Brian’s working on two awesome posts, including a very cool follow-up to Scala is Not a Functional Programming Language. Awesome takes time, though, so they’re not ready to go yet.
I’m working on my book for Manning (which I talked about here) and the second part of my logging article for GroovyMag (which I talked about here). And, of course, I’m Twittering like a fiend and working for a client ramping up to production. And I’m also looking into the possibility of doing a “Durham Locavore” podcast on local food and business in the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area, and pinging Durham Central Market (DCM) to see if someone over there would be interested in joining me. Oh, and continuing to develop my ever-growing real estate empire (currently at 1 townhouse).
But I don’t want EnfranchisedMind to get lost in all of this, and I have also been tapped to generate an article for NFJS Magazine in September. So, the question is: what are people interested in hearing out of me?
10 Comments
I bought GORM + GSQL thinking that it would at least touch on the DB plugins to ease migration such as Autobase and Liquibase. Are there any plans to pass on the lessons from developing these plugins and best practices for this type of data migrations? It would be awesome if this could be touched on more.
@Tomas
Actually thinking about doing a book on that once my Polyglot Programming book is odne.
More Autobase love in general though. Gotcha.
Drat. You mean now I’ve got to aim for awesome? Usually, I hope for minimally readable. And then make bets with myself which off-hand comment will start the flamewar…
@Brian
Yeah: the really great flame wars are the ones that are about one off-handed.
Which Congress apparently has figured out, judging from this “Wise Latina Woman” stuff.
On that topic, this is awesome (as long as you realize it’s a joke):
“what are people interested in hearing out of me?”
When do you sleep? No, seriously. :)
@Marc
Okay, seriously: I sleep starting sometime between midnight and two and wake up at eight. So I get from six to eight hours of sleep, depending.
Now and again, I’ll do a lazy Saturday morning (like I did this morning) and sleep in until noon. But I also didn’t go to bed until three—although most of that was catching up on Colbert Report, Daily Show, and NCIS while futzing on Facebook.
I’ve thought about doing polyphasic sleep, but everything I’ve read says that you have to have a lot of strict discipline and fight though six weeks to three months of misery to get to the point where your body is reset to the new normal. And even that “new normal” is only normal for your body—you’re still a bit off compared to the rest of the waking world. So I’m not sure it’s worth it. Maybe I’ll give it a shot when I’m in my doctoral program or doing the chaplaincy or something.
To answer the implied larger question “How do you fit everything you’re doing into your day?” The answer is: long days. I normally wake up, set coffee to brew, take the dog out so it can go to the bathroom, and then sit down with a cup of joe and my computer. I then don’t leave that seat until 9 or 10 at night, with the exception of a brief break to take the dog for a longer walk (~1 hr). The only exception to this routine is on Sundays (when I declare it Sabbath and don’t let myself anywhere near my computer) and sometimes on Saturdays (when I play catch-up on house chores and now-and-again see friends).
And right now, I’m actually in a position now where I have too much to do: my book is behind schedule, and I’ve not moved forward with either the Nonviolent Peaceforce or Freemasonry stuff I wanted to get to this summer. And I’ve also neglected those Grails plugins which haven’t been directly applicable to my work (most notably Autobase), as well as Ashlar (nee Cornerstone). And I’d like to work out more regularly (it was part of my regular schedule earlier this summer, but fell out when things got busy). Not getting to that stuff bums me out1.
1 Except for not getting around to Ashlar. Although I’d love to have it out there already, I’ve been reading lots of interesting papers and working with lots of interesting alternatives, and I think Ashlar is going to be a better language for it in the long run. In particular, I’m thinking I might do it as a statically typed functional language with an ML feel but a C-derived syntax, and with a prototype-based, structurally-typed object system (for those that really need OO) instead of trying to hack around with nominal typing and inheritance and mixins and all that jazz.
Plus you have a Strange Loop talk to submit this week, hint hint… :)
I find getting up at the same time every day is a big help for me too. Of course, having kids I have no control over that anyways. :)
@Alex
Actually working on that right now.
Another edition to Grails Persistence, which I guess I’ve already mentioned to you elsewhere.
I’m also interested in using the GORM-JPA plugin because a project at work looks like it will be largely EJB3 and I want to be sure Grails can be a player.
…So I’m interested in how to make Grails play nicely with JPA + EJB3.
…and yes, Autobase, please.
@Ed
I’m probably not going to do another edition of Grails Persistence. What I may do (after the polyglot programming book is done) is crank out a regularly-updated guide to Grails persistence: basically all the tips and tricks I encounter written up in LaTeX with a local build system, and probably published via Lulu or something like that. But even that’s going to have to wait for a while.
I know little to nothing about Grails + JPA/EJB3, so I’m not sure how much help I can be there. :P
And at this point, Autobase needs funding: I just don’t have time to work on things outside of my paid gigs, books, and grad school. Since the books and grad school aren’t going away any time soon, that means Autobase nees to chew some space out of the paid gigs. So, in short, the Grails community needs to put its money where its mouth is: I’ve burnt too much free time already and don’t have free time to burn on it anymore.
To get Autobase moving forward, though, I’ve had a few thoughts:
Option one would be direct funding of my Autobase development work. Suffice to say, that hasn’t happened, and I don’t think it’s likely in this market. I’d love to be proven wrong, though.
Option two is finding some clients for my Grails Retainer services. I see this as more promising than any alternatives.
Option three is crowd-sourcing Autobase development, which I’ve been considering trying to organize: Marc Palmer and I were actually discussing this. (We also had a talk about a Grails Plugin Developer’s Union, but that’s neither here nor there.) I don’t have a lot of hope for crowd-sourcing Autobase development actually working—I’m not sure I believe the Grails community will shell out $6k for a more full-featured Autobase.