Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Learning Scala

Taking a page from the Pragmatic Programmer, I'm going to try to learn Scala this year in my spare time. Yes, it's a large undertaking, especially since I don't have a lot of spare time these days, but I think it will be worth the effort. Maybe some day I'll get to use it in my day job, but even if not, it will force me to learn new things, to think new ways, and to grow as a programmer. As an added bonus, it will give me something to blog about.

Why Scala? I was actually heading down the Clojure route and was really enjoying the way it was tickling memories of Scheme. So, today I instant messaged my friend Rob who is a programming language geek of the first order and a fan of Scheme. I asked him if he had taken a look at Clojure and he had not. He pointed me in the direction of Scala. Not being married to Clojure, I decided to switch my focus. With Scala, I have two extra resources to help me learn: a published book (sorry Clojure, missed me by a couple of days) and Rob. Maybe I'll spare some cycles to play with Clojure too — or maybe I'll save it until next year.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

void main*

My boss, Jason Cohen, recently blogged about how it is imperative to join the social media "revolution"even if it's not clear what that means. I see his point, and while I do blog occasionally at the Smart Bear Company Blog, I think it's important for me to build up my personal social media juice. After all, I won't be at Smart Bear forever, and whatever I do next, a little Google karma won't hurt.

I will try to keep this blog on the topics of software development, technology, and startups. That said, I know that blogs can sometimes take on a life of their own. Hopefully, it won't wither away to nothing.

* The title of this blog entry is me resisting the temptation to title it "Hello World". As for "Noop in a Loop", that came from a discussion of measuring CPU clock speeds.

As long as I'm employed at Smart Bear, most of my posts will be crossposted to the Smart Bear blog. I apologize in advance to anyone who reads both blogs.