A good paper on design

It is not unusual for us to keep relearning the same thing over and over again in our industry. A friend pointed me to this "old paper" which documents design learnings across many projects. I found it to be a great (but slow) read.

Hints for Computer System Design

Story of stuff

An interesting video that got forwarded to me. Definitely worth 20 minutes of your time:

http://www.storyofstuff.com

Shortly after the World War 2, these guys were figuring out how to ramp up the [U.S.] economy. Retailing analyst Victor Lebow articulated the solution that has become the norm for the whole system. He said: “Our enormously productive economy . . . demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption . . . we need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate.”
And President Eisenhower’s Council of Economic Advisors Chairman said that “The American economy’s ultimate purpose is to produce more consumer goods.”

MORE CONSUMER GOODS??? Our [economy’s] ultimate purpose? Not provide health care, or education, or safe transportation, or sustainability or justice? Consumer goods?
...

Keyboard stuff..

Was trying to play a song from notes (piyu bole) and since it seemed too fast for such a slow song, I looked up on the web to see how people actually play that song. Found an amazing
version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atAzfF0M44s

Not beginner's stuff :).

Learning something new.

Looking at my wife churn out pleasant music on a keyboard with barely 2 weeks of classes, I wonder why I never invested any time in any of the creative fields (painting, sketching, music, photography...).

I think the basic issues for me are around

1. Getting out of the comfort zone. The existing mental pathways are easier to go along with.
2. Trying to look for "productive output".
3. A belief that any new field requires a huge amount of practice and dedication.

Due to this I always ended up spending my free time on the next "scripting language" or "programming model" :). So taking a different view point and approach, I am going to:

1. Focus on the joy of learning/exploring something new.
2. Commit a fixed time (say 30hours) to a given field and see where it goes.

At the end of it if I can enjoy/appreciate music or photography more, it would be more than worth it. RK's tip is a very practical fallback :)

Windows workflow

Looking at the samples and having some vague discussions at work about workflows got me a little irritated and frustrated about whats going on.

Luckily someone pointed me to this book: "Essential Workflow" and I must say that it is one well written book. It explains the "concepts" behind it instead of dealing with some vague design surface or cooked up examples. Basically WWF is a 'programming model' for long running resumable programs.

With fundas in mind it is much easier to make a call on whether WF is a fit for a given context.

You can find a sample chapter here: Sample Chapter