Fugu Talk

So I’m browsing back through Christer Ericson’s blog and see his article Design Patterns are from Hell, in which he states that the original/classic Design Patterns book from The Gang of Four is “one of the worst programming books ever”. It wouldn’t make my list (Beyond Java was pretty bad), but it’s nice to hear someone else say it’s not the greatest thing since sliced bread. I’ve complained about design patterns to a few (tolerantly-amused) coworkers, and touched on it in an old anti-Agile essay, but I didn’t want to digress into an unfocused grumpy old programmer mode.

I didn’t learn about design patterns until relatively late, near the end of the 90′s, but that’s probably because I started programming before 1990 and I started my career in Lisp. In my experience, you never see Lisp programmers hanging around talking about design patterns – they’re usually talking about something much more interesting. And, per Peter Norvig’s argument, design patterns don’t seem all that important when you’re programming in Lisp. If you need to apply a function through a list or tree, it’s a natural feature of the language – you don’t need to announce “I think I will apply a Visitor pattern”.

I first heard about design patterns when a new hire in my group asked me if he could expense the design patterns book, which had been taught in his college. Since I’d never heard about it, I said no, but when he purchased it on his own and I leafed through it, I regretted my rejection – the book didn’t bring any epiphanies, but it’s nice to recognize all these techniques you’ve been using with names attached. And it turned out, I had heard of design patterns before – while taking breaks in the library of the Space Telescope Science Institute, reading Richard Gabriel‘s columns in the Journal of Object Oriented Programming on applying pattern languages to software, inspired by architect Christopher Alexander‘s attempt to create pattern languages for urban planning. (next time you get an interview quiz on design patterns, ask your questioner about the relationship to Alexander’s work and to what extent Alexander’s design patterns are considered successful – so there!)

Design patterns started to seem important after I switched to Java – the libraries just ooze design patterns, and you’re going to learn them names whether you want to or not (Factory, anyone?) But at least the Java API’s are well designed (the greatest appeal of Java for me) Since then, design patterns have come up only in annoying situations, for example:

• A VP of Engineering vigorously trying to convince I should have used the Flyweight pattern in one of my programs. It turns out I was using the flyweight pattern – I just didn’t know it was now a pattern and had that name, and even though I explained how my program worked, since I didn’t say “flyweight” he felt I was missing the boat.
• A review of a coworker’s fix to my code – he delightedly said “Ah, that’s a singleton!”, and proceeded to apply the fix clearly without understanding the code (there were multiple instances of the same code that each needed the fix – ironically, he missed that “pattern”)
• A coworker who called everything he did twice a pattern, even when it was terrible. Especially when it was terrible. With some exaggeration, it would be as if I deliberately had divide-by-zeros everywhere and called it a pattern, thereby justifying it as worthy code.

The same goes for refactoring – heard about, eventually read the classic book (Martin Fowler), seemed somewhat interesting, useful insofar as support by tools like Eclipse, but now after listening to people talk about how they’re going to refactor today, when it should be a natural, ongoing, and unannounced part of programming (how would it go over in a scrum meeting if I said, “I’m going to type, today, maybe spend one hour backspacing, two man hours recompiling…”) – enough already!

When I worked on an Internet gateway for a startup named Neomar at the end of the dot-com boom, I made the mistake of writing an HTTP implementation from scratch. It’s a good way to learn the nitty-gritty of HTTP, but in retrospect, it would have made sense to use some an already-mature HTTP library.

Recently, I had some more HTTP work come my way, and this time I looked at Wininet, which comes native with Windows, and libcurl, a popular cross-platform library.

Wininet of course has the advantage of being already there, but it has the painful inelegance typical of Microsoft API’s (at least up til .NET) Take this example from the Microsoft Knowledge base of how to create a POST request:

static TCHAR hdrs[] = _T("Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded");
static TCHAR frmdata[] = _T("name=John+Doe&userid=hithere&other=P%26Q");
static LPSTR accept[2]={"*/*", NULL};

// for clarity, error-checking has been removed
HINTERNET hSession = InternetOpen("MyAgent",INTERNET_OPEN_TYPE_PRECONFIG, NULL, NULL, 0);
HINTERNET hConnect = InternetConnect(hSession, _T("ServerNameHere"),INTERNET_DEFAULT_HTTP_PORT, NULL, NULL, INTERNET_SERVICE_HTTP, 0, 1);
HINTERNET hRequest = HttpOpenRequest(hConnect, "POST",_T("FormActionHere"), NULL, NULL, accept, 0, 1);
HttpSendRequest(hRequest, hdrs, strlen(hdrs), frmdata, strlen(frmdata));
// close any valid internet-handles

Compare with a POST example from the libcurl tutorial:

curl_easy_setopt(easyhandle, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, data)
curl_easy_setopt(easyhandle, CURLOPT_URL, "http://posthere.com/");
char *data="name=daniel&project=curl";
curl_easy_perform(easyhandle); /* post away! */

The libcurl example is missing a couple of function calls to be complete – one to initialize libcurl, and one to clean it up. On the other hand, the wininet example is missing a few cleanup calls (one for each of the three HINTERNET handles created), and, a bigger pain, it doesn’t take a URL – you would have to call InternetCrackURL and allocate a structure that receives the URL components, then use those components in the example calls.

I’ve just started on this project, but I’m ready to declare winner.

TripAdvisor makes it easy to embed a places-I’ve-been map in a web page:

1. Portland, OR, USA
2. Kailua-Kona, HI, USA
3. Tokyo, Japan
4. Carmel, CA, USA
5. Belmont Shore, CA, USA
6. Dana Point, CA, USA
7. La Jolla, CA, USA

• View my profile
• Create your own travel map or travel blog
• Visit TripAdvisor.com

As you can see from the map, I’ve gotta get out of the country more (at least to Mexico). The map is “Powered by Google” so you could of course just use Google Maps directly, but if you’re a TripAdvisor reviewer, this map will link to your profile and contributions.

I haven’t tried review-writing, but it seems TripAdvisor is the go-to site for travel reviews (my trip-preparation google searches always end up there). The Terms of Use reserve the right to edit your review, and the wording isn’t very clear (compared to Epinions) on whether you retain ownership (but the implication is that you do). On the other hand, it doesn’t seem to include an indemnification clause, which is a refreshing change.

Just got back from my first Comic-Con. Although there’s a huge and packed exhibit hall (even for the one Thursday I was there, which I assume is the least busy day), it doesn’t feel like a commercial show – it’s all about the fans. In a typical trade show, even E3 and the Tokyo Game Show, three hours and I’ve had enough. I managed to kill eight hours at Comic-Con and could have hung around longer (presentations and films continue until midnight), but the sun was going down and I was wearing shades.

I started off by walking through the exhibit hall, went to the new Battlestar Galactica panel moderated by Richard Hatch, caught the end of a presentation by Will Wright (on his new game Spore, but he was showing slides of Werner Von Braun when I walked in), saw a cast member of Heroes surrounded by a small mob, walked through the exhibits again, loitering mostly around the artists autograph tables, went back upstairs and caught a couple of anime shows, watched a few screenings of indie short films with Q&A of the filmmakers, walked through the autograph signing booths and got an autograph (and friendly chat) from Lt. Boomer of the original BSG, back down to the exhibit hall, started to leave as it got increasingly crowded, decided to go back for another pass, realized I missed a whole section, bought a Storm Bringers comic, started to leave again, came back for another pass, realized there was still at least a third of the exhibit I hadn’t seen, bought three books from Design Studio Press, saw Robert Culp in animated discussion with a fan, chatted at various booths for the indie game Cyborg Mice, the geek-themed social network MyNerdGirl and some self-published comic book authors, got farther out the door but decided to step in the last hall I hadn’t visited and caught the end of a Q&A with Jeremy Piven and other cast of the movie Rock and Roll, was rewarded for staying that long with a ticket stub and spent another half hour waiting to pick up the free t-shirt. A great deal for $25.

For those game programmers who actually want to make money in the field, there’s a nice article from Christer Ericson.

The post includes an Excel file of the data, but here’s the posted version that gives you an idea who to shoot for and who to avoid. I’ve worked for a few of these companies, on the low end and in the high end, and it does accord with my experience.

I’ve been meaning to remark on a couple of web sites, but the oddities I saw a few weeks ago are gone:

• LegalZoom – I visited this site for low-cost legal services after repeatedly seeing ads on CNBC featuring founder Robert Shapiro, of O.J. trial fame. Strangely, the site had a page of endorsements solely from Fox News talk show hosts (does Bill O’Reilly really need cheap legal advice?). That page is entirely gone, now.
• MoveOn – I vaguely recall seeing somewhat obnoxious political ads from them in past elections and indignant Republican responses (but nothing lately, are they getting less attention?), but only recently visited their web site. The top campaign asked visitors to express their outrage at Wesley Clark’s comment about McCain being taken out of context. Right below that, a list of Top Ten Things You Should Know About McCain, with a bunch of snippets taken out of context (what did you expect, top ten expansive essays?) Stuff like, did you know John McCain is one of the richest members of Congress? (Who cares? What’s the cutoff – Clinton-rich is OK, but McCain rich is too rich?) Top ten lists are great for talk-show comedy bits and, well, blogs (try googling “McCain top ten”), but not so great for political discourse. The list is still there, but the Clark campaign is now gone – can’t even find it in their campaign archives.

This leads me to a few conclusions:

1. When I see something that looks ridiculous on a web site, it seems I’m not the only one.
2. If I want to blog about it, I’ve gotta move faster.
3. There’s plenty of regular revision work out there for web designers.

After watching my health insurance premiums increase five-fold over the last six years, without every incurring expenses beyond my deductible, I finally got around to switching from Healthnet to another provider.

Besides getting my premiums back down, I wanted a plan that was HSA-compatible. But applying for new health insurance is a pain, even on ehealthinsurance, so I wouldn’t have bothered if I didn’t still have a grudge against Healthnet from a few years ago, when they cashed my premium check, told me they hadn’t received it, and then cancelled my policy. And then since I’d shown high cholesterol from a recent doctor’s visit, I had trouble finding new coverage (Blue Cross sent me a rejection letter that said I was welcome to apply to one of their “high risk” programs)

Contrary to the standard riff that health coverage would work better if government got out of the way of private insurers, the State of California came to my rescue. Following the instruction in my Healthnet manual, I sent a complaint to the California Department of Managed Health Care, which within a few days replied that they only handle HMO’s and not my PPO plan, but they did examine my complaint and agree it appeared valid, so they forwarded it to the appropriate agency, the California Department of Insurance, which also promptly replied saying they sent Healthnet an inquiry.

Shortly after, I received a letter from the Healthnet legal office explaining that the policy number I’d written on my check had been “illegible” so they’d deposited it in another account (apparently the account where they cash any checks they can’t identify, that’s what “illegible” means, right? – I suppose it was too much trouble to check the name and address on the envelope?).

Their not-so-subtle attempt to blame me was undermined by typing the wrong name on the letter. In contrast, the case officer from the Department of Insurance sent me a letter some months later apologizing for not following up sooner with details of the reply from Healthnet.