For 2011, I am going to attempt to average one post a week. I am putting this on the record to try to make sure that I actually do it.

In addition to topics related to software engineering in general, I am planning on learning and blogging on the following:

SchemaRede
Clojure
Comet
And maybe this Comet, too
Jetty
JSON
DWR
Neo4j
Cassandra
db40
MongoDB
jQuery
Node.js
Amazon EC2
Google App Engine
7 Languages In 7 Weeks (More Like 7 Epochs)

Also, I plan on attending 1 major conference and at least 8 local users groups. Once again I am putting it on the record to shame me into doing it.

And, yes, this counts as blog post.

I delcare that this sentence is false.

When I hear something like “We don’t need to test it. It’s declarative.”, I cringe. Sometimes it’s true, sometimes not. Like most engineering decisions, It’s really a matter of context, a matter of risk and effort.

Computers do what you tell them to do. How do you know that what you are telling them to do is the right thing? Sometimes the issue is that the computer is doing exactly as you declared! We need to keep that in mind when we think “Oh, don’t worry about that. It’s declarative.”

Dave Thomas, one of the Pragmatic Programmers, is posting a series on writing a technical book. The series is a worthwhile read.

Some of the points Mr. Thomas makes:

• Have “genuine” reason for writing the book.
• Develop a narrative. (The Hero’s journey works particularly well.)
• Find your voice.
• Write for the spectrum of possible readers: novice, intermediate, advanced.
• Get feedback early and often.
• Do what is necessary to keep writing.

That’s just my condensed version of the series. There’s a lot more, and I really encourage you to read it.

Why am I gung-ho about the series? I think the advice that Mr. Thomas provides is not just for writing technical books. It also applies to blogging, giving a presentation, or even evangelizing a technology.

When I look back at attempts I’ve made at writing, presenting, or persuading, the successes involved most of the points listed above. The failures had few or none.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic — Arthur C. Clarke

For me, CSS has advanced enough to become indistinguishable from magic. Black magic.

I have no problem with simple hexes, spells, and curses: This heading will have this font; That div will have this border; This span will have this background color; But, once it moves past that and into the realm of layouts, box models, and forms, things get a little shaky. That stuff is powerful black magic. Stuff that I can barely control.

Too many times I used a layout incantation to find it was the wrong one. Or, the incantation was correct, but its effect varied from browser to browser. When this happened, I often came across dark mages who promised help with my spell. All that was required was a sacrifice of purity and/or readability.

“Make a sacrifice to Tantek,” they would say. And, maybe it worked. If it didn’t, they would say “You must use some holly as part of the rite.” If that didn’t work, the mages would encourage me to look elsewhere. “You must consult the oracle!”

In the end, I typically found something that worked, or worked well enough. And, really, it was such a small sacrifice. But why do I feel so bad about it?