Get Organized: Spaghetti Code

An interesting part of my brain is that I am spectacular at organization - I just have trouble forcing myself to start the process. Once I begin, then, it becomes almost impossible to finish the job.

Being a programmer and developer, I have countless files in numerous locations on my hard drive that are in an inconvenient location or are simply no longer needed. The problem with many of these files is that I am a lazy coder - the code requires that the files be in their current location, and in order to change that dependency, I have to go back and edit the path in the source code and recompile, or combine the files into a single program, a process which takes even longer than the "quick fix."

As a result of this lack of resolve, I've put off any serious organization of my code files since I stopped using Visual Studio, which organizes the user's file for them. My preferred editor, Vim, goes for a minimalist approach and does no organization for the user. I began using Vim about a year and a half ago.

Programmers have a term that they use to describe code that is messy and unorganized: spaghetti code. I guess you could say my computer was full of spaghetti files. I had gotten lazy, and it was initially easy to work around the small inconveniences, but as the files piled up, it became impossible. There were source files in bin, tmp, usr, home, and countless other directories that the user isn't even supposed to touch.

I didn't realize before I began the project how much harder it was to bridge my coding from one part of the computer to another. Every time I had to switch terminals to grab a file it made me lose concentration (as I realized all too well in the Ludum Dare speedcoding competition, which I did not complete). As I organized, I got a feel for where everything was and exactly what would need to be changed.

When I finished, I felt moderately satisfied, but it wasn't until I got back to coding that I realized what a difference it had made. First of all, it had convinced me to use more efficient methods in my code, requiring less external dependency and decreasing compile time. It also allowed the programs to run significantly faster and with less system resources.

The process of code writing itself was also much easier and far less stressful - no longer did I need four file managers open at the same time to search for files, and many of the memory-hogging search scripts that had previously been necessary could be disabled. The process came quite a bit more naturally, as well - more time could be spent on content as opposed to organization and my code became quite a bit more concise and efficient.

Blogging Around: Shea's iMedia and Jack's Inconvenient Truth

In response to Shea's iMedia: If I Had a Daughter

Wow.

This speech (though it's much more than that) amazes me on countless levels. The language, the word choice, is flawless. Sentence melts into sentence, and the use of a word causes the use of the same word or sound to convey a totally different meaning. It's hard to think of it as a speech when it is, as Shea says, "beautiful and poetic."

Regarding the content of the speech itself, I am astonished by Sarah Kay's humility. She admits outright that she doesn't have any idea what the "right" way to parent is - but she's going to try, and she thinks she knows what she needs to do to make it worthwhile.

Shea mentions that "Sarah Kay would be the perfect mother." I found this statement to be interesting. From what Kay says in the speech, she would only do what she felt was best. So even if she was a good parent, who would think she was a perfect mother? Certainly not her daughter, if Kay constantly reminds her to be humble. Perhaps there's no way to be "perfect," but Kay is clearly good.

In response to Jack's An Inconvenient Truth: Success

The title to this post grabbed my attention immediately. I can relate completely to this line of thinking - this has been my year for these thoughts too, especially what with subpar performance at school.

You mentioned that you have a "problem" - that you don't have any idea what your future will look like, or what you want to do. I used to think like that too, but I realized that that kind of knowledge would be a burden.

If you don't have a reason to go into a field, then it doesn't make sense to try to point your life in that direction. I feel that my life will turn onto its real path whenever it needs to - until then, I'll be going wherever life takes me.

Until recently, I had quite a different definition of "success," which was the standard definition. I've since subscribed to your definition, but with one added point: 3. To understand everything I can. Try adding that in - you'll be surprised at what happens.

Captured Thought: Shakespeare Not Serious?

It's like a headline in a bad British tabloid.

SHAKESPEARE INTERESTING

MILLIONS OF TEENS ENTHRALLED

Never in a million years would anyone believe it. And yet it's possible.

I regret to say I don't have a particularly long relationship with Shakespeare's works. I'd obviously heard of him and knew a moderate amount, but until middle school I'd never read any of his plays or poems.

I tried reading Romeo and Juliet in seventh grade and failed miserably. I think I got about a quarter of the way through Act II and had to stop because it was so boring I was dying. Teachers had always told me that Shakespeare was one of the greatest writer of all time, if not the greatest, but I couldn't see it. There was nothing interesting about a centuries-old romance, especially not when the idea had been copied by so many more works. My chances with Shakespeare weren't looking good.

My eighth grade English teacher had other plans. We spent about two months doing a unit on a much more lightweight work - The Comedy of Errors. I initially found it hard to believe that anything as old as Shakespeare could qualify as a comedy, but I gave in.

Boy, am I glad I did.

The Comedy of Errors took me totally by surprise. It had the all characters of a Monty Python skit, the one-liners of a Fast and Furious movie, and the slapstick humor of an episode of the Three Stooges. It was unbelievable. Not only that, it didn't ever get old. We watched two performances of it and did our own during class, but our teacher still didn't think we'd gotten enough out of it.

So we did our own filmed version. I was cameraman, director of photography, and special effects designer. The combination of these three tasks allowed me to shape the story hundreds of different ways, and the true quality of Shakespeare's work was made known to me. I will never forget that class.

The biggest lesson I learned form that project was that old didn't mean serious. I'd seen a lot of "archaic" literature, and due to both my own bias and the subpar teaching of some of my elementary English teachers, I was unable to see any humor or lightness in anything, only fancy words for things that were boring regardless of how they were put. For me, Shakespeare changed this unbreakable stigma. The Comedy of Errors remains to this day one of the funniest pieces of literature I've ever read — amazing considering that hundreds of years of humor have gone by.

iMedia: Dancing to Dubstep

About a month after its release, this video was catapulted into the internet spotlight. It is a five-minute dance to a dubstep remix of Foster the People's "Pumped Up Kicks."

This video demonstrates a number of cultural phenomena that are reshaping both music and dance.

Most obviously, it demonstrates the rapid increase in the popularity of dubstep. Derived from two-step, breakbeat, and drum and bass (DnB), dubstep combines relatively slow (less than 60 bpm), sparse drumbeats with complex synth parts and a totally unique type of synthesized bass (called wobble bass), the sound of which is difficult to describe (you'll hear it after the bass drop at 1:28). The bass drop, another integral feature of the genre, is the culmination of the intro, which is usually amorphous in comparison to the rest of the song.

Whenever I introduce dubstep to friends, I append four words onto the end of my spiel: "It's an acquired taste." Dubstep is, for most people, nothing like any music they've ever heard. The sounds that come out of it are difficult to replicate with any instrument, or even the human voice. For many people, it's discomforting to hear. Keep in mind that the song in the video is extremely "soft" dubstep - "hard" or "hardcore" dubstep uses significantly more distortion on the drums and bass, and usually utilizes minor keys and lots of tritones.

Why, then, is the genre so popular? Blog searches for "dubstep" (especially on Tumblr) yield such confusing results as "IT MAKES MY ARMS FEEL LIKE CHAINSAWS."

It is my personal opinion that dubstep is the poster child for a whole set of genres that are changing the way we see music. For a very long time, music has been limited to use in specific activities - dancing, for instance, or religious ceremony. Of course, many genres of music are best enjoyed when sitting back and paying close attention to the notes themselves. At this point in time, however, I think many genres (dubstep, DnB, dream, ambient, neo-orchestral) are being used almost as a sort of background music - that is, turn it on and let it run for a long time, regardless of what you're doing. Many dubstep mixes are written to be seamless, multiple-hour works.

The video also points to a phenomenon which, in my opinion, is making music better: remixing. Remixing, in the modern sense of the word, has been around since the late 60's but has recently taken off in a totally new direction. Remixes of popular songs were usually restricted to genre - if I wanted to remix Run-DMC's "It's Tricky," it would sound pretty similar to the original, just with different organization. More recently, however, cross-genre remixes have begun to emerge, where a DJ will take songs from literally any genre and turn it into house, dubstep or the like (Beethoven's 5th is a fairly common techno remix, and MGMT's music has seen popularity with all electronic genres). Even more interesting is experimentation with converting techno and electronica into rock or orchestral. The remix in the video is a perfect example, as it uses almost exclusively samples taken from the song itself.

Though I am not a dancer, I can distinguish between different styles on sight, and I'm especially good at recognizing more modern, "underground" styles. Dubstep has had a profound effect on the underground dance scene because it doesn't feel like any other genre. There is no "approved" way to dance to dubstep. While styles like house have very distinct and continuous four-on-the-floor beats, the feel and energy of dubstep varies wildly from one song to the next, and even between sections of a single song.

This early in its life, a lot of people have dismissed dubstep as being a fad that will be forgotten in a few years' time. I, for one, will not forget the impact that it - and the culture it brings - has had on music.

Captured Thought: Developing Worlds

          As I was going through my old CD case a few months ago I came upon a disc which I had not seen for many years. It was Myst, one of the first computer games I ever played and to this day one of my favorites.

          Myst is a game which challenges one's thinking skills more than one's hands. It is a game not of twitch reflex but of keen observation and critical thinking — truly, a challenge which stands alone in its class. But that portion of the game was not what made me nostalgic; no, it was memories of the worlds that Myst created.



           Myst centers around Ages, which are manifested as small islands with no physical connection to one another. Each of the Ages is distinct: the architecture, music, and story told by each is unlike the others, but all are intertwined in the mystery which the player must solve. It is this aspect of Myst which I recall so vividly — worlds so immersive that one could become lost for hours in their magic, much as I once did.

          After finishing perusing my old games I sat down at my desk and, after carefully blowing the dust from the disc, installed and loaded the game. I was struck at once with a flood of thoughts as the introduction rolled by and I was thrown back into the world I had loved so much.

"I realized the moment I fell into the fissure that the book would not be destroyed as I had planned. It continued falling into that starry expanse, of which I had only a fleeting glimpse. I have tried to speculate where it might have landed, but I must admit that such conjecture is futile. Still, questions about whose hands might one day hold my Myst book are unsettling to me. I know my apprehensions might never be allayed, and so I close, realizing that perhaps the ending has not yet been written."

          But something was different. Something was not the way it had been my first journey through the Ages. The ecstasy of discovery was not present as it had been. I realized the true power behind the Ages of Myst.

          The first time we see a world, there is an emotion which results — an emotion which can only come from the astonishment of coming into a world that is new, unexplored...pristine. Not a foot has been set there, and you will never again be able to see the world untouched.

          It is that feeling that I have fruitlessly chased for so many years. It is novelists like Orson Scott Card, musicians like C418, game developers like Markus Persson — these are people who understand the joy of discovery.

Since that time I have tried to find that life and put it into my work. It is difficult to channel: once I find a world that I find interesting I am either lost in it or fail to fully render the idea on paper. The ability to fully convey a fictional world to another is one that I admire and desire, and will continue to pursue throughout my life.

Best of Week: Controlling Stream-of-Consciousness

People have trouble saying what they mean. Even if the sentences one composes are perfectly coherent, and seem to convey one's thoughts, it is still possible for another to misinterpret what seems to the writer a very obvious statement.
          This problem becomes increasingly relevant when attempting to write in stream-of-consciousness. The human mind does not conform to any sort of rules, nor does it operate with any sort of predictable pattern. It is understandable, then, that stream-of-consciousness can be exceedingly difficult to convey and thus difficult to follow.
          Stream-of-consciousness is prevalent in Virginia Woolf's Orlando, but the author does a spectacular job of keeping it simple and clean. After reading through one particular discourse, I went back to read it again, not out of confusion but out of fascination that a single-sentence paragraph could be made interesting and, more importantly, totally comprehensible. This passage captured my attention and held it until the next day, when a classmate (I regret that I don't remember who) finally revealed the key element to the clarity of the writing.

Structure, punctuation and word choice can be used to control the speed and rhythm of the reader's thoughts.

           We discussed this point for a while longer, but it was not until I later looked back at the passage which we had used as an example:

"Better is it," she thought, "to be clothed with poverty and ignorance, which are the dark garments of the female sex; better to leave the rule and discipline of the world to others; better to be quit of martial ambition, the love of power, and all the other manly desires if so one can fully enjoy the most exalted raptures of the human spirit, which are," she said aloud, as her habit was when deeply moved, "contemplation, solitude, love."

           The passage causes the reader's mind to speed up by gradually shifting from semicolons to commas to list thoughts, and by increasing the number of monosyllabic words near the end. What's most interesting about this is that, by adding, removing or shifting the location of punctuation and breaks in the sentence, you can completely change the way the text is processed. For instance, by removing the break beginning with 'she said aloud...', you remove the emphasis on the last three words (which hold much significance) and cause the reader to speed through the end of the sentence, thus placing much more importance in the beginning of the sentence.
           In this way it would also be possible to place an exaggerated amount of emphasis at the end of the sentence, namely by replacing the semicolons with commas and omitting the repetitions of the word 'better.' This causes the beginning of the sentence to flow faster, and essentially pour all the interest into the last three words.

What If?: Perception vs. Reality

Is it possible to perceive anything in a largely similar way to anyone else?

I have a reputation for having strange thoughts. I've always been interested in the way people see things, with their eyes or with their minds. Years ago, when I was enlightened as to the true meaning of colorblindness, I had a thought.

I see an apple. It is red, the same color as barns, bricks, and blood.
Your eyes perceive the color that I call blue, but you call it red.
And what you see as what I call red, you call blue, and I see as blue.
In this way we agree that an apple is red, when, in reality,
only I see what I call red.

To this day I still have trouble wording this thought. It makes sense to me, but my occasional attempts to explain it during a discussion are quickly shut down by confused faces or inattentive ears. Despite these problems, I am still bemused by this hypothetical scenario - no, it is because of these problems.

It's obvious to us that some are unable to perceive physical objects with our physical senses, but the notion that certain people may not be able to come to a full understanding of our ideas or even comprehend the basics of what we say is a totally foreign one.

Allow me to backtrack for a moment, and dismiss a misconception to which many have fallen prey. Colorblindness in humans is not what it sounds like - one would expect a colorblind person to see the world in black and white (a condition know as monochromacy). This is not the case - most colorblind people are perfectly capable of seeing color, and in varying degrees. The most interesting thing about colorblindness is that most affected persons will live life completely unaware that they are colorblind until some situation arises in which they must distinguish two things which they see as the same color.

My grandfather is a rare example of a victim of monochromacy. When he first told me of his condition, I was struck by an idea that has never left my head.

There is absolutely no way to communicate the concept of color to someone who's never seen it.

Can any perception really be shared by someone else? Is there any way to know that what you see is what they see, and that your reaction is theirs, even if the words you use to describe the experiences are the same? One cannot even use words to completely describe their own thoughts.