Social issues in Blogging

Scripting News: "How come you don't update?" I ask. "Too much sex," says Scoble.

I can sympathize. This is a great moment to blog some other items gathering dust in my aggregator:

• Dan Hartung asks if you blog using your real name. [via Scripting News]
• A Klog Apart: Klogging behavior questions.

My real name is Timothy Bryce Yehl. The "Timothy" has been depreciated since I was about 5, and don't ever call me Tim. I maintain a strict personal firewall on this blog: nothing that an employer (past, potential, or future) might penalize me for.

On March 28th, 2000 a Salon story created this firewall within me: Keep a Web journal, get fired ... or worse. On that day I sanitized the journal weblog that I kept during my ex-patriot period. There have been plenty of other cases of weblogs leading to termination, Mark Pilgrim sticks out in my mind.

I don't blog anything of a non-mundane personal nature these days, and excercise great care when it comes to former employers and co-workers.

My name is Bryce, and this weblog is boring by design.

11:44:22 PM | Comments: | Topics: blogging_risks job_hunting k-logs 

Ask Slashdot: CS Students Want Advice on Helping Strugglers?

geekgirl21 asks: "My university's Computer Science Society (a student organization) wants to create a booklet about helping students get through the major's introductory courses (3 semesters of Java). The focus of this booklet is toward the people who work hard but still struggle with the courses. Specifically, we'd would like some advice about where to get the following: clearly written books/articles about the concepts of Java and OOP" [...]

How timely, I was getting ready to solicit recommendations for an OOP design book. Too bad that the signal-to-noise ratio is about 0:1 on that thread. The Slashdot concensus seems to be "Screw them, they're obviously not smart enough to be Real Programmers."

I'm not a Real Programmer; writing code all day, every day would bore me to tears. I am a Problem Solver, however, and sometimes solving a problem involves writing 20k LOC.

I need an OO design book, emphasis on design. I grok OO concepts, but I'm having difficulty breaking away from procedural habbits. I need help getting myself into the OO mindset. How do I convert my requirements into an object model, how do I sufficiently abstract my base object types without making them meaningless, how do I design my program to cope with other people's objects that inherit from my own?

Oh, and I want the K&R version, < 300 pages.

11:54:49 AM | Comments:

Blah

I was really sick over the weekend. At first I thought it was a virus that has been making the rounds, but now I believe that Taco Bell gave me food poisoning.

Screwing up my order wasn't enough for them.

9:04:10 AM | Comments:

Reuters: Deutsche Telekom offers VoiceStream to Cingular

Deutsche Telekom has proposed selling its U.S. wireless unit VoiceStream to Cingular Wireless, a combination which would rival market leader Verizon Wireless, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. While terms have yet to be agreed, the Journal cited people close to the situation as saying VoiceStream has approached Cingular about merging the two companies in a deal that would leave Cingular as the controlling shareholder.

8:56:02 AM | Comments: