mindful iterations

In keeping with my 2 post a week goal, here is a post.  It may not be the post to end all posts, but it's a post nonetheless.

Today we took one of our cats to get a haircut.  She's a long haired cat who often gets mats in her fur.  This is the end result:

 

She is a bit groggy in this picture, but that's because of the stuff they used to sedate her.  I was looking it up on the Internet, and apparently it's like PCP.  So, I'm guessing it was probably really surreal for her to be walking around.

Aside from that, we also spent a lot of time with family today.

In the land of technology, I've been doing a lot of reading of code these days.  I'm actually quite enjoying the process and it seems that the more I'm reading, the more I'm digesting, and the more my mind is understanding what's being done, as well as thinking of other ways something could be done.  That growth is quite exciting.

I definitely miss coding in Ruby.  There is a certain ease that comes with coding in the language.  Yes, perl is a great language, and one that I'm growing to enjoy.  I also want to dabble a bit in Python and expand my knowledge base even further.

I've also put together a list of things that I want to focus on.  It's a mix of my 'weak points' as well as some things I'm just plain interested in.  I'll be hammering away at things one at a time.  (If I can... my attention span certainly wants to jump around quite a bit!)

I can't believe that I've been programming full-time for 8 1/2 months.  It's still a passion and something I really enjoy doing.

In any case, I'm going to sign off now.  I am also thinking that a 'regular' posting schedule might be a good idea.  I definitely benefit from structure.

Really. I'm still here.  I've been trying to lead more of a 'balanced' life as of late, spending a little less time on the computer, a little more time with my partner, and some more time with myself, taking that much needed downtime.

As much as I love technology and computing, I don't want to reach the point of diminishing returns.  So, I've been focusing on some of my other hobbies, such as writing, playing the guitar, and reacquainting myself with one of my first loves - the violin.

I'm going to set myself a goal of at least 2 posts per week.  I think that's a decent amount - not enough to overwhelm myself or my loyal subscribers (yay, loyal subscribers!) but just enough for me to not feel like I've abandoned this blog.

Ah, balance.  Really - that's what it's all about. 

This week I've gotten back into writing, er maintaining, code that is written in perl.  I've worked exclusively on Ruby and Rails projects for the last several months, never touching anything written in perl.  I have to say - I never realized just how much Rails does for you and just how logical some of those conventions are. 

I am excited about getting back into another language.  I feel like I'm going to be learning perl all over again, though.  This time with a bit of a different lens on my view.  Ruby is a very elegant language in a lot of ways.  Because I dabbled in Ruby on and off for a while before getting into it seriously, I feel as though it was really easy for me to get things done.

With Perl, I feel as though I'm walking on eggshells.  Perhaps that's normal.  Afterall, I don't know if I've even really touched anything in perl since last year.  So, I've decided that I'm going to go through some of the exercises in my Learning Perl book, and get my feet wet again.

Being that I'm uncomfortable with the change, it tells me that it's probably a good one. 

Early in my professional coding career (which at this point, is just over 8 months), I was told to commit early and commit often.

Originally I thought that this was just so that important work wouldn't be lost, should a computer crash - temporarily or long term. Eight months later, and I have a confession to make - I don't commit nearly as often as I should, and when I do, there's usually a long string of A's or M's and a bulky commit message.

In addition to my embarrassing confession, I also have a nice realization - committing isn't only for security's sake. I've found it to be a very nice precaution in helping to make sure that a certain change doesn't break shit. Nothing like wading through diffs and commit logs to figure out what the hell and when the hell you broke your app.

It also seems invaluable when it comes to making sure that if you had one iteration that was close to working, you can get it back relatively easily.

Of course, all this would be true for me if I made a more consistent habit out of committing.

When it comes to committing, I'm making a vow right here, right now, to become more committed. Yes, I'm committing to committing.

One of the things I used to say about being a 'baby programmer' was that I didn't have bad habits and could be molded quite well. And here I've been, getting into some bad habits. No more, I say. No more! Boo on you, Bad Habits. Boo on you.

And speaking of version control, I've been playing around with git this evening. I've also been messing around with mercurial.

This last week or two has left me with plenty to blog about.  I've been knee-deep in the bowels of code with ruby-debug as my trusty sidekick.  The interesting thing, well, one of the interesting things, anyway, is that the more I end up debugging, the more it seems I learn.  Which, is fucking annoying since debugging is a huge pain in the ass and nowhere near as fun as actually writing code is.

But, I've heard it said time and time again, that you learn things by reading other people's code... and well, when you're debugging other people's code, you're doing more than just reading it - you're getting inside of it and their brain, and figuring out how both their brain, and their code works.

Another upcoming post, should I ever find the time to write it, is about some of my philisophical notions about program, and how those thoughts are changing.

This 31 year old 'baby programmer' has formed some opinions about things and it's time to expound on some of the new and scary ideas that are forming in my brain.

In any case, Bells Oberon is back for the season.  What does that mean? Winter is over.  We may get some snow showers mixed with rain, and you can never count out an April snowstorm, but all I know is this - Bells Oberon. Is. Back. 

Update...

9:54pm...

I just realized as I was tagging this post that my tags are: programming, opinions, and beer.  That just struck me as wildly amusing.  And no, I'm not intoxicated.  :) 

This evening was spent installing the dependencies I needed to get the awn-extras running on my system.  Avant Window Navigator is a really nice dockbar.  Sometimes it's nice to zone out on things that have absolutely no consequence.

Aside from that, most of the day was spent catching up with folks, cleaning the house, and sitting around in my pajamas.  It's been a wonderfully relaxing weekend which doesn't get to happen very often, really.  Usually I'm so busy running around and studying that I don't usually get to really relax and come down from my work week.

While I did do some studying and 'geeking-out', I did manage to have a nicely balanced weekend of responsibility and laziness.  Ah, balance - I love it.

In any case, in addition to running awn, I'm also running compiz, which is a requirement for running the dockbar.  I, of course, like the squiggly windows that come along with compiz, but it seems to really slow things down on my system.  I've got a decent enough graphics card - an 256MB nVidia.  I've got a GB of RAM in my system.  While that's not huge in today's standards, it's definitely not the piece of shit.  I'll probably ride the composite wave for a little while, maybe a few weeks, and then end up back to my standard Gnome desktop.   I'm not known for my patience.

Anyway, enough of this - I'm off to read some more of the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy. A friend gave me the book to read and I've just passed the part about the improbability drive.

And with that, I'm off. 

This evening I did an update of the gems on my system, which included Merb and Datamapper.  I'm really looking forward to exploring this technology.

In any case, it's late and morning comes around way too early.  Even though I don't still keep 'geek-hours', my mind and body are naturally at their best after 10pm.  Unfortunately, life doesn't always conform to one's natural hours.  Therefore, I must take my happy ass to bed.

Look forward to some more posts this week.

Recently, I've been working on the V and the C parts of MVC with Rails.  I have to say - I absolutely love the 'make things pretty' aspect of web design and development.  I have fond memories of sitting at my Windows 95 computer, designing my very first website.  There's something very blissful about making changes to code and hitting the browser's refresh button to see what the changes have created.

All this (m)V(c) stuff is really getting my creativity flowing again.  I like making things pretty.  I think that this week I'm going to make a new theme Typo to use on this site.  I am currently using one of the defaults.  I'm having the urge to make things pretty.

Yay.

I've made it through a day of not smoking.  I'm walking around in a perpetually pissed off place.  I keep telling myself I only have to make it until Friday for this 'stint'. Good times. I didn't have any coffee today, either.  Just green tea.  No coffee.  Ack.

In other areas, I've been going through my book on Conceptual Database Design. Someone whose technical knowledge and opinion I hold high regard for, recommended a couple of books to me.  I've been reading one of them and I've found that mind-mapping while reading a book such as this, is a great way to reinforce the material.

I don't always retain what I read as much as I'd like and when I do, it's normally because I take notes while reading.  Last night I tried mind-mapping for the first time and it really helped me.

So, why am I interested in database design?  Everything that I program, whether writing or maintenance programming, deals with databases.  I feel like in order for me to really be effective at designing a web-based application, I need to have a solid grasp of database design. It's not enough for me just to have a shallow understanding of how things could possibly work together.  I need to know theory.  I like theory.

In any case, I was going through an introduction to the Entity Relationship Model, and where the book was discussing what determines a one-to-many, one-to-one, many-to-many relationship, the light bulb came on and it really made a lot of sense.  The language in the book is very 'meaty' so it's not something I can just read through on a whim.  It requires some concentration.

I'm just excited about the prospect of securing a better foundation with these concepts.

note: I've gone through and edited this post 3 times.  My sentence structure and grammar is crap. I'm tired and nicotine-deprived.  I shall put the keyboard down before I drive myself even more insane. 

So, just checking in here.  Today was supposed to be my quit date to stop smoking.  We were going to go downstate (near Detroit) so, I knew that quitting during a 5 hour drive probably wouldn't be a very wise decision.  With that in mind, I decided to set my quit date for Monday. Due to incredibly shitty weather, we decided at the last minute to stay home.  I'm still quitting the whole smoking thing on Monday.  We're planning on going downstate next weekend (weather permitting), for which I'll allow myself to smoke.  Then, it's back to the quitting.  So, that's the plan.

As for the health thing, my knee has been jacked up for a couple of weeks, which has kept me from really doing a whole hell of a lot on the exercise front.  I have, however, been eating much better and I'm happy to say that I've lost somewhere between 6 and 7 pounds since the first of the year.  23  - 28lbs to go to get to my goal weight.  I have an appointment to get my knee checked out on Wednesday, so we'll see.

What happened to my knee?  I'm uncoordinated.  That's what happened to my knee.  On Christmas Day, while at a family gathering, I was standing at the top of the stairs waiting for someone to come out and smoke with me. (Ha!) And so, as I stood there, 100% sober, I lost my footing and fell on my knees on the stairs.  Luckily I didn't fall down all of the stairs.  Seriously.  In any case, the thing that hurt the most was my pride.  And so, I got up, laughed it off, and went on my merry way.  

About a week and a half ago, maybe two, my knee started hurting really badly.  Whenever I walk down the stairs, it feels like it's going to just ... stop working.  So, I'm seeing the doctor on Wednesday to make sure it's just a bruised bone or something.  Again, I'm not the most coordinated person.  Now, stop laughing at me.

On the technology level, I'm currently reading a book on database design. I'm hoping to get a stronger understanding of table relationships, how data relates to other data.  The whole Entity-Relationship stuff.  I have some more thoughts on that topic, but that's another post for another night.  Stay tuned.  Really.

And with that, I'm off to do other things.  Like listen to music and read my book. 

A strange thing is happening to me.  Really.

As I've been coding regularly now for several months, I'm starting to notice something:  I'm getting opinions. That's right, I'm a baby-programmer with opinions.  

So far I have an opinion on one aspect of coding.  Well, I have more, but I'm only going to put one out there.  And that is...

Please, please, please - put comments in your code.  Please.  If someone is going to read your code later on, which may happen, please put comments in there.  While I agree that good code should document itself, there is no reason not to put comments in there.  Should a baby-programmer like myself come along at some point and need to work on the code you've written, it would be very helpful to find some comments.  Granted, I know the satisfaction that comes from hours upon frustrating hours of going through uncommented code, only to finally connect the dots and see wtf is going on in there.  BUT, c'mon... Is it that hard to hit the # key and write a few words?

I've read through Rails' ActiveRecord documentation.  TONS OF FRIGGIN' COMMENTS.  I LOVE it.   Seriously.  I enjoyed reading the code and its accompanying documentation.  It inspired me.  It gave me ideas on how to do things differently.  I experimented in irb/Rails Console with new things and ya know what happened?  I learned.  And it was good.

So, please, for this baby-programmer and any others who may follow me - put some commentation in thy code.  Really. 

While I was poking around on del.icio.us this afternoon, I found a new site that I've been hanging out at for a large part of the day: finetune

At finetune, you can make your own playlists, with a large number of tracks.  You can search for your favorite artists, browse through their discography, and then add up to three songs from them to each playlist.  I am pretty sure there's a minimum of 45 tracks to a playlist - if you 'get lazy' you can click on the fill playlist button, which will cause finetune to populate the remainder of your playlist.  You can then remove songs they added if you so choose, or keep them as part of your playlist.

Here's a playlist that I made today.  Enjoy and let me know what you think. The playlists will play in a different order each time, which is kind of nice. 

Anyway, I'm looking forward to making some more playlists for various moods. 

Over at 43folders, wood.tang wrote about organizing RSS feeds in a way that really makes sense - in categories such as Can't Miss and Skip 'Em. 

I have a vast expanse of RSS feeds that I keep track of.  Some of them are "Planet" type aggregators.  Others just produce a lot of volume.  My only 'hitch-in-the-giddy-up' with this technique and Google Reader is that you can't have 'folders within folders'.  If I tag something twice, it usually exports twice.  

I may have to revisit another service like NewsAlloy that allows you to have folders within folders.  Then I can have my Programming, Betterness, etc., folders broken down by priority.

I like it!  Not sure if I'll implement it, but I like it! 

I was looking back and reading an older post that I wrote just a little over 9 months ago. In the post, I wax half poetic, half dramatic, about hitting the proverbial Wall of Dumbfoundedness.

To those who don't feel like reading the post, the story goes a little something like this:

I was starting on a Rails project after messing around with a few tutorials. I made a 20-some column table (normalization? who needs normalization?) to hold all of my 'stuff'. I wasn't sure how to populate the table. I wondered if I should have made more tables to hold my data.

So, moving on to today, which is 9 months and 2 weeks later, I can say to myself, "Of course you should have created more tables." Of course, sometimes there can be a use for a 20 column table (I'd imagine) but when you're dealing with data the way I intended on dealing with data, putting all of it into one table isn't the way to go. I would've had massive amounts of duplicate data. Which makes me wonder, "How many times can I use the word data in one paragraph?"

In any case, it's a good feeling to look back on yourself and see that you've grown. Today I was working with some Ruby code trying to figure something out. Something that would've taken me days to figure out a few weeks or a couple of months ago only took me a few hours to figure out. Again, it's just a great feeling.

Hopefully at some point I"ll be able to write more interesting posts regarding little things I find in Ruby, Rails, or Perl. All I can say to myself at this juncture is: "20 columns? 20 columns?"

What a long strange trip it's been. (ok, so nine months ain't all that long. Unless you're a pregnant woman, in which case, nine months is probably one hell of a long time.)

Phew. What a weekend of conversions. I was able to get my blog posts from Drupal into Wordpress. Then, I battled with the Wordpress migration script that comes along with Typo. After examining the database, I realized something - there wasn't any author_id in the posts - the column was empty. So, after fixing that situation, I was able to get my posts converted without a problem. Once again, I got support (both moral and of a technical nature) from the #typo irc channel. While the channel is quiet, when there is conversation, it's helpful. The only thing left for me to do is build out my poetry section and get my comments back. I also would like to either find or create a different theme. The one I currently have is the stock Typo theme. While I like it, I'd like something a little different.

This evening I waded around through the muddy muck that was my Drupal database.  Good times.

Since Typo has a few conversion tools, I'm going to see if I can find anything that can convert Drupal to one of their supported formats, and then I can use that to convert over to Typo.  I could probably figure out what goes where, but I'd rather see if I can do it in as efficient a method as possible.  I really am in no mood to copy and paste all my content.

This will hopefully get taken care of over the weekend.  This week is already booked up with things to do.

Speaking of things to do, I have a pretty black cat meowing at me, and right now, she trumps the computer. :) 

I'm still in the midst of importing posts from my old CMS into Typo.

It shouldn't be all that difficult.  The majority of it will be taken care of this weekend.

Aside from that, the time change has me extremely sleep.  But, it's nice to have things winding down.

I'm getting stumped on database normalization again.  If anyone can point me to some good resources for "normalization for newbies" I'd appreciate it. :)

After a day and a half of messing around with attempting to install Typo via a cPanel Rails implementation, I have emerged victorious.

I've spent the last several hours frustrated, but the feeling that you have once you get it working is invigorating to say the least.  It's these little feelings that remind me why I like computers.  Even when they anger me (and they often anger me greatly) when I can accomplish something I set out to do, it feels so good.

I got some help and moral support from the #typo channel on IRC, as well as my web host - http://www.drak.net/ (who is also carbon neutral - check 'em out), and by bending cPanel and Rails to my will.  Muahaha.

Just as I was about to give up and go back to Drupal, I decided to give it one more try with a little twist.  Lo and behold, one more try and a twist later, I am here.  Off php.  On Rails.

Anyway, I'll be looking at restoring my posts and comments.  Don't know if I can, but I'll be checking that out this week when I get the chance.

Meanwhile, it's time to go find a nice theme for my shiny new Rails blog. :)

Going back to my last post – I finally settled on using Test::Unit. I already had my code written, but my test code ended up being twice, yes, twice as long as my actual code.

I got a lot of help with logic from reading parts of Intermediate Perl. After looking back over the last few months of the journey that has been learning perl, I’ve realized that some ‘grokking’ really comes with experience and doing. After coding for a couple of months, I can happily say that the book makes a lot more sense to me now than it did back in September.

Switching Gears

Currently, I’m focusing on Ruby on Rails. With that endeavor, I’m also looking at the concepts that go along with writing test code before and during the coding process. Whether it’s TDD (Test Driven Development) or not, I’m not quite sure, however, after my first experience with testing taking place after I had written the code, it’s definitely an adjustment to attempt writing tests before writing code. That and the syntax, while similar, is a bit different, so I need to get my head wrapped around that.

Luckily I’m quite familiar with pure Ruby and Rails. Perl was a completely new animal aside from editing a couple of pre-made scripts throughout the year.

So, at this point in time, I’m focused on the following:

1. learning about writing unit tests before writing code.
2. getting a greater understanding of the testing syntax in ruby.
3. something not mentioned in the prior paragraph(s) – learning how much validation I need to put in my rails models.

Oh, and one more thing before I catch up on some reading – I watched a screencast put out by RailsEnvy. The screencast was a tutorial on Active Record/ActiveRecord. It helped immensely.

I’ve still been on the windy road of learning perl. In the last several weeks, I’ve gotten more comfortable with complex data structures and dereferencing.

The first several weeks of my perl endeavors were spent reading mass quantities of perl books and attempting to process all that I had read. I’ve noticed that as I go back to books for reference, there are several things that make me say, “Oh yeah, that’s right – I remember that.”

I suppose I was a little naive to think that I’d actually retain everything that I read.

Meanwhile, the latest turn on my road to learning perl has had me navigating that which is Object Oriented Perl. While my prior (short) endeavor in Java, and my more extensive endeavors in Ruby made me familiar and comfortable with the concepts that go along with Object Oriented programming, there is still a sense of disorientation when dealing with objects.

Sure, they make sense when it comes to run-of-the-mill things that I might encounter in the real world. It isn’t difficult at all to imagine a Class called Animal, with a Dog, a Cat, and even a Monkey. Sure, I can imagine that a Dog might have a method of bark, fetch, or swim. It’s easy to imagine a Cat having a method of meow, purr, or snuggle. I can even imagine the Monkey having a method of swing, smile, or eat. (Monkey->eat(banana) of course). I can even go as far as to understand that some of these actions might be common enough to implement a single method in Animal, as opposed to an individual one that does the same thing in each Animal’s Class.

But, when it comes to other things, like the things you’d really use programming for, that’s where the thinking changes.

A year ago, I took a Programming Logic & Design class at my local community college. While the class glossed over Object Oriented programming concepts, it mostly covered procedural programming.

Well, procedural and object oriented programming are different. I find that where I might write something procedurally to go from step A to step Z in many lines of code, when it comes to Object Orientation, my current impression is that one doesn’t want too much going on in any one method. It would also seem that one wouldn’t want to duplicate efforts.

If I have a House Class, with:

House::Basement
House::Garage
House::Bathroom
House::Bedroom

Each of these need to be cleaned. I wouldn’t implement a clean method throughout each room such as:

House::Basement->clean;
House::Garage->clean;
etc., etc., etc.

I’d want my clean method in the House class.

So, again, I can grok the concepts of Classes and Objects and Methods – I think at this point, it’s just a matter of changing my thinking from (excuse the awful concepts below):

my $bathroom;
 if ($bathroom = 'messy') {
   clean it 
 } else {
   print "Woo!  A clean bathroom!" 
 }

to:

my $bathroom = House::Room->new;
$bathroom->clean if $bathroom = 'messy';

Anyway, I feel like I’ve come a long way from where I was just a mere 2 months ago.

And with that, I’m off.

One of the things I liked about vim when I was using it was the wealth of color-schemes that were available. I've been using emacs and I'm getting really used to it, and while there are some great color themes available, I'd like to have a wider variety.

I've looked to see if I could find something that would convert vim colors to emacs colors, thinking that there had to be someone out there who has thought about this before. My search on the web has come up nil. I can't find anything to do the trick. Perhaps at some point, I'll embark on that endeavor. I ran into a similar situation when I was experimenting with Komodo Edit - there aren't a wealth of color-schemes out there at this point in time.

Meanwhile, in programming project land, I've gotten my learning project database schema pretty much ironed out. I was speaking with my Perl mentor about the project and was given a different perspective in relation to objects and storing data. When we were discussing about storing certain things in a hash reference, I was actually right there understanding what he was talking about. So, I think I'm on the right track.

Back in MySQL database land, I have been studying the fine art of normalization. It's interesting to see how you can classify data into categories of sorts, and eliminate redudant redundancies. :) At this point, the method to my madness when it comes to designing databases, is built around making as many tables as necessary. If I have something and I'm not sure if it deserves its own table or should go into another existing table, I'll give it its own table anyway. That eliminates the hemming and the hawing (where the hell did I pull THAT term out of?). If I do that, I don't get stuck and when I've gotten everything into tables, I can take a step back and reconsider if I'm duplicating information or if I can consolidate. All in all, I'm getting it, and that getting it feeling is fanfrickintastic.

Another thing that feels fanfrickintastic is knowing that the Detroit Lions are 3-1 right now, 2nd in the division. That's right. We've got a winning record. Hell, even my Florida State Seminoles have a winning record right now.

Anyway, it's time for me to get some much needed downtime. I'm finally starting to feel better after being sick for two weeks. I still have a lingering cough, but all in all, I'm feeling worlds better.

I'm back to that lovely state of annoyance that comes with trying to deal with data structures in perl.

Yes, that's right, I'm lost again. Actually, I feel like I'm in the middle of the forest, the path is clearly marked, but I poked myself in the eye with a branch and I can't see my way out.

I'm currently in a terminal where I have just hit enter on 'perldoc perldsc'.

For one, I think I forgot that you can't have a true array of arrays, and that it's really just an array of array references. While that doesn't solve my issue (yet), it does make me happy that the, "Oh Yeah, I remember that!" lightbulb went on.

What I'm trying to do is iterate over this array of array references.

I've tried iterating over a hash of arrays, and then I put my data into an array of arrays instead.

I keep getting faced with things telling me that I cannot use a string as an ARRAY ref while in strict mode.

I tell ya – these are major thorns in my side. Although, each time that I struggle with this, when I finally get it, it seems so damn easy and obvious that I wonder how I could've missed it.

Anyway, I'm back off to battle with this. Wish me luck!

(Oh, and if anyone has any additional resources in addition to Learning Perl and the Perl Docs, please point me in the right direction! I've been reading at perlmonks, too)

While I was originally going to post a relatively pensive post on how much it sucks that time goes faster the older you get, I decided to post on technological stuff instead, sparing my 5 readers the agony of reading a post filled with Gen-X angst. :) So, now onto my latest adventures in technology.

• Emacs – I've been dabbling with emacs as of late. I really like it. I was using vim, which is awesome in its own regard, but the key bindings of emacs just seem more natural to me. I'm sure I could pimp out vim to have emacs key bindings (I know I can, there's stuff to do that with), but I like emacs. So, we'll see. It's a process, I suppose, finding just the right editor. I love Komodo Edit, but sometimes I'm at the command line looking at stuff and it's just more convenient to go into emacs or vim. Anyway, I like it a lot. I have done some customization and we'll see how the next week or two goes with it.
• MySQL and Relational Databases – I've been reading up about schema design and MySQL. Let me just say, while my last post discussed my fascination with relationships and databases, that said fascination does not extend into reading about relational database theory. Really. I know there are whole books about it, but just point me in the direction of a good 10 page best practices "do this, don't do that" pamphlet and I'll be good. But, all in all, I'm getting a stronger understanding of how things fit together and how relationships work.

That pretty much sums up my latest focus. I'm still doing stuff in perl – much of my MySQL focus is so that I can work with DBI functions in perl with MySQL.

I spent much of this weekend thinking about programming and databases. While I find all of it very interesting, it didn't make for the most relaxing weekend.

I'm fascinated by database relationships. Okay, so maybe fascinated isn't exactly the right word. I just find the complexities of relationships very interesting. How you can have a simple structure or you can make things really damn complicated. (Much like human relationships, really).

If you get too deep or too granular, you can have a big ol' complicated mess. If you don't get deep or granular enough, you may not have the amount of substance that you really need for things to work the way they should.

As for programming, I think I'm really drawn to that because it is structured and it makes sense. Okay, so not all of it makes sense, especially at this point in time, however, it is purely logical and has a structure. Even in languages such as perl where there is more than one way to do things, there is structure. If you leave the confines of that structure, you're going to have issues.

Life can be like that, as well. If one doesn't have any structure or logic in their life, it is probable that one will have issues. Unfortunately, life, unlike languages such as perl, doesn't offer things like, "use warnings" and "use diagnostics" to let you know when you're making a huge mistake.

While I don't consider myself the most structured person in the world, I also don't consider myself the most chaotic. In certain areas of my life, I have a great deal of structure. In others, well, not so much.

That is where the beauty of balance steps in. To live in one extreme, where life is so structured that there is no room for the creative genius that is sparked from chaos, is stifling. However, to live in the other extreme where life is so full of chaos that there is no order and no semblance of rationale or logic, can be stifling, too. With a life of balance, there is just the right amount of order and just the right amount of chaos. My life isn't always what I'd call balanced. However, balance is something I strive for.

I find it interesting why some people are drawn to technology and the fields that they are in.

The above points aren't the only reasons I'm drawn to programming and technology. I like figuring things out and I love being creative. With programming, I can be creative and figure things out, all while using logic and analysis. The same goes with technology – I get to figure things out and new technology is just friggin' cool. What can I say?

So, my question to you:

What draws you to your field?

I'd love to hear your answers.