Random Thoughts

I haven't been doing too much development as I wait (and wait and wait) for our acceptance testing to complete. Here's a quick rundown of what I've been thinking about while waiting for that to complete....
  • I've been reading and participating in some of the discussions on StackOverflow. It's a great way to get a pulse on what others are thinking about and working on. I've also been able to pick up some things I never knew existed before. I've taken part in other question and answer type sites before and I had my doubts how helpful this would really be... I've been pleasantly surprised.
  • I listened to these great podcasts on alternative energy. Grass as fuel?? Pretty cool. I've been thinking about maybe getting some solar panels for my house. I would never have thought that the Northeast would be a good place for these until I saw a cool episode of Nova sometime back where someone in Mass. had some installed on their house. Now maybe I'll also look into one of these pellet furnaces.
  • Software Engineering Radio always covers great topics that I wouldn't otherwise have time to look into (AOP, Functional Programming, etc.). One of their more recent episodes covered the topic of Roles in Software Engineering. One of the skills they identified for a good Technical Lead (Architect) is the ability to identify the simplicity in complexity. Amen. For me, there is no greater complement someone can give to my work than to say how simple a solution looks. It takes more effort and skill than many people realize to achieve this.
  • I've been thinking more and more about what I would view as an ideal development environment. More on this in a future post...

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