And now we wait for the first reports of production services that were shutdown due to spending limits :)
431 karma · joined July 22, 2015
Have you ever used CloudFormation?
Mentally I feel like I'm in the stage of curiosity right now, where I simply want to get a feel for the instrument and see whether or not it sticks. I know the genres and styles that inspire me though, and I try not to think about the vast gap between my current abilities and even basic fluency on the instrument (adult self-consciousness).
With piano I played and picked things up myself for quite a long time, such that I now wish I'd realised my interests were serious sooner than I did. With guitar I'm hoping that I work out if it's something I want to continue much sooner, so I don't waste as much time ;)
I certainly don't feel too frustrated at the moment, but I wouldn't mind if the keyboard fluency I've acquired over the years made a difference on the fretboard instead of the whole thing feeling completely unnatural ;)
As a child we typically do things just because we enjoy them, and often don't have an idea of a goal or target, other than simply doing the thing because we find it intrinsically fun. As an adult however we become highly analytic, self-reflective and critical of both ourselves and others, and we start to do things with a consciousness and awareness of others.
Additionally, by the time you reach adulthood there's a high chance that there's a thing that you've done enough to be in a fairly experienced position with, so anything new undertaken as an adult will now be judged in terms of the things you can already do, which means it will feel difficult and you'll believe that you suck at it. Which you do, because you're a beginner, and that's normal and is precisely what it means to be taking up something new!
While trying to play the piano as a child I had no thoughts of achieving a goal or getting to a specific level, and I certainly didn't compare myself to others. I just did it because it was fun. By the time I was more conscious of enjoying it and knew that I wanted to learn more seriously I'd already acquired a basic level of keyboard fluency.
So, having bought a guitar a few weeks ago and finding that all of a sudden trying to acquire a new physical skill is actually difficult (particularly important to remember as a developer where often what we're learning is a variation on an existing technique), I keep having to remind myself that it only feels difficult because it's new, and it would feel just as difficult if I were starting from a younger age, except I just wouldn't be so darn self-conscious about it.
Intuitively I'd assume that the context and information in working memory is precisely what enables one to do "deep work". Constantly requiring you to rebuild your in-memory cache feels like it would lead to sub-standard work.
I don't consider it a bible of CS, but it's one of the most playful, imaginative and, essentially, fun, introductory programming books that I've read.
The analogy of the truthiness of a value as an energy or life force that flows through your program, or Ruby's ranges depicted as accordions, are just some examples of the book's approach to visualising some of the aspects of programming that seem so rote after you've used them for a while.
How useful it is to someone learning to program is questionable, as the book's style might get in the way of teaching fundamentals, but it's certainly fun to read as an experienced programmer (imho, of course).
In terms of barrier-to-entry, I'd agree. There's a greater requirement for dexterity in the left hand (assuming traditional layout) to get a good, consistent tone from the instrument, and much more "up front" difficulty in learning.
As experience grows, however, piano opens up a wealth of incredibly challenging literature, for example Bach's Overture in the French Style, Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit, and Balakirev's Islamey.
So the "progression curves" of the two instruments, for want of a better phrase, are very different, and certainly look like they favour piano for ease-of-entry.
In what sense? Usefulness to society? Comfort? Pay? I'd argue that the janitors and garbagemen are doing much more of a public good than the proportion of software "engineering" that goes into a social media application, despite any technical smartness behind it.
The actual company feels more on the other side of the spectrum, and has a fairly 'young' culture, along with an overwhelming amount of 'social coding', for want of a better phrase, including various guilds for different technologies, tech meetings, demos, meetups, ad nauseum.
I feel pretty out of place, but I can't help feeling like I just can't cope with this much day-to-day interaction. I just want something quieter, more low key, if that makes sense?
When I picture someone with a strong background in programming and CS going into another field I always imagine there's a lot of potential for really understanding problems in that field and applying computing to solve them. Essentially, using computing to really support work in another field rather than just computing for it's own sake.
Of course, in this case we're trying to protect people from themselves rather than the outside world, but still...
I enjoy coding and understanding how computer systems work, but I don't care for the constant changes in tools and techniques in certain domains of development. I'd rather practise with and improve my existing knowledge of a subject, instead of constantly playing catch-up with someone else's tools and workflow. I also don't care about waterfall, agile, scrum, kanban, scrumban or any other development methodology that I've missed. I hate that my job has me chained to a desk (sitting or standing) instead of being able to use my body. All of this makes me think that real-world software development doesn't really suit me.
I'm about six weeks into a new job after leaving a company I worked at for just over five years. Amongst many other reasons for leaving, I thought that a new environment would change how I felt about continuing a career in software development, but I'm not sure that it has. I'm aware of how lucky programmers have it, but I can't help feeling like I just want something else. Grass is always greener, etc.
What are the career options that allow one to work mostly by oneself in one-to-two week stretches without having to play the development workflow game with the daily standups and so on?
Sadly I'm not sure what I'd do if not programming, but music is a big interest and I'd considered teaching music.
tl;dr Woe is me ;)
Another question is whether or not the length of a trailing line is absolute or relative to the bar itself.
On the subject of filled notes, Hummingbird is also conveying a lot of information that for performance of a score is useless. Note letters (A-G) aren't actually important for performance, only the action or position that they map to for each instrument. No musician parses a score and translates each note to a letter and then each letter to an action, instead going directly from note to action.
Essentially, telling you the note letter with a glyph shape on top of the position on the stave is adding noise to the signal.
I'll admit I'm coming at it from a position where I'm perfectly comfortable with traditional notation, so part of the reason that it appears difficult is simply because it's unfamiliar, however the terseness of traditional notation and ability to read in one "parse" without forward- and back-skipping seems to give it the advantage.
That and over 300 years of existing music, too ;)