pancake theorem a tech/life blog

Monthly Archives for October 2012

Regular Folks Coding – IS THIS OKAY OR DO WE DEVELOPERS NEED TO END THIS MADNESS NOW? 10.25.2012

A pal was recently complaining to me about how people trivialize the work that goes into “learning how to code.” Basically, he was noob-ranting. Unlike him, I think learning to code is different from learning how to be a programmer. I see “coding” and assume the lack of theory, kind of like how “typing” has nothing to do with vocabulary and, proper, comma, us,a,ge.,,,,,,

Learning to code is now sexy – even to “regular people” – and I think this is awesome. I think everyone should learn how to code, just like everyone who studied English probably wants folks to know how to read and write well, or designers who think we should all know what fonts and color schemes to stay away from. Yes, that statement was partially tongue-in-cheek, but I do think that any exposure that Computer Science can get is a good thing. If more people try to learn to code and end up becoming passionate enough about it to change careers or majors and pursue fields in or related to software engineering, then fantastic!

Really, though, coding is not this ~*mystical voodoo*~ that emanates from us wizarding developers’ fingers, like animal-balloon-making or baking. It’s a skill; if you want to do it, learn it. It’s certainly not easy, but it can be extremely fun and rewarding. Like hitting piñatas at a birthday party.

Yeah, just like piñatas.

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Open Source and getting bored of WordPress 10.16.2012

I’ve been using WordPress for many years since b2 (sort of) died. I liked blogging my photographs during my early years in college, and I also liked having the ability to work with the source code and create templates. I attribute a lot of my web development knowledge and financial success with WordPress. For a handful of personal reasons, the community has left a lot to be desired.

I’ve been to many WordCamps and have only made one really good friend through it. I could probably do a better job at trying to contribute, but the atmosphere doesn’t seem as friendly as other development communities I’ve lurked around. I’m also starting to get bored with the software. It seems to me that they are focusing too much on making it Tumblr-like, and the user experience seems to be getting worse with time – the evidence for me being the exponential increase in the difficulty of explaining to new clients how to use WordPress.

At Grace Hopper, I sat in a great open source development session, looking for inspiration for projects to get involved in. One of the panelists, the fantastic Danese Cooper, is on Drupal’s Board of Directors, and the way she presented herself was inspiring to me. I really like developing open source software, but I really want to be part of a strong, diverse community. She made it seem like Drupal was worth a shot, so I think I’m going to give it a try.

I’m not going to stop using WordPress or stop trying to stay involved in the community – although I will not be going to WordCamp Philly this weekend (partly because of my boredom, and partly because my mouth is dying). This just means that I want to diversify my platform skills and will most likely write more about those new skills in the near future. I’M JUST WARNIN’ YA.

I’d also like to point out how the folks from the Wikimedia Foundation were some of the coolest open source proponents ever. I got a lot of great contacts and inspiration to involve open source development and learning with my students’ curriculum at MSU. It was the highlight of this year’s GHC for sure.

Are you involved in any cool open source projects? Let me know as I’m shopping around for cool new things to focus on!

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Coding on Codone 10.15.2012

This past Thursday (about 4 days ago), I had all four of my wisdom teeth extracted. To get a good idea of how fun the procedure and recovery was, take a look at this x-ray of the bottom two buggers:

The one on the left, still under bone and perpendicular to the rest of my teeth – that one made the whole ordeal particularly fun. Intelligently (and that’s not sarcastic), I took the option of being put to sleep during the whole thing. I wish I could sleep through the recovery, though.

Not happy the day after the procedure.

I’m trying to get through the day without pain killers, which was actually possible until the rest of my teeth discovered the new real estate and are now all loose and achy as they find their new homes. I also have stitches where the bottom teeth were (the top ones were not impacted and easy to get out, from what I’ve heard).

Still a bit swollen, some bruising starting to show, but alive and well at work!

I’m back at work today and to say the pain is a distraction is quite an understatement; fortunately I can make the students do all the talking and use the IM part of Skype to communicate. I’m interested to see how the code I’ve written in the last couple of days looks in terms of documentation – from what my friend Mikeman’s told me, I’ve been a bit loopy ever since the “big pull.”

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Baltimore, a trip in photos 10.03.2012

Yesterday, Allison, Margie, and I arrived in Baltimore, Maryland, via Bolt Bus from NYC (holy comma party). After four hours of sitting on my butt and listening to 90s alternative rock, we landed in our hotel room that faces the Orioles’ stadium. Then we found a stadium bar and I ate crab cakes for the first time in, like, 7 years.

Here are some photos of us crazy grrrls during our journey.

Today is day one of GHC, and I’m going to head back down for some dinner and poster sessions.

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An Hiatus, An Outing, An Haunting 10.01.2012

I think I’m done with this blogging hiatus that I took unexpectedly because I’m a bad blogger and sometimes I would rather eat scones and pizza instead of writing about all the fantastic things I’ve been up to [run on sentences wowowow]. It’s a process, but I’m back so WATCH OUT.

~*RIP JENN’S BLOGGING HIATUS*~

Tomorrow I head out to Baltimore, Maryland, for the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. It’s been a few years since I’ve been to GHC, so I’m excited to come back, meet new people, and hopefully see some old friends. There’s really nothing quite like being around a large group of amazing women interested and working in technology. It’s fucking electric. Please say hi if you see me! I will also be spending time with the Dorans and that will be the be$t.

There were no hauntings that I know of, fortunately. Here is a photo of my mortal enemy and I, dueling to the death, though:

Okay, now I have to start packing, bye!

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