To code, or not to code ...

I've been trying to finish up a number of programming books that I've started reading. One of which is "Extreme Programming Adventures in C#" by Ron Jeffries. It's a different kind of programming book. It's essentially a journal of Ron's experience learning the C# programming language while applying Extreme Programming principles. He discusses the assumptions he's making, you see the first (sometimes ugly) attempts he makes writing code. What's good about it, is that he goes back and fixes the code that's bad, so you see the code evolve instead of just seeing the final product.

At the end of one of the chapters, he discusses a philosophy of XP which basically says, "don't put any code in until it's needed". I keep reminding myself because I tend to want to program the world into an app instead of moving in small pieces. Ron says it best:

I know we always like to say it'll be easier to do it now than it will be to do later. Not likely: I plan to be smarter later than I am now, I plan to have the same tests, and I plan to have an actual need that will direct what I do, not my current fantasy about what's needed.

I think I'll print that out and paste it on my monitor. Things definitely go more smoothly if you just keep it simple and bite off little pieces at a time. Now, to be more religious about it in practice.

New Machine - All Beefy and Everything!

I got a new motherboard and cpu last week and put everything together this past weekend. I didn't feel like getting a ton of new ram, so I went with a socket 939 board. After some research, I ended up getting the Asus A8N5X with an AMD Athlon 64 3800. I have to say it was one of the smoothest installs I've done. I feel comfortable recommending this motherboard who is in the market for something similar. It was nice to have everything "just work".

So far, I've been happy with the AMD 64 - my third AMD. I know the Core2 Duo is the hot kid on the block these days, but I've been finding myself more and more turned off to Intel and Windows lately, especially with DRM (don't get me started on PDF DRM!), so I feel better choosing AMD for my platform. The rest of my system consists of 2GB of PC3200, a GeForce 7800GT and a 250GB WD SATA drive. I have dual 20" LCD's - one is a Dell FP2001 and the other is a ViewSonic VP201b. While I like the picture a little better on ViewSonic, I have this annoying problem where once in a while it won't turn on! I'll boot Windows and have all the icons that were on my extended desktop thrust onto my primary display! Sucks. I may send it in for warranty repair - unless this is the way it's supposed to work! :-p

So, let's see how Call Of Duty 2 performs with this system! (I have to say, CoD2 is one of my favorite games - graphics are amazing, great gameplay, and I love the controls).