Shiny

Un ouvrage n’est jamais achevé… mais abandonné.¹

Frequent readers will have observed that none of my projects here ever truly completes. They run a while, perhaps four articles, perhaps forty, perhaps one hundred. Then, generally without ceremony, they stop and I start writing about something else.

In my professional career, as a manager or executive, this was a drawback, because my interest in a product effort often died out during the long slog between nearly good enough and good enough, especially since we didn’t know about incremental delivery back in those dark ages. So things lost my attention and suffered thereby. As did I, as the corporate Powers That Be tend to punish someone when things go wrong.

On the other hand, as a consultant and trainer, the same attitude is pretty valuable, one comes in, has one’s impact, moves on. Folks who pay attention probably get 80 percent of the benefit in 20 percent of the time, and those who do not will likely never get it.{}

Here at ronjeffries.com, of course, the point is to explore ideas, so while some project is offering interesting design problems, opportunities for refactoring, chances to make amusing mistakes, I can roll with it, and when that vein peters out, I can move on to something else.

I suppose it might be jarring to be reading along about Braitenberg bugs and discover that there are only four articles, and if it is, I’m sorry, but that’s how it goes. And how it’s very likely going to go soon.

The FGNO Zoom Ensemble² is beginning to get excited about a joint project, primarily in aid of the students at We Think Code, a South African company that GeePaw Hill is working with. They have a student project that they use, and we the FGNO are beginning to imagine how to improve the project, and provide examples that the students can study, showing how we grey-beards might undertake such a thing. We’re even thinking about inviting other experienced programmers to build a client component in the style and language of their choice, for the enlightenment, edification, and amusement of the students and other readers.

The idea is very shiny³, and I can feel the context-switch coming over me. I do think, however, that I’ve mined most of the good out of Sudoku, and reclaimed any honor that I may have lost back when I abandoned it years ago. It’s amazing the things that people remember.

So you have been warned. There may be no more than zero or more Sudoku articles. If there’s something you want to ask about in there, let me know soon, because that squirrel is looking better and better to me. Yesterday’s Imagine article hints at the idea.

What will I do next? I can’t wait to find out. I hope you’ll join me.