Thanks to my liberal arts education, I am a well rounded person. I’ve read some rather random books like those by Douglas Adams and Chuck Klosterman. This all leads to my tendency to be a collection bank for odd or useless facts. This week however, I came across one that is a little more interesting and a little less useless. Actually I found it to be down right alarming given the time I spend at my desk in a day. Also in consideration is time I spent recently out sick with the flu like so many other Americans on the East Coast.

Contrary to most germophobe’s beliefs and according to the New York Times Best Seller “Why Do Men Have Nipples? Hundreds of Questions You’d Only Ask a Doctor After Your Third Martini“: “…Yes, Occasionally you can catch something from a toilet seat but this isn’t all that common…[according to one] microbiologist at the University of Arizona.” While I find that striking there’s some quite more impressive: “…the typical office desk harbors around four hundred times more disease-causing bacteria than the average toilet seat.”

Yes, that’s right! Your keyboard is so dirty that it’s filthier than a toilet seat. Gee, what a comforting thought in these cold winter months. So don’t touch my keyboard; it contains 511 germs per square centimeter. Please, I wouldn’t touch the mouse either with a lovely 260 germs per square centimeter. Oh and by the way that chic telephone on your desk has 3,894 germs per square centimeter! This confirms that you would be ill advised lick the conference room keyboard. Do you concur Doctor?

Today was a pretty busy day, with the eagerly awaited launching of the new version of the Prudential Gallo Realtors website (http://www.prugallo.com). The new version of the site catches it up with its recently upgraded intranet, and introduces a significant number of new features and capabilities that we’re all proud of.

When the day was over, we got down to the next order of business: a proper preemptive bon voyage to one of the most despised burdens of the web development world: Internet Explorer 6.

Today was a bit of a milestone, with Microsoft having announced a decision to roll out Internet Explorer 7 as an automatic upgrade to certain corporate users still using IE 6. For more insight about the roll-out, about why IE 6 sucked so bad, and why the upcoming IE 8 isn’t much better, head over to Kevin’s blog. To celebrate the approaching demise of IE 6, we decided to host an “IE 6 is Dying” party, complete with subs, chili, beer, and of course, an IE 6 pinata/unholy effigy.

Graphics Designer Tom Brown (who has probably been tormented by IE 6 the most, having to constantly come up with creative ways to get IE 6 to render websites correctly) did the honors of annihilating the demon-logo with a wooden handle while Shaun held on for dear life keeping it steady. We certainly hope that someone from Microsoft will stumble upon these pictures and take our frustration to heart when deciding whether or not to make Internet Explorer 8 finally comply with decade-old standards.

In any event, it was a fun end to a productive day.

From Wikipedia:

Every business requires teamwork. It doesn’t matter what field you are in. Music, medical, law, military, web development, even marriage. Nothing is successful without the mutual backing of each other toward the end goal. Support comes from respect, not the requirement thereof based on a job title. Command it, don’t demand it. It starts with you!

(more…)

I’ve blown through ~20 books in the last 2 months, many years ago I was a voracious reader and now it’s hit me again. I’ve wrote a little bit about what I have been reading over at my site.

www.kevinquillen.com

I am waiting on a few more books to come in. I now have roughly 3 on order every 2 weeks. I should be getting in ‘No Country for Old Men’, and ‘Slash’ this week.

What does that mean?
 When I build applications, I like to strictly maintain to all of the perceived standards that I think of or any that might occur to me as I’m building and the variants that I believe are allowable from this consistency.

How about some examples?
 Perfect consistency in my folders, components, functions, methods, files, tables, columns, you name it, I’ve got a good reason why I name it or space it or look at it a certain way.  

Have you ever looked through a piece of code someone else wrote and changed it to adhere to my precious standards?
  You bet. 

Have you ever argued relentlessly about such important concepts as how a database table is properly named?  
 Yes.  

Do you ever hold back from imparting your wisdom to your fellow employees by showing them the importance of a file being correctly indented or of a more sane folder structure or a "better way" then they explained?
Daily. More than that if I’m being honest.

Could you go on and on about different aspects of programming that you’ve deem immovable?
No need to answer that one.

What purpose do these standards have other than the noted annoyances caused to others?
I like to think that by strictly maintaining all of these standards, it allows me to use my thought on more important innovation instead of wondering how something is going to be named, or spaced, or whatever. 

Where does the practical part come from?
The practical part comes from being, well, practical enough to relent from these relentless standards.  For example, I like to name all database table names singularly (item instead of items).  What happens when I think a table should be called "group".  I have two options.  One, when calling the table via SQL, put the table in brackets, so that the reserved word is not taken as such.  The other is to break the rule and name this one plural.  I choose to name the table plural as I’d rather see an "s" at the end of group, then go through all the SQL code and put brackets around it.  Do the brackets even work in all cases?  Well, not real sure. Hence, me taking the easy way out and putting an "s" at the of group. 

Has anyone ever thought that much about singular or plural table names?
I hope so.

What is the purpose of this rant?
Well, I intended on describing all of the standards as I see them, but then two things happened.  One, I fell in love with the Q&A writing style.  Two, I don’t think (in most cases) it matters what specific standards you hold.  Just that you have standards. You have enough attention to detail to care about something as minute as the naming convention of a file (lower-case first word, upper case first letter of all other words,  acronyms should be all CAPS, abbreviations only if you can pick somebody off the street and they’d understand what you mean).  You’ve had enough thought about them to be able to stick up for these.  But also be practical enough to realize that the other side is better and switch quickly.  And, if that you aren’t hurting your productivity too much by sticking to these standards.  If you are, then make an exception.  Although, you must have a very good reason to stray.  In most cases, even if it seems like sticking to standards takes longer, it doesn’t because you need to think less when you look back it at. 

On the 9th anniversary of Google getting of the ground I’ve decided to step out from behind the curtain for five minutes and provide perspective.

Everyday since ’99 the problem has grown. With purpose… With good intent… quietly…. With overwhelming energy. A phenomenon.

Then THWAAAP, it bitch slaps you.

Doesn’t that suck? The invisible enemy. Constantly moving through the tunnels beneath your feet. More aware. With growing ranks. Positive, smiling executioners. All prospering together.

It’s to the point where some can’t qualify. Eaten alive. The energy to much. Cowering in the corner. Talking to themselves. You know the type.

“Loud as a motorbike, but wouldn’t bust a grape in a fruit fight.”

Laugh. Be that person. Paranoia sucks.

Vague references. Fake façade. Bullshit. I don’t have time for it. I just took five minutes to try and…

I SUCK AT IT.

Repeat with me, “I’ve got 99 problems, being a bitch ain’t one“.

Now, that was entertaining. Click your heels Dorothy.