Parallels Between Blogging and Programming

I have been programming quite a bit lately; my Computer Science 2 class assigns an involved programming problem each week. These take several hours each. When I work on my project, I go about writing my code, and as soon as I need to reference some other piece of code, I will change gears and write at least the interface for it (i.e., the prototype). I will later go back and write the implementation of the function or class that I prototyped previously.

I find that much of the same happens when I am blogging. As I am writing, I think of other posts of mine that I would like to reference (i.e., link to). Many times, I find that I have never written such a post. While I haven't been able to link to non-existent posts, I have written down notes for myself to go back and write such posts in the future. My "about" page is one post that I made so that I would have it for future reference. My post about my Alienware notebook is one that I had tried to reference on many occasions, only to find that it didn't exist. Yesterday, I finally got around to writing the proverbial "implementation" of that which I had tried on many occasions to reference.

In writing code, there are many ways to achieve the same results, but have the code look very different. One can write two statements that are logically identical but are syntactically different. It is the same with the creative use of language; I can divide my thoughts with a semicolon, a period, or in less formal writing, (such as a blog,) with an em-dash. There are, of course, many other ways to vary the used syntax, but retain the same meaning. If one does not master this variation in the use of syntax, his writings end up being quite dull and boring, much like the first several years worth of posts on this blog.

Just as I am happy to continue learning programming syntaxes and constructs, I am interested in learning and practicing proper grammar in all areas of communication. This is the one area of "humanities" that I have ever enjoyed; I have never liked the critical analysis of literature or other such things.

Future Topics for Discussion

Over the past few days, I have been thinking about possible topics about which I could write. Then I had the crazy idea to list them here and see if anyone would comment as to which he (or she) would like to see first. I have been writing frequently so as to assist my effort of re-learning how to type (using the Dvorak keyboard) -- I won't improve without practice. With that, I give you my list of possible topics of discussion:

• Friends at RPI
• Fedora vs. Vista
• My Alienware Notebook
• Git Version Control System
• Step-by-Step Installation of Fedora 8 on a Lenovo ThinkPad T61
• Politics
• This Semester at RPI
• Only at RPI: Being at a School of Geeks

Feel free to leave comments if you care one way or another. You can even propose your own topic if you feel so inclined.

About this Blog

I started this blog back in 2003 shortly after reading How Blogs Work. I was, at the time, trying to read every article on How Stuff Works, a goal I never accomplished. I find it interesting to read back over my old posts -- they are, for the most part, short and dry, and have grammar mistakes that I would be embarrassed to make today. The most annoying of these mistakes is my improper usage of "who" when I should have used "whom."

I generally stuck to the policy of never mentioning anyone explicitly -- I will often say "the network lady," or "my best friend," avoiding names. This is an artifact of my being told (by well-meaning parents) that one should never use names on the Internet. In reading through my old posts, I found two violations of this policy.

Recently, my posts have been written as a one-sided conversation. Sometimes, there is a spoken conversation that inspires a post. However, more times than not, my inspiration to post has been my having a topic I wished to discuss, but having no one at hand who would be interested in such a topic. Sometimes, I will post specifically because it would have been helpful to me if someone else had posted on the topic. An example of this is my MATLAB R2007b on T61 with Vista.

Another thing that I have tried to do is to include helpful links in-line when appropriate (never using text similar to "click here" as the anchor). I have also encoded the expansion of any abbreviation or acronym in an <abbr> tag so that when one hovers an abbreviation with a mouse, a tool-tip shows the expanded version. Also, in all of my more recent posts, I have tried to choose a descriptive title. Sadly, I was too lazy to do this with my earliest posts. Additionally, for brevity, I will often use "he" when I speak of the third-person singular. This is what I was taught to do when I was in the third grade (which was before the modern advocacy of the more politically-correct "he or she" variation.)

In very recent years, I have tried to use proper grammar and spelling. These things are technical, and I have no excuse for getting technical things wrong, especially when I expect and want others to get them right.

This post will probably end up being my "about page" for this blog.

19th Birthday

Today was my 19th Birthday. My best friend stopped by as did my cousins. We socialized and ate cake. A few people gave me cards and gifts. I gave my aunt a tour of the house, as she hadn't seen it yet. This was unexpected, and my room was cluttered for the occasion.

Anyway, I decided to go back through my old posts in this blog and fix spelling mistakes, and add tags to some of them. I only did this for the past year. I made corrections back through the post about my 18th Birthday. I haven't yet finished adding tags yet. Many of the posts even older than that don't even have titles because I was too lazy at the time to title them.

Old URL

Good news! I managed to get back my old URL. It now redirects to the new one. Now old links will still work. I've decided to keep the blog at JamesCassell.com.

URL Change

I had been putting off the changeover to Google accounts from the old blogger accounts. Google finally made it mandatory, and in the process, I seem to have lost control of my old address, jamescassell.blogspot.com. When that address is visited, is says, "This blog is under review due to possible Blogger Terms of Service violations and is open to authors only." The only reason this concerns me is that anyone looking for this blog at that address will not find it. A while back, I said that I was transitioning to JamesCassell.com. That never quite happened, but now it has, though not by my choice. Anyway, if anyone wants to find me, they can do so at this new address.