Pragmatic bullshit

Someone took exception to me saying:

“I have yet to read a good “Pragmatic Programmer Series” book.”

…with the lines:

“I think that’s a bit of a hard knock of the Pragmatic Bookshelf. I’ve had a number of books which I’ve really enjoyed from them; The Pragmatic Programmer and Practices of an Agile Developer spring to mind.”

Hehe, he caught me! Oh, I didn’t lie—I just never actually finished a single one of their books. 😉 I started reading the Pickaxe book and The Pragmatic Programmer mentioned, but I put them down in disgust.

The book that started it all

This book is the book that launched a thousand crappy books.

[But that won’t stop me from peeing on your programming religion after the jump.]Continue reading

I found a use for Ruby

…a place to send all the people who washed out coding PHP.

Commentary on Rails for PHP Developers

I haven’t read this book so I can’t comment, however, I have yet to read a good “Pragmatic Programmer Series” book. The one all the Rails developers jizz over, is so poorly written and full of errors, I am beside myself.

Please buy this book.

Not to emphasize the obvious, but if you can’t build a website in PHP, you must really, really suck. Be sure to shave your head and buy a MacBook on your way down the your path of enlightenment.

Don’t miss my book: Delphi for Rails Developers, you’ll be needing it next year. 😉

Requiem for the Republican Party

Last week, the politics of fear ended:

“Because I care so deeply about protecting our country, I take strong offense to your suggestion in recent days that the country will be vulnerable to terrorist attack unless Congress immediately enacts legislation giving you broader powers to conduct warrantless surveillance of Americans’ communications and provides legal immunity for telecommunications companies that participated in the Administration’s warrantless surveillance program.

“If our nation is left vulnerable in the coming months, it will not be because we don’t have enough domestic spying powers. It will be because your Administration has not done enough to defeat terrorist organizations — including al Qaeda — that have gained strength since 9/11.

“I, for one, do not intend to back down – not to the terrorists and not to anyone, including a President, who wants Americans to cower in fear.

“We are a strong nation. We cannot allow ourselves to be scared into suspending the Constitution. If we do that, we might as well call the terrorists and tell them that they have won.”
—U.S. Representative Silvestre Reyes, “Letter to President Bush regarding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act,” February 14, 2008

[A requiem after the jump.]Continue reading

Why Red States vote red

“Could we possibly have a nominee who hasn’t won any of the significant states — outside of Illinois? That raises some serious questions about Sen. Obama.”
—Mark Penn, Chief Strategist for the Clinton campaign

By my count, if you are from Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, Utah, Virginia, or the District of Columbia, the Democratic Party establishment thinks you’re insignificant.

Clearly the party is powered by idiots. These guys have won majority of the popular vote only once in the last 27 years! Triangulation my ass.

I’m so glad idiots like these will have been the first ones against the wall when the revolution came.

Parting Shot.

Triumphs of the Human Spirit

Blurb is hosting Lunch 2.0 today on Valentine’s Day!

Reading people’s twitter’s I think

Am I the only single person who loves Valentine’s day?

Oh the gifts, flowers, chocolates, singing telegram, and the the restaurant dinner reservation! I love watching the public trauma this day brings to two people in love. Sometimes it is like a romance sped up. Other times it is a romantic comedy in miniature, but mostly it is a complete disaster—still memorable in a “visit the inlaws” sort of way.

To that last one, I remember how my friend Jay broke up with his girlfriend by taking her to McDonald’s for Valentine’s—given how I love fast food, this would probably be my ideal date. 😀

I thank that I never have had to privately experience that public trauma. Historo-mathematically, it should have happened—I know that I’ve been in a relationship during some February 14th of the past, but somehow I’ve been spared any compulsion to participate.

Instead, I normally celebrate it by spamming friends and family with an e-card.

Not this year.

[Triumphs of the Human Spirit]Continue reading

PENIS certificate

Received an e-mail today advertising a great example of three rights making a wrong:

Recipe for disaster

Ingredients:

Instructions:

  1. Combine all ingredients.
  2. Spinkle terminology liberally.
  3. Charge $1600.
O'Reilly  PHP/SQL Programming Certificate Series

Not sure what to think about this, but I’m starting to wish I got rejected from graduate school. When people start charging for what experts in the field do for free, the experts need to sell out.

Time to sell out. 🙂

Geek. Set. Match…

Just now, Mager messaged me:

“I am excited for Lunch two dot oh—I don’t say “point-oh” anymore.

Flashback.

In the summer of 1992, a friend was reading me a geek purity test he got from USENET.

One of the questions was:

Do you pronounce “*.*” as “star-dot-star?”

Of course, since he was reading it aloud, I heard:

Do you pronounce star-dot-star as star-dot-star?

Needless to say, I was quite confused. 😀

[More geek after the jump]Continue reading

Twat

At dinner with Morgan the other day, someone pointed out the past participle of “to twitter” should be “twat,” or perhaps “twatted.” As in, “That’s what she twatted.” Or, “I twat that.”

twat

In twitter-speak, OH means “overheard” which is a polite way of saying, “I don’t want to embarrass the person we all can guess must have said this. *wink* *wink*”

In an early draft an article, I tried the word out. But I ended up editing it—it felt uncomfortable writing about someone’s “twat.”