement, we now see the 118 118 commercials going for the 80s theme tunes (A-team, Ghostbusters) and Mr T and david Hasselhoff are stars once more. It makes sense!

Anyway, read these articles to get the general idea:
Coding Horror: The World’s Largest MMORPG: You’re Playing it Right Now
9 reasons Japanese interactive work is awesome (you only need to read point 3)

Ratings, reviews, reputation make one want to contribute. If you look at my current favourite geek site Stack Overflow it is based on making people want to contribute because they get a reputation mark if they get the answer right for the person asking. Some sites even allow you to unlock certain sections once they have enough points.

Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube do something similar in their own different way. Youtube, for example, has number of views your video has got and a scoring panel. Flickr allows favourites, adding photos to groups. The general concept is there. And the best sites? The BEST ones? They are simple to just pick up and play.

Fantastic. It makes one want to use and contribute to the site with a very simple premise which is generally free and built into a lot of our psyches.

I spend a lot of time thinking about stuff. I need to find answers a lot (the last thing I decided to look up was why, at the front of barbers they have a red and white spiral). For example, I’ll end up waiting at bus stops (waiting for a bus of course, nothing dodgy now) and wondering why buses are labelled the way they are. Whether there is order in the chaos or if I can create a logical order out of it.

So imagine my delight when I received an email from a work colleague today about London buses.

Read it. It doesn’t quite describe everything, but is definitely interesting: http://markhadfield.typepad.com/that_gormandizer_man/2009/03/how-london-buses-are-numbered-tfl-come-up-trumps.html

I sometimes have no idea how this happens, but if you want to do something. And I mean REALLY want to do something. Time can almost be made. I just read this little snippet: http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1619-theres-always-time-to-launch-your-dream

And it’s true! There is time. Say you are working on a side project away from work. You get home. The last thing you want to do is more work. If you really want to do it, you won’t even think about “oh but I’m tired now” you think “right, home, food, tea on desk while I do this”. Sometimes there are factors. The kids, the family etc. But somehow people can make time unless they are working 22 hours straight, but then they’re just screwed.

Right, pep talk over. I’m off to watch TV. Cup of tea?