On Drupal's Theme Caching

If you're hacking on a Drupal module and you write ANY function that has the word theme in it make sure you

CLEAR THE FUCKING THEME REGISTRY CACHE

I just wasted 4 hours trying to figure why no theme function I wrote had any affect on anything.

The more I hack on Drupal the more I realize that it really needs a Rails-like separation between Production and Development environments. Caching should NEVER be enabled when your developing unless you're specifically working on caching.

The Real Difference Between Twitter and Facebook

Ask yourself this:

How many friends have you made because of Facebook?

now ask yourself:

How many friends have you made because of Twitter?

I would posit that for most people the answer to the first question would be zero and for the second I'd bet it's certainly more than one.

Guess which service I find the most value in?

How I Got Started in Woodworking

So Evan was kind enough to ask me the following in a comment to a previous post and I thought I'd throw my answer up in a new post because I know it'll be too long for a comment:

So as a fella who wants to learn how to craft furniture, where do you get started? I find that type of carpentry fascinating but don't know where to begin.

*Please let me start with the usual caveat that what worked for me may not necessarily work for you.

Skip to tl;dr

What I Needed Initially

Basically I'd been interested in woodworking for a while and had amassed a small amount of tools but didn't know where to begin. In starting any kind of new venture I've found I need 2 things:

1. Enough knowledge of the problem domain to feel comfortable that I'm not wasting my time on something
2. An actual project

I took care of #1 by subscribing to Wood Magazine. It's one of probably 3 main woodworking publications in the US and is targeted at beginners (even though it may not seem it when you first start reading it). Wood Magazine is a great place to start learning the jargon, the steps involved in numerous projects and what kind of tools you may want to initially invest in.

#2 was taken care of when Wood published plans for an entire bedroom set and I suggested to Rebecca that I could build it for us as long as she didn't mind waiting an unknown number of years for the whole thing. (I guess I should add a #3 to the list above: A patient and understanding spouse)

So How Long Did It Take?

Now, it was probably a good 6-8 months of reading before I started tackling anything (but that's because I'm lazy) and luckily I was smart and chose as my first project the smallest part of the bedroom set (the valet). I think it took me that long to finally start because it was so new I felt I hadn't absorbed enough knowledge that I could pull the thing off. I was completely wrong of course because, as with anything, it's the process of doing that will show you how much you know, not the amount of time you've spent studying.

Now, while it took me longer than I thought it would, I did eventually build it - with my own two hands - and I've got to say it's an awesome thing to create something physical after spending so much time pushing bits around.

I learned from every mistake, of which there were lots and what that one completed project did was give me the confidence and the passion to do more.

Then What?

The next thing I did was subscribe to the other two major woodworking mags, Fine Woodworking and Popular Woodworking. If I were to give a quick summary I'd say they're aimed at intermediate and advanced levels respectively, and while initially you may be too intimidated to use what's in them, the skills you'll be shown will widen your perspective, even if you just want to stick with Wood's relatively easy projects.

Branching out and getting these two other magazines were a great idea because, while I'm still planning on building the bedroom set, I've decided to change Wood's plans and try some more advanced concepts I've learned from them.

Oh No, He's Going to Compare It To Programming Isn't He?

What's funny is that the above process is basically the same I use for any new foray into uncharted territory. When I want to learn a new programming language I find it near impossible if I don't have adequate documentation (or a good book) AND a good project. I've read and enjoyed both the ANTLR and Erlang books but have no idea how to really use either of them because I didn't have a project to apply them to. BUT I'm glad I did read them because they've opened my eyes to different ways of doing things that I'd never have been exposed to by just doing web programming.

And as I've read more and gotten to know the community I've found parallel after parallel with the tech industry. From religious wars (power tools vs. hand tools), to development practices (physical vs. virtual prototypes), to tooling (build your own vs. buying them), to yak-shaving (I need a new table saw but I don't have an outlet so rather than just rewire I'll redo the entire shop instead) the similarities are ripe for some good articles that I hope to write soon. Hell, there are woodworkers practicing what you could call Agile methods, they just don't know it!

TL;DR

As usual I've been incredibly long-winded. The tl;dr is: Pick up a Wood Magazine, give it a read and see if it's at all interesting. If so, get a subscription, find a project, get some tools and get started. From there you'll get an idea how serious you want to get and what kind of investment you'll need.

Online Resources

As an aside let me say there's a great online woodworking community that I haven't even scratched the surface of. So far I've found a number of guys who really "get" the online experience and social media (I hate that term). They've got blogs, have or participate in forums and twitter and have videos that not only showcase their projects but are meant to teach the dos (and don'ts) that they've found. Here's a list of the woodworkers I love watching:

• The WoodWhisperer - The place to start. Marc's videos are great for all levels and his sense of humour and pragmatism is wonderful.
• Matt's Basement Workshop - The "godfather" of woodworking podcasts, Matt loves his handtools and isn't afraid to show it (or them).
• The Renaissance Woodworker - Shannon does some beautiful work and completes the (newly formed) triumvirate, along with Matt and Marc, that is Wood Talk Online - a great podcast.
• The Bois Shop - Rob Bois strikes a really nice balance between hand and power tools and just seems like a cool guy.

I've got lots of others but those are the ones I've been following for a while and really enjoy. I'll probably follow up with some more posts in the future but if you've got any more questions, please let me know.

How Much Do You Love Your Job?

So it's been a while since I've written anything but whatever. I had an "interesting" thought today that I wanted to share so here we go:

If you found out you only had, say, a year or two to live, would you quit your job?*

Morbid, I know. And weird. Who gives a shit about your job if you're going to die soon? I'll tell you who, people who love what they do. When I thought about this the first thing that came to mind was that I would immediately quit my job and use my savings to spend as much time with Rebecca and as much time woodworking as I possibly could.

But of course that's me and I realized after a moment that there actually are people out there who love what they're doing so much that they wouldn't stop working. In the same way that all I'd want to do was spend time puttering around in my garage building furniture, they'd be at their desk working on their business or their web app or whatever it is they're doing right now.

And if that's you, damn but I envy you. Not because I'd rather keep working a job if I got the bad news, but because that means that right now you're doing exactly what you should be doing. You've got a job that you love as much as I love my hobby. And that is incredibly awesome.

Those of you that know me in real life and/or from Twitter know that I've hated my job for a while now. The reasons I'm still doing it are simple: the money, laziness and fear; but I came to realize that even though I love the field I'm in and even though I love programming, I'd rather be spending my time in the garage playing with power tools and occasionally seriously injuring myself.

So think to yourself, if you didn't have a lot of time left on this earth would you still be doing what your doing? Because if so, you're one lucky sonofabitch.

* For the purposes of this thought experiment I'm assuming that your family comes first and all that. But you'll eventually need some time to yourself and what are you going to want to do then?

FutureRuby Reflections

The power of the unconference compels me to write this post.

It's been a week and I don't think anyone will argue that FutureRuby was all sorts of win. The talks, the organizers, the people (comrades) and the parties kicked ass. A lot will probably be written about the various speakers and complete run-downs will no doubt exist soon (for a great start, check out Andrew Louis' or Ron Evans') and what you'll no doubt find is people saying that more conferences need parties like FutureRuby's. And while that is undoubtedly true, the question is: Why?

"Free booze r0x0rz!" I can hear you screaming and yes I agree, free booze does, indeed, "r0x0rz" as you say but there's something more to it. And that's this:

All the people who conferenced together, partied together.

Pete Forde and Meghann Milliard did an outstanding job with the entire conference but where they really got it right was in keeping the conference small enough to have everyone in the same venue for both the talks and the major events. This allowed people to constantly run into each other without any real effort.

I went to the first party at Unspace having met literally no one there in person before and walked out with almost a dozen new friends (for realz). And while at Pravda the next night, not only did that number grow but what I'll call "the cross-pollination of friend-sets" occurred, allowing those disparate people I had met previously to be introduced to one another, splinter off, interact and then be introduced to their new acquaintances.

And the only good reason I can come up with for this was our proximity to each other. Simply being "trapped" (for lack of a better term) in the same venue together allowed everyone to eventually run into everyone else. And having everyone in the same sessions helps reinforce this proximity during the day as well.

Now it's entirely possible that some of us could have acted as individual social attractors, inadvertently bringing separate groups together but I really find that hard to believe. It seems that simply allowing everyone to congregate in a specific location for a specific amount of time really broke down barriers.

So while I don't want to detract from the awesomeness that was the conference proper, I hope that anyone planning a smallish conference realizes what can make or break an experience for people. It's not necessarily free food (it helps) or free booze (also really helps) but it is definitely giving your attendees a place to interact, outside of the conference venue, where at the very least the majority of people will be. From some of the conversations that I overheard and was a part of it's clear that good things will happen when you do this. Friendships will be forged, business plan hammered out, philosophies created, revolutions begun.

Given the right circumstance geeks can be social. Give them the opportunity to be, and cool shit will happen.

John C. Welch Nails Social Media (in a good way)

I'm a big fan of John's blog and the Angry Mac Bastards podcast so, while I may be something of a Bynkii fanboy, I really think his latest post does a great job of explaining how and when to use social media:

1. Social Media is just people talking to people


2. Don't do anything with Social Media unless you know what and why you're doing it


3. If you're going to say something, have something real to say


4. Using Social Media is not magic, it's still real work


5. You cannot prevent people from hating you, stop trying to prevent it as a thing

Looks simple? It is. Don't overthink this shit, don't give it too much precedence, and don't be afraid to be the last guy on the bus. Do things in a way that works for you, not because someone said you should.

[From: Web 2.0/Social Media: Really guys, it's pretty simple by John C. Welch]

I don't think it gets any easier than that. It's a long post but go, read it. You'll be glad you did. Unless you don't like swearing, in which case, why the fuck are you reading my blog?

I Am Not Management Material

I realized today that I should never be allowed to hire employees because if I ever had to choose between two perfect candidates and one was named Timmy I would choose him just so I could constantly reference South Park.