Today’s lesson in ‘how to overcomplicate what should be a fairly straightforward matter’ is courtesy of Pampers:

You may have noticed that I’ve started using my MSDN Blog again as well as my own. I’ll be trying to ensure I’m cross-posting, though MarcMyWords will also contain the more spurious content.

You can choose which you prefer. If any :)

I absolutely love Lego – who doesn’t? – but I’m surprised at how rubbish I am at building my own models. I remember when I was a kid that most of my spaceships looked like shoe boxes…

Perhaps the all new version of the Lego Digital Designer will help. Definitely worth a download.

Great essay. Doesn’t remind me of anyone… *cough* myself *cough*

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that a lot of the fun of coding – in whatever form that is – is the exploration and discovery of new tools and techniques.

A couple of things that jogged my conscience happened in the last week:

• This month’s Edge had a feature on RuneScape and how they’ve developed a hugely successful MMOG from back-bedroom beginnings.
• Scott Hanselman kicked off his exploration of WPF with the creation of BabySmash and a call to action to help him out with it. Lifehacker have already picked it up.

It reminded me that being a master is an aspiration, but all of the fun is in the journey to that point. I think that technologies like WPF and Silverlight lend themselves to the fun of the journey because they’re directly accessible and efficient but have tons of depth and possibility should you wish to master them. Stuff like this.

With that in mind I started thinking about why I got into programming in the first place. (Professionally it’s because I wasn’t dedicated enough to be a doctor, but that’s a different story.) It boils down to a childhood subscription to Zzap64 magazine, which focused on the Commodore 64, and a 4-part article by Andrew Braybrook on the creation of Paradroid (probably one of the best C64 games ever). I’d already bought Gribbly’s Day Out and thought it was brilliant, so reading about a hero building his new game, and then the game turning out as good as it did was just great. And that’s why I started programming.

Braybrook did some other great stuff too (notably for me was Uridium) but it was the Paradroid article that represented the zeitgeist for me as a kid.

I found the diary on an archive site – you can read it here. Looking at again made me nostalgic, but also inspired by the discovery process, and the hacking that is clear through the writing.

I was pleased that Andrew has a Wikipedia page, though I’m hoping that the note that he now works for an insurance firm is code for “is living in gaming paradise for heroes”.

For my part in this, I’ll be doing more coding, and less thinking about the correctness of the approach in the long term: a limiting factor on my fun. Inspiration is a strange thing.

As Editors said: “Don’t tell me it’s easy to follow a process. There’s nothing harder than keeping a promise”. (They probably said it twice, as that seems to be what they do with most of their lyrics.)

After a hard week of planning – it’s that time of year – I need to get some process stuff out of my system. I heard another horror story last week around some web project or other (it shall remain nameless) that was almost 16 months in the planning, and then developed for 12 months or so.

At this point, you’ll be thinking “ah, he’s off on an agile rant”. Well, not quite – not in the process in any case, as those things are, after all, processes too.

It’s about mindset.

Methodologies are typically actions arising from a mindset: risk management, rapid action or whatever. My preferred mindset has been a combination of “cut the crap” (thanks Greg) and “continuous improvement” (thanks Portia).

The key question, then, for any process at any time is “What if I hadn’t just followed that process?” and then the action is to change on the basis of the answer.

I heard an interesting soundbite from a colleague who had spoken with a successful entrepreneur at an event and he’d said (I’m paraphrasing): “I’d love to be an entrepreneur, but I don’t like the risk associated with it – I have a family, mortgage etc.”.  To which the entrepreneur replied: “I think the idea of a stable job and income is more risky.”

Done. I feel better already.

<rant>

Man - I hate travelling to Cardinal Place (the London Microsoft Office). Given I (like many colleagues) live out West in some kind of vicinity of Reading and Thames Valley Park, it means that most of us have to get from Paddington -> Victoria as part of this commute.

So let's consider the options:

• Circle Line south and direct to Victoria. Circle line! A-ha-ha-ha-ha! What are the chances, seriously..?
• Bakerloo line to Oxford Circus and then Victoria line to Victoria. Because the Bakerloo line is usually working right? At the same time that the Victoria line is?
• Or you could just adopt the foetal position outside of WHSmith in Paddington and wish that all of the bad things would go away.

Still, the reward of the mausoleum that is the hot-desking area upon arrival makes the journey worthwhile.

Today wasn't so bad although because of the temperature and rain combination the Bakerloo line took on some sauna and steam room-like qualities.

</rant>

It's great to feel a sense of pride in your work.

There are some things in life that should be mixed. Carl Franklin deserves a medal for taking some of my favourite technology, Silverlight, and mixing it with some of my favourite music: Steely Dan!

Now if only he'd do anything from Pretzel Logic (Barrytown?), or Can't Buy A Thrill (Reelin in the Years?)

My latest attempt at reducing friction has been to buy a Wacom graphics tablet to see if that helps with diagramming. I don't miss my old Tosh m400 much, but sometimes I wish I had a tablet to hand for simple drawing.

Anyway, other "friction reducers" that I'm liking at the moment:

• Adding Wikipedia to Windows Vista Search
• Sheer Post-it notes (of course!!)
• Chalkboard for your laptop - this is for Mac, but I assume it's cross-platform compatible.