An update?

I've done a little housekeeping, including adding more blogs, new webcomics list, and a "things I starred in Google Reader" widget. Enjoy!

Myrmidon

And the word of the day is: myrmidon. There are two definitions: the first a particular set of participants in the Trojan war, and the second a man who executes orders without question. Since the whole Trojan Horse thing has been overdone, I thought I'd concentrate on the second.

Executing orders without question can be quite dangerous, both in terms of the actions done and the indefensible position it puts the executor in. And hey, humans aren't perfect. On the one hand, this means that orders are rarely perfect, and a healthy command structure encourages thinking and questioning; can the orders be improved? Are they really advancing our goals? On the other hand, you can spend so much time hemming and hawing that nothing much gets accomplished, which can be worse than the disease. On the gripping hand, who are these people giving the orders, anyway?

A Programmer's ABCs

A fantastic former colleague at Sun Microsystems just posted A Programmer's ABCs, which I found quite amusing.

Apologies for the long drought of no postings...