Preferences

This is about my recent frustration with learning yet another web development framework. At work, I've been asked to become the expert in JBoss' Rich Faces, which seems to be an elaboration or extension of Java Server Faces. Somehow, these frameworks are supposed to make web application development easier. I suppose that is true for some value of "easy". So far I've had nothing but trouble trying to get the whole thing to work. I'm not sure if it is the configuration files, or the compilation of the web app files, or the use of the JSP tag libraries that has me so wound up the most. I feel like the effort and the difficulty of developing a web app using frameworks is just shuffling the complexity and difficulty into another place. There really does not seem to be less complexity and a higher level of abstraction. Some of the newer frameworks do approach the abstraction of traditional GUI frameworks, but go no further. I'm not really sure what the advantage is. I suspect that any breakthroughs in software design and development productivity (ability to do useful work) will only happen when we have a new theoretical insight into software development.

Swearing off idle web-surfing

I've finally decided on one of my personal goals for 2008. I've decided to severely limit idle web surfing. Since I'm software developer, cutting out the internet and web in general is impractical if not impossible. That said, I can consciously change my habits to avoid unproductive use and maximize my productive and practical use of the internet. In some ways surfing the web has been akin to pointless channel surfing, an idle use of time trying to stave off boredom. One particular piece that I will focus on is blogging, meaning writing in this particular blog. The more often I force myself to write in this blog, hopefully the better my writing and thinking will be. Perhaps by seeing my own thoughts on the screen it may help me better organize them. Also this spring I'm taking a graduate course in Selected Topics in Computer Science. The topic our professor selected is Knowledge Management. This course is one of the last three I need before earning my Master of Science in Computer Science at Kutztown University. The very first class exercise made me realize how unorganized and downright chaotic my approach to work, learning and my own personal knowledge management has been. I'm not really sure exactly what I will end up learning in course, but perhaps I can come away with a few useful lessons from it.