From the sickbed...

OK, I'm actually out of the sickbed now, so it isn't exactly an accurate title. But the sickbed is where I've been this whole last week.

But first things first: the pantomime was a great success! The two evenings were sold out (the matinee was only about half-full, but we were up against unexpected spring-like weather, so the parents just kept their children outside rather than put them in a closed room), the audience loved it, and I've received enough compliments to boost my ego for a year. Given how some people tried to sabotage my work, this is a nice vindication (no, I won't add any more details. They know who they are, they know I know what they did, and the success of the play is for me revenge enough).

However, between the play, lots of work, and a difficult situation at home (a death in the family, just after New Year), I've ended up completely drained, and a perfect victim for the current flu epidemic. So naturally I got it, and ended up bedridden for a week, with enough fever to cook an egg on my forehead (and I'm hardly exaggerating).

Now I'm recovering. The fever seems to bid its last farewell, and I hope to be fit enough to go back to work next week. However, the doctor warned me that it could be three more weeks before I'm completely cured. How nice!

The morale of the story: really, really don't overdo it. Your body can only do so much, and you don't want it to be pissed at you.

Well, the cloud does have a silver lining: with all this happening, I've finally reached my ideal weight of 85 kg! Now the trick is not to start to yo-yo...

King Arthur

This is a short post to explain the lack of updates, despite what I had promised in my previous post. As you can see, I've been directing a theatre play, which is to go on stage next week, so I just don't have time to finish the post I've been drafting. Between work and this play, I hardly even have had any time to sleep!

But it's all worth it! This panto is funny as hell, and I got to work with very nice amateur actors. And let's not forget the great poster design, created by my better half! All in all, this has been a great experience, and I'm sure the spectators will love it. I'll make sure to write about it when it's finished.

My First Comment!

I got my first comment a few days ago, yay!

OK, I know it's spam, but beggars can't be choosers. I'd probably get more attention if I posted more often, but to do that I need to focus on short, topical posts, and when something interests me I tend to want to tell a lot about it (I tend to go into tangents too (but you've already noticed that I think (not to mention too many parentheses))). I could also try and make an effort to shorten my sentences and revise my style. It's quite obvious English isn't my mother tongue. I know, I can be a pain to read. I'm learning though.

In any case, I've been busy with a big post these last weeks. Nothing very important, just a subject I like very much, nicely illustrated thanks to the multimedia possibilities of the Web. Look forward to it! (although I won't hazard a publication date, I don't think you should wait longer than a week or so)

Xfce vs. GNOME (or: why can't I make the switch?!)

I usually don't have a problem switching applications when I'm not satisfied any more with the experience I've been having, even when I've been using the original app for years. I do tend to get emotionally attached to software (hey, I'm a geek), but not to the point that divorce is never an option. And I usually don't mind much switching to a solution I feel is slightly inferior, if the features I actually need are there.

To illustrate this, let me just tell you this: 5 years ago, I was reading my mail with Eudora and browsing the web with Opera, all this on Windows Millenium (OK, that part was not my choice, but at the time I was just not ready yet to switch to Linux, although it was already my goal). Today, on the very same computer (switching hardware is not that easy to do when one doesn't have money, but I did upgrade the thing a little with the years), I read my e-mail via Thunderbird and am writing this post in Firefox (well, Icedove and Iceweasel actually, but that's just Debian rebranding), all this on a Debian GNU/Linux desktop. I first switched from Eudora to Thunderbird (about the time when Thunderbird 1.5 was released), not because I felt Thunderbird was better (I still think it tried too hard to look like Outlook. I liked Eudora's MDI better), but because the latest Eudora upgrade had broken quite a few things, and I was fed up with some of the choices Qualcomm had made (HTML e-mail with no option to switch back to plain text?!). My switch from Opera to Firefox was much more recent, and I still feel uneasy about it. Sure, the portable version I used on my company laptop was getting really annoying with its constant freezes, and the Linux version just didn't play well with the rest of the desktop (firefox's GNOME integration is great!). And some Firefox extensions like FireFTP and Foxmarks are just too good to pass. And Blogger's interface does work on Firefox at least (although I'm not quite sure Opera is too blame here). But despite all that, I'm still following on Opera, to see if future versions could solve the problems that made me switch in the first place, as I feel that most of its features (its tabbed browsing, its mouse gestures, its speed dial, to name only the most obvious) are better implemented than in Firefox.

All this should make it clear that I am ready to put up with some inconvenience if I feel that my core needs are met. So why is it that I can't switch away from GNOME? I don't have any grudge again the desktop environment (otherwise I wouldn't be using it), but on my 6-year-old computer it gets slightly slower at each update. Moreover, it lacks some features that I really miss (like virtual desktop switching by mousing over the edge of the screen, or the application menu on right-click anywhere on the desktop). And finally, its trash implementation is a joke, and does not work properly with Windows partitions. The Xfce desktop corrects all the issues I have with GNOME, while adding a bunch of nice features (its simple transparency effects are great at de-cluttering my screen estate, and its bulk rename tool is great for people like me who are still not that comfortable with the command line). It's also lightweight enough that I do feel it is more responsive than GNOME (although I start Xfce with some GNOME services as I still use quite a few GNOME apps). It does have a few issues (like the impossibility to use single click to open desktop icons, or the fact that it sometimes leaves zombie processes around), but I already handled the main showstoppers (like the inability to use the reboot or shutdown buttons).

So why do I find myself switching back to GNOME after trying Xfce for a few hours? Are the features I am missing not that important to me after all? Have I become so used to the GNOME experience that I can't bear to do the switch any longer? Am I lying to myself when I say that I enjoy Xfce, or on the contrary when I switch back to GNOME? Is my GNOME experience still good enough that I can't bring myself to go through the switch? It's not even that I have to give up the applications I'm already using: they all work great on Xfce. At this point, I don't think the problem is a technical one (although the zombie processes do seem to slow down my computer. It might be worth a bug report), but I still cannot understand my own behaviour.

Where do I go from here then? Well, back to GNOME for now, while I'm trying to figure out what's wrong. I'll still try Xfce from time to time, to see whether I can get past this resistance, but at this time I've given up on doing a full switch. I wonder if that's what people mean when they talk about not being able to adapt to new interfaces, in all those discussions on Windows to Linux migration. Maybe that's the kind of resistance that has brought us all those VI-vs.-Emacs flamewars, due to people used to one and not being able to feel comfortable when trying the other, and then blaming it on that other text editor. If it is, then I really need to solve that issue: I need to stay flexible. If I'm starting to ossify myself at my age, how will I be when I grow up?

Does Wehkamp know something we don't? (updated)

This is very weird. Wehkamp, the Dutch mail-order and Internet shop, still maintains that the Wii game NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams will be released on the 1st of December here in the Netherlands, while the rest of the world and its neighbour know that the game won't be released in Europe before January next year.

I would normally brush this off as a simple mistake. However, as maybe the biggest mail-order company of the Netherlands, you'd think Wehkamp would take those things seriously. Moreover, it's the only game that shows this strange release date behaviour. I've followed the release dates of quite a few games on the Wehkamp website, and they've all kept in sync with delay announcements.

So, what's going on here? Is this really just a weird error from Wehkamp? Or is SEGA organising some surprise early release? I frankly cannot believe either, but I guess we'll know within a week.

In any case, if SEGA does indeed pull up some weird trick out of its hat, I'll have the satisfaction of receiving the game early. After all, I've pre-ordered it an eternity ago (before Super Paper Mario was even released!).

Update: so it seems Wehkamp was just stalling to change the release date after all. It's now set to the 31st of January, more in line with other announcements. However, I find this rather unprofessional: not everyone is reading the specialised press, and changing the release date at the last moment when everyone else in the industry (and thus retailers as well, you'd expect) has known about it for one month shows lack of respect for the consumer. It seems to be a common trend everywhere nowadays and I don't quite like it (to say the least!). I need to keep an eye on it...

Super Mario GALAXY!!!

'Nuff said.

Cluelessness

A few days ago, Giles Bowkett published a great post. I encourage everyone to read it. He usually gets things pretty right, but in this case he's hit bull's eye.

His article talks specifically about Silicon Valley software engineers and their absurd reaction to the Hollywood Writer's Guild's strike, but in my experience it's a more common and widespread phenomenon than this: engineers in general are often clueless about whatever happens that is not in their area of expertise. And the worst part is that they are often unaware of their cluelessness, and believe that everything works just as in their own knowledge area. And don't try to correct them: they know what they are doing, and anybody who disagrees just doesn't know what they are talking about. Academics often suffer from the same kind of tunnel vision.

I've observed this behaviour for years as an insider. Heck, I've been guilty of it myself! I believe it stems from at least four causes:

• Engineers deal with exact sciences: engineering is based on physical and chemical principles. Likewise, software engineering is based on maths. In both cases, we are talking about exact sciences, which describe their subject (in the case of physics, the real world) using laws of universal value. The laws of physics don't have exception. They may be valid for only a subset of phenomena, but that only means that there is a better, more general law out there, even if it's unknown at the moment or irrelevant for the work at hand. This is not wrong, as long as one remembers that the laws are only tools to describe phenomena, not universal truths with which reality has to comply. The step is unfortunately easy to make, unconsciously, and creates people with a dogmatic attitude: if it doesn't fit with my view of the world, it's nonsense (or worse: if it doesn't fit my view of the world, it doesn't exist).
• Engineers are terribly insular: it is natural for human beings to feel most comfortable among their own. That's the reason for the existence of clubs, associations, political parties, etc. We like to be surrounded by people who have the same opinions, experience, interests... as ours. Engineers, however, tend to take this to extremes. It's not abnormal for an engineer's social circle to consist entirely of fellow engineers. When those friends are not engineers, there's a big chance that they will be academics, which in social terms is not that different. Worse even, I've seen entire families consisting only of engineers, often working in the same area (it seems particularly true in the Oil & Gas business, but that might just be my experience). Why this is is a complex question (that I might tackle in another article), but the net result is that the social world of an engineer usually consists of people who think the same way they do. That doesn't help awareness.
• Engineers feel they are not recognised: we have to be fair here: our world (or at least the developed, Western world) is mostly an engineered world. Many people never go to a theatre or a museum, but they couldn't live without their mobile phone, their computer, Internet, a TV set, a good car, holidays by plane, cheap food and housing... all things provided to them thanks to the work of countless engineers in many different areas. Scientists may get angry at me here, but while they are the ones who discover the principles behind the instruments of our modern life, it's the engineers who actually create the everyday applications of those principles. And it's something the layman is usually unaware of, as academics (or engineers working in universities, which for me is just another sort of academics) get the spotlight far more often. In any case, engineers feel (whether consciously or not) that they are a main driving force of our modern society, but are not recognised as such by the layman. That puts them in a defensive mode, and a tendency to glorify their way as the best way (nobody understands how important I am. Well, I'll show them!). It's not a very good way to approach and understand others.
• Engineers are not very social: this might actually be the root cause of the previous two reasons I presented. This is a difficult topic to discuss, and causing lots of flamewars in various engineering communities (especially in software engineering). That's because the issue is tainted by the stereotyped images of the geek and the nerd, which are not things people like to be compared to. But one does not need to wear bow-ties and too short trousers to be a bit nerdy, or to have bad hygiene habits to be a bit geeky. The issue here is communication skills and nothing else. Communication skills are not a talent you're born with (well, not only). They are mostly something you learn as you grow, and not only as a child. Puberty and the beginning of adulthood are extremely important as well, the moment when people start getting specialised education for what they will become later, and often live along with people with the same education (in campuses and similar student housings). And while the communication skills engineers learn at that time are great to discuss with their peers, they are not that good when it comes to social chit-chat, or discussions with laymen (like it or not, social chit-chat requires snappy replies and quick apropos, and the ability to talk about nothing in particular. Engineers are more at home with long preparations and analysis, and a conversation must have a well defined subject both parties agree on). To talk in engineering terms, there is an impedance issue, between the way engineers and non-engineers handle communication.

Disclaimer: I do realise that I've been painting engineers with a very wide brush. Reality is far more complicated, and there's lots of engineers with lively social lives and broad social circles consisting of non-engineers. But my own experience tells me that there's at least a plurality of engineers who fit the portrait I've been sketching, at least in part, and those engineers do have difficulties understanding the world outside of engineering, and tend to approach everything with the same method, even when it doesn't apply. They are clueless.

In any case, what I'm trying to get at is that there are as many bigots and close-minded people among engineers as among any other (professional or other) group, unlike what many engineers seem to think.

What about me then? How can I be so self-righteous about my fellow engineers? Am I so much better than them? Well... no. I can also be quite dogmatic (who said we can see that right here?), and I also lack social skills. But what I am not is insular. On the contrary, I can't say that I fit very well among engineers. I don't know whether it is because I come from a family where I'm basically the first one to ever have reached a university-degree level (my sister is the second one, but she studies Law, not Engineering), or because I am sometimes too geeky even for engineers (not many engineers in my area of work are actually interested in software itself, much less in its social implications and things like Free Software. And I haven't even mentioned my interest in linguistics yet...).

But my main advantage is that I am aware (sometimes painfully) of my limitations. I know when I am clueless. How is that possible? Quite simply really: I have someone waiting for me at home who couldn't care less about engineering, while still being the most intelligent person I've ever met. My partner keeps me firmly grounded in the world, and doesn't hesitate to point out when I become too dogmatic. And I am forced to work on my social skills on a regular basis as well. I don't always enjoy it, but in any case it ensures that I can never become a one-tracked engineering mind. My partner also encourages me to entertain more social interests, like sports and arts, to the point that I am currently directing a theatre play.

In a way, it's the age-long advice: get out, get some fresh air, do something different. If you do the same thing all the time, and only meet people who do the same thing, you'll only let your world shrink down to the size of a pebble. There's a bigger world out there, and it's not just utter nonsense. So don't ignore outside advice offhand, because you don't know what you're missing. Here's a clue: the world isn't what you think it's like; go and find that out by yourself.