There’s a very serious risk of me disappearing into my work, if I’m not careful. After a seven year wait (longer, if you count the suppressed yearnings going back to ‘93), I’m finally doing what I want to do. And it’s amazing. But there’s always the danger of it taking over my life.

I don’t even think I can bring myself to openly describe the sensation of sinking into that part of my mind that designs and writes software. It is not the same as the part that writes English, although they share some support mechanics of structuring and process. Code is more visceral. The data exists and can be described directly. It would be as if English words were themselves real and yet indestructible in their meaning, rather than just representations of other things, fleeting things. Code is crystalline, especially when it’s good.

Programming is a blend of natural language and mathematical notation. Mathematics is all structure; timeless and enduring. Nothing in the world of mathematics changes; all is eternal. The appearance of change is an illusion brought about by the change of viewpoint of the observer, the mathematician. Mathematics is a language of relationships; once they are formed, they are unbreakable. Code is not like that; the relationships mutate and change, although the components are fixed, at least moment to moment. Time is essential in computer programming. Static data is worthless data. It’s the transformation that matters.

A large part of that transformation is the initial capturing of knowledge and raw data from the world, and this is done, respectively, by programmers and input devices (themselves designed by engineers). We must first notice what is important before we can interpret it, capture it and model it in the computer. (This is true of any theoretical system of analysis, regardless of whether it’s computerized, although they are virtually all computerized by now.)

Where the computer makes the difference over purely mental theoretical systems is the power to interpret and immediately (or at least quickly) respond to user intentions for how to transform the data and ultimately present it in a new form. Computers are not simply containers, and they cannot offer us any real insight into how to go about interpreting data. They can, however, perform the intersection between source data and our desires to rearrange the data to a new, more useful form. They convert our input into commands which control the basic operations: which ones are performed and in what order. By not only automating the task of interpreting data, but giving us handles on the elements of the processes, they give us control to change how things are changed. This leads to a state where process is data, and can itself be processed, in a recursive cycle which knows no bounds.

Two weeks on the job is not what taught me this. But finally being able to work on software first, instead of a distant second (or third), means that I can now be free to think about these things intimately, as I put them into practise every day.

In case you haven’t heard it through the grapevine, I have a new job as a programmer (although I prefer “software developer”; in the industry they often call it “software engineer”, but I think that’s pretentious) at Market Circle. I cannot talk about what I’m doing exactly, but I can say that at the moment I’m working on a part of their flagship product, Daylite.

I’m still extremely excited about it; I don’t see any reason for that to change, either. Daylite is an excellent product, and there are lots of areas it can be extended and enhanced.

Programming all day (which does not, in fact, mean writing code all day) is quite different from technical services and support, which I had been doing for the last two years. Now I have time to work on things. The problems are much more difficult to define, and they can be solved in countless varieties of ways. Trying to determine best practise is more challenging, but I can do research and planning and testing as required.

In parallel to working on my little section of functionality, I am studying their existing code base, which is large. Unfortunately I can’t really discuss that. I can say that I will want to learn more about OpenBase, and refresh and increase my SQL knowledge, although it’s unlikely I will be working on database-specific tasks anytime soon. In the short term, I’m sticking with Apple’s Cocoa technologies, although on my own time I’ll probably go back to playing with 3D graphics and OpenGL.

Don’t be a fsckhead, read this page. (Non-nerds: “fsck” means “file system check”, but it’s a great typo for “fuck”).

I got there from here, and got there from here, and got there from random googling. Bored bored bored.

Uploaded pictures from Ottawa trip with Kim, from the end of last Summer. I like Ottawa. Kim lived there for a while, so it’s not such a big deal to her, but hopefully I can go back again, soon.

Grand Canyon (plus Hoover Dam) pictures hopefully uploaded later this week. I took no pictures of Vegas. Vegas is not photogenic. It’s ugly, but not ugly enough. It’s like Disneyworld/EPCOT, but seedier. No amount of makeup can make up for degeneracy of that sort.

Version 1 was OK, but not impressive enough to buy. Version 2 is a masterpiece. I ponied up the US$29.95 a few minutes ago. The Override engine on live web sites almost makes it worth it alone. X-Ray is the secret sauce. This is the app that had to be written. If you make web sites, you need this program. If you don’t have a Mac to run it on, well, you should know how I feel about that.

Now I have the tool I needed to make creating a real design for this site a practical and enjoyable possibility.

By starting with someone else’s theme and reworking it to something more to my liking, I’ve pretty much blandified it. I’ll have to try again in future, but for now it will have to do.

Back from the depths of inner space to confound and befuddle your aching minds once again.