J5’s Blog

December 17, 2008

On Today’s Todo List – Pick Up 10lbs. of Meat

Filed under: cooking, friends — J5 @ 7:40 pm

Thanks to Joe Shaw’s recommendations five months ago I joined the Chestnut Farm’s meat CSA.   Today, fighting Cambridge/Arlington rush hour traffic I picked up my first monthly 10lbs. share.  It was kind of funny finding a mail in my inbox stating that I had signed up some time ago and oh ya you need to go pick up your share this Wednesday.  I almost skipped the mail but after looking at the quality of the meat I’m glad I read it.

It looks really tasty, unfortunately I spent last night cooking up 3lbs. of chuck beef stew which means I can’t justify cooking anything up just this minute.  I will however be taking some of it to my parents house for the holidays and cooking some for them.

At $8 a pound it is pretty expensive but I am treating it like a learning expense.  Since I don’t know what type of meat I will get each month I have to learn to cook almost any type thrown at me.  I figure during the colder months I will stick with soups, stews and brazing while during the warmer months I will switch to grilling and slow roasting.  If I like what they are sending me I may even get adventurous and see if they can send me the more exotic bits like sweetbreads though I suspect they sell those at a premium to restaurants.

Once I figure out my budget I may just start one of the vegetable CSA’s too.

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December 14, 2008

A thought or two about design or why do engineers often skip over cost

Filed under: Gnome, humor, usability — J5 @ 4:38 pm

We see bad design around us all the time.  Often adequate design wins over great design .  In a ecosystem based on limited resources (time, money, component parts, etc.) at what point does a better design start giving diminishing returns?  Is this a good thing? – That problem has been solved we should move on to the next – or is it a bad thing?  – The solution to that problem causes adverse side effects but the cost of fixing it is too high.  In a world of limited resources it often takes a large catalyst or new markets to disrupt entrenched adequate design. I suspect there are good and bad sides to every decision here with some situations leaning further one way or the other.

That is a good leeway into my next thought about design in that decision making is a huge part of good design.  Decisions are hard.  Avoiding them has its cost.  My favourite is that collectively avoiding a decision makes it harder for other decisions to be made down the road.  You need to decide if it is worth the cost.

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December 1, 2008

JavaScript, I really want to love you but…

Filed under: Standards, usability — J5 @ 6:17 pm

Ok so it isn’t all JavaScripts fault and Mozilla’s ‘let’ keyword might have just solved some of this if everyone would just support it, but take a look at this bit of hack I had to write.

public_methods: ["insert_row", "append_row", "remove_row", "json_load"],
    public_signals: ["ready"],
    bind_api: function(api_list) {
        var self = this;
        for (var i in api_list) {
            var pm = api_list[i];
            var name = pm + ".mokshagrid";

            // proxy pattern (used for javascripts busted scoping rules)
            (function() {
                var proxied = self[pm];
                if (!proxied)
                    throw ('ERROR: binding api "' + pm + '" failed - method does not exist.'); 

                self.element.unbind(name).bind(name,
                    function() {
                        return proxied.apply(self, arguments);
                    });
            })();
        }
    },

It is a convenience method for binding public API in my jQuery.UI plugins which require the use of the 'trigger' method in order to call into a widget from external code. In other words jQuery.UI treats signals and public methods all as part of their event system. A bit confusing but not a huge deal. This would all be unnecessary if there was a better OO model on top of the prototype model. I'll admit the prototype model allows for some cool stuff but there is a reason everyone is jumping to write an OO model on top and why everyone is doing it differently.

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