This is a video of porn casting couch auditions. No, actually, it's not.
What it is, is one of the funniest things I've seen in a very long time.
I stumbled across it on reddit this morning, and laughed myself silly. See for yourself.
I've been a programmer for a long time. I had a long career working as a Lotus Notes developer (over a decade!) during which I got really damn good at it. I made Notes do things it's just not supposed to do. During that time, when I'd run into some new bug or programming challenge, I'd often quip to my boss/client/aardvark/whatever, "No software problem denies me for too long."
Many years ago I first got exposed to working in Java, and got excited by it, but didn't really get the chance to dig in and do stuff with it. Then about four years ago, I made the transition to really work in it, as well as serious web development using Groovy/Grails, javascript, jQuery, and a host of other technologies.
I was excited, but often hesitant, unsure of how to do some things. There's a really big difference between working in a walled garden like Notes, and something as wide open as enterprise web development. It's a vast ocean of technology and technique.
But lately I'm feeling that same sense of being undeniable again. I had this challenging user interface task at my day job recently, to create a UI that showed in the front, progress of a job running in a task on the server, in the back. I knew what I was after, but not exactly how to get there.
I dug in.
First I recalled some javascript commands I knew loosely (specifically setInterval and clearInterval) and looked them up online, to know them better. Then I tinkered, creating AJAX calls, checking the js console, hitting some stumbling blocks, and working my way past them. I consulted with Spacey, bouncing ideas off him, asking his expertise too. Part of being a good developer is leveraging your resources, and that includes seeking advice.
Late yesterday, I got it. I've still got some testing to do today, with a bigger set of data, but it's looking good. At a certain point I sat at my desk, running my test code over and over, and feeling really damn good about myself.
For the first time in a while, I said it out loud, again.
"No software problem denies me for too long."
I knew it was true.
Poetic license that is.
I had a really good day yesterday. I was up on hours, meaning a short day at work. I was making great strides on a tech thing I was working on, making the day move along nicely.
It was pleasantly warm out, instead of the searing, punishing heat we have been having all summer.
Everything was perfect.
And I was chatting with my girlfriend about it, and some spontaneous poetry broke out.
Me: I'm sitting outside having just eaten lunch out here.
Squee: What was lunch? How's outside? in 5 words each
Me: Swai, roast potatoes and veggies. A quiet bench, shady trees
Squee: so lovely and effectively communicated
Sometimes, life is just perfect.
Yesterday I spent the majority of my day figuring out how to do something I didn't know.
I had help. Lots of help.
It was just a little thing, how to set a timer in JavaScript and then use it to do something important in a project I'm working on.
When I first got going with it, I really overthought the problem, and was going to do this really heavy handed thing to solve it. Then I reached out to a co-worker who gave me some ideas, and I followed them.
I had some good success doing so. Then I chased down more resources about other ways to solve my issue. There was a lot of good material out there, which is awesome.
Probably the biggest thing that proved helpful to me was letting go of my fear about not knowing the answer.
After I finished my work day I did something similar by making a new recipe I had never tried before either (salmon and potato foil packets on the grill), which came out pretty good, but could use some tweaking the next time I make them.
It's exactly that attitude that was the key to my getting anything done the whole day: it's okay not to know everything.
Yesterday morning, Valentalae climbed into bed with Missy and I, and I read her a story called The Grammarian's Five Daughters.
It was a story she suggested to me. And it's a damn fine story, for children of any age. I'm not going to tell you what it's about, but I will say that it concerns itself with the following things:
- Strong female characters
- Inclusive and realistic portrayal of LGBT characters
- Polyamory
- The magical power of having good grammar
Yep, good grammar.
Go read it, see for yourself.