site re-org «
I seem to be done blogging. I skipped November 2009 entirely. What was I doing? Just having fun, outside work. For example, I played a lot of video games, among other things. It was very relaxing. Playing games has a quality in common with walking: you can think about something else in the background of your mind while paying attention to trivial detail in an easy foreground task.
The rest of this is about 1) my state of mind, 2) my plans for code, and 3) my plans for fiction. How's my state of mind? Fine, thanks for asking.
mind «
I've become reasonably happy. Not sure how that happened. But in point of fact, I'm content lately, apparently for several reasons. For example, I seem to have answered my questions. (Any question I ever had about why things work the way they do—now I know the answers.) So I don't have any burning issues. Maybe middle age finally caught up with me: I don't expect the world to change.
For example, now I find it easy to calculate answers to hard social questions, so none of them seem hard any more: people make sense to me.
code «
Two months ago, in October, I wrote about a scheme for async computation with explicit continuations in C++. I implemented and debugged that. It works, and it's fairly interesting. Really interesting, actually. I had to write a bunch of process-like mechanisms just to test it, including (for example) pipes; working out details made a lot of lights go green in my mind. I plan to pursue a lot of low hanging fruit in that area. But my code was way too complex. I've been thinking about how to simplify.
At this point I should write a really long blog entry about it. But I won't. :-) At the end of October I wrote more about that async system, but it bloated up too large to finish. It became clear to me then: I don't have time to write interesting code, and also write about it, too. So if I have to choose, I'll write code—not write about it. But I thought the very high level view I wrote (about the async design) worked fairly well. So I'm inclined to do that more: write only very high level code descriptions.
However, I might write an interpreter and compiler for a Lisp variant named Lathe, then post it here as I write it. I can motivate each piece by a need, expressed at a high level. Then you can work out how actual code achieves the plan.
fiction «
I've been asking myself why I write fiction. What's the point? If there's no point, why don't I just stop? I prosecuted this argument: it's a waste of time, give it up. (I started another piece the last week of October, then put it on hold.)
But I seem to enjoy it too much to give up. Half the time I drive or eat lunch alone, I find myself debugging conversations between characters. (And it really is debugging, just like code, avoiding kinks and contradiction.) And it's really fun. I get at least as big a kick out of it as the best movies I see, or books I read. But until I render parts designed so far, backlog gums up my mind with old dialog. So writing it down in some finished form is part of the process. Also, not writing it down seems weirdly nihilistic (fiction never embodied in any way).
So what's the problem? I've been deciding whether I can accept the cost. All actions are social, whether you like it or not. Anything you do affects how people see you, both good and bad. Can fiction affect future jobs? I would think so. For example, stories have action and conflict, and otherwise get bland as powdered milk. Look at a typical movie out of Hollywood, for example—you need to put lives of characters at risk, at least from their point of view, or it's a boring story.
If you're a professional writer, putting violence—or threat of it—in stories is just art. But if you code for a living, violence in a story looks weird: if it's not for money or fame, maybe you're a nut. I could lose job offers someday for that alone. Any reason to reject a developer can come into play. So I decided to compromise: any time I job hunt (not now by the way) I can take down fiction for the duration.
I'm done with this site, but I'm not done writing fiction. So I'll keep this going while I write stories, to publish them here. (Why bother publishing fiction? Because it's pointless to write fiction no one reads. It also gives me a metric: quality is good enough when someone else might read it.)
I spent November 2009 just having fun when I wasn't working, and somehow that never involved writing here; it wasn't a conscious plan. But in the back of my mind, I considered plans for this site. I might aim for 95% fiction and 5% code; code will be pseudocode only, or toy demos. For detail, see a 07dec09 blog entry.
