I managed to complete two Pomodoros. Each of the Pomodoros was filled with internal interruptions of various kinds. One of the first things that I observed was something that I already knew from yesterday’s TADD post: I am definitely not used to focusing on one distinct task for any prolonged length of time. My mind was constantly bouncing around from idea to idea, almost as if my R-mode had a “memory leak.” My first Pomodoro was primarily a reading task – I used it for my daily Bible reading and meditation. This part of my day brings it’s focus challenges anyway, as I’m not doing anything tactile. I find its much easier to focus when I’m typing or writing something. The Pomodoro offered no relief from this, save a plan for dealing with the interruptions as they came up. First, note down that one happened with an apostrophe, and second, write the todo item or idea down on my inventory. This definitely helped to refocus my mind on the work at hand, but I still wish I could find a way to prevent those streamer thoughts from landing in the first place.

The second thing that I observed was that my workspace is not at all setup to encourage focus. In recent months I’ve stopped using task-focused desktops in OS X, something that Neil Ford recommends in The Productive Programmer. I was reminded of this later in the day today reading his latest blog entry. I think it would be a good idea to use my first Pomodoro of the day to setup task-based desktops for each of the tasks on my TODO list. I could fire up all of the programs necessary and drop them on to a space. Since a lot of my work is focused on web-based applications, I think I’ll probably use Fluid (http://fluidapp.com/) to create site specific browsers for the web applications that I need for each task. Another thing that I need to do is turn off the ringer on my phones and the new message notifications on Entourage. One tool that I did already have in my arsenal is Doodim, which blacks out everything except for the currently focused window on OS X. The only problem with Doodim (http://www.lachoseinteractive.net/en/products/doodim/) is that it doesn’t work with external screens, so only my MacBook Pro’s screen gets the benefits. I counteracted this by making sure that the window I was actively using was on the external screen and maximized, but this won’t work for some tasks during which I might have multiple small windows to interact with.

The final thing that I observed is that I still definitely live in an interruption-based work environment. My third attempt to complete a Pomodoro was repeated three times, and none of these times did I make it without having to stop and actively handle an external interruption. The difference? My office door was open. My first two Pomodoros were completed with the office door closed and my “Ssshhh…Genius at work!” sign on the door. This is going to be a tough one to handle. I don’t want to keep my office door closed all day, for more reasons than one. First, I don’t want to seem completely unapproachable. I’m a manager these days, and a huge part of my job is being available for people. For me, some interruptions will always be OK. But how can I sort those out prior to them happening? This is something I’ll be stewing on over the next couple of days. Second, my office turns into an absolute OVEN when the door is closed for too long. We have a really strange HVAC system that completely overreacts to small changes in the temperature. Unfortunately, it always seems to think I need to be slow cooked. ::SIGH::

So, there you have it. I’ve learned a lot – I observed quite a view things about my work patterns and my environment, and will be working over the next few days to make changes to both to support better focus. If you have any comments or suggestions, please feel free to comment. Thanks!

For the uninitiated, Toastmasters is an organization focused on helping individuals hone their communication and leadership skills in a safe environment. This is accomplished primarily through three different avenues:

• Serving in one of the meeting leadership roles, such as Toastmaster (the meeting facilitator);
• Giving a prepared speech/talk from the list of speech projects in the Toastmasters “coursework”;
• Speaking extemporaneously on one of several “table topics,” which are speaking prompts provided during the meeting.

Participation in any of these avenues is immediately followed up with feedback from one or more people playing various “evaluator” roles. I couldn’t help but see the parallels to agile software development!

I’ve now attended three meetings, and at the last meeting I decided to join up. The St. Jude club is an extremely friendly group, and several of its members are very accomplished public speakers. You can definitely tell that the Toastmasters experience has helped them enhance their communications skills. I’m looking forward to polishing my own.

So here’s my question. Would you be interested in using such a site? As a reader, blogger, or both? Please sound off. Thanks!

To summarize:

1. As far as the polls go, Scala is in the lead by a margin of 4 to 2.
2. Two of the Scala votes have been simple +1′s, and two have provided a supporting argument.
3. Both Clojure voters have provided a supporting argument.
4. So, to make this a bit more of a fair fight, I’m only going to consider the “supported votes” at this point. This leads to the obvious result of a tie!

So, what to do?

The argument for using Scala is that it is a functional/OO hybrid, so it will be easier to slide into. Interestingly enough, the argument against using Scala is that it is a functional/OO hybrid, so it will be easier to slide back into OO/imperative habits! Clojure, being more of a purely functional language, will be harder to get into initially, but will force me to think functionally. Hmmm…

So here’s my idea. Let’s do this the agile way. What I’d like to do is complete a timeboxed spike (in terms of actual time spent learning the language, not calendar time – I’m doing this in my spare time, and I’ve got my wife, four kids, and three other side projects competing for my attention!) of roughly two weeks in each language. The first week of the spike would be spent getting comfortable with the syntax, reading articles/documentation/blogs/etc., writing “Hello, World!” etc. The second week of the spike would be spent solving the same problem in each language, preferably a problem sitting in the functional sweet spot.

How does this sound to everyone? And to follow up, does anyone have a suggested problem I might tackle? Cheers!

Since establishing and reporting on these goals, I’ve had several things get in the way of fully realizing all of them. However, I can safely say that in the last two years I have mastered enough Groovy and Grails that they no longer fit in the LOTY category. At this point they’re really not showing my anything that is causing any paradigm shifts for me. They’re comfortable. When I learn a new feature, it just seems to make sense, and nothing surprises me anymore. Languages like these aren’t good LOTY candidates because one of the purposes of learning a LOTY is to challenge and change your ideas about programming. Groovy doesn’t do this for me anymore. It’s time to move on (not to say that I’m dropping Groovy and Grails as a tool – I’m using them more now than ever – they’re just not a learning tool for me anymore).

So, at this point I want to delve into a language that attempts to tackle the concurrent/multicore programming challenge. I’d like to stay on the JVM because I appreciate the benefits that it brings as a platform, so for now Erlang is out. The two leading candidates in the JVM/concurrent/multicore arena seem to be Scala and Clojure. An added benefit of both of these languages is that they support the functional paradigm, something I haven’t really played with since my computer science education days and a very interesting language named Haskell.

Scala is a multiparadigm language, supporting both object-oriented and functional constructs. It is statically typed, yet offers very nice type inference. Clojure, on the other hand, is a functional Lisp derivative with almost no OO constructs that is dynamically typed. Both are designed to enable concurrent programming. Which one do I choose? I open the floor for comments.

1. Learn Groovy and Grails

   Andy and Dave suggest learning a new language every year, so this seemed like a good goal for me. I can’t say that I’ve truly learned Groovy and Grails in depth, but I did learn them enough to do a presentation on them (as well as Ruby, JRuby, and Rails) at our Java User Group meeting in October, so I’ve effectively touched on two languages and two frameworks for those languages. I’ve since gotten interested in Scala as well. At any rate, I’d like to go deeper w/ Groovy and Grails as I have time, which is scarce!

2. Release HallKeeper v1.0 as part of #1

   This project seems destined to fail. I haven’t worked on it in any meaningful way since the summer. I’ve thought about it in the past week, and I’d actually like to try doing it in straight Java POJOs with Spring and Hibernate since I’m more well-versed in that area. At any rate, it really is my lack of spare time that keeps this one on the perpetual back burner.

3. Read and LEARN the following books:
   • The Definitive Guide to Grails – Rocher
   • The Pragmatic Programmer – Hunt, Thomas
   • Computer Algorithms: Introduction to Design & Analysis – Baase, Van Gelder
   • Concepts of Programming Languages: Sebesta
   • Groovy in Action – Konig

   I’ve pretty much finished #1, got started on #2, and haven’t really touched the last three. Again, the needs of the moment have necessitated I focus on other areas, particularly other books. Recent projects have pointed me to three additional books I’d really like to cover this year, so I may not get to my original list. Here are the titles:

   • Working Effectively with Legacy Code – Feathers
   • POJOs in Action – Richardson
   • Domain Driven Design – Evans
4. Review two books for the JavaLobby/DZone book review team

   This is one I’ve hit the nail on. I just completed my second book review, which will be published some time in the next few weeks. My first review, Ajax Construction Kit: Building Plug-and-Play Ajax Applications, was published in October 2007. These have been rather time consuming and have kept me from other projects, so I don’t plan to take any more reviews this year.

5. Pass the Sun Certified Programmer for the Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition 5.0 Exam

   Haven’t touched this one yet. Preparing for this will be one of my foci in the coming weeks.

6. Write one Java/software development blog article per week

   I haven’t done so hot on this one. OK, let’s be really honest. I haven’t come close. However, my recent flurry of entries on The Spring Experience 2007 have gotten me into a bit of a groove. I’m going to try to keep up the momentum and finish this year strong.

7. Attend JavaOne 2008 or similar conference

   I’ve actually traveled twice since my original post. My first trip was to the Northeast Life Sciences Core Directors Meeting last November at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. The purpose of this trip was to present and generate interest around our open source shared resource management system for core facilities, STJUDE-SRM. The trip was a great success. My second trip really fulfills this goal, as I attended The Spring Experience 2007 in Hollywood, FL. This proved to be one of the best technical conferences I’ve ever attended, and also one of the most fun!

8. Start a Memphis/Mid-South Area Java User Group

   I don’t think this goal could have gone any better than it has. In late July I started a Google Group and a small Google Page Creator website to attempt to drum up interest in a Java User Group for the Memphis, TN and surrounding Mid-South area. On July 23, 2007, along comes Diane Tabulog, a technical recruiter with local company Vaco Technology, who convinces her company to throw its support behind our JUG. All of a sudden we have an offer for a meeting location, food budget, giveaways, etc. Later, Clayton Naeve, our CIO at St. Jude, agreed to let us use our awesome conference room at our division’s new offices at 160 Shadyac Avenue to meet, as Vaco’s facilities were a bit small. On August 15, Carol McDonald, a Java Technology Evangelist from Sun Microsystems, offered to speak at our JUG, and we signed her up for the first meeting. Little by little, all of the necessary pieces started to fall into place, including additional free giveaways from Sun, O’Reilly, Atlassian, and JetBrains. The first meeting was a great success, and since then we’ve had two more successful meetings. Our next meeting is Thursday, January 17, 2008. Find out more at http://www.memphisjug.org.