I’m frustrated in an unexpected way by a lack of internet connectivity in my apartment at the moment.

In short, the fact is that I can’t do a lot of the programming I’d like to do without an internet connection.

This isn’t because it suddenly prevents me from firing up a text editor and bashing out the code which is flitting around in my subconscious; far from it.

But without the internet I have no access to any of the code libraries I might want to install to support my applications, and I also have no way of testing the pieces of code which need to communicate with other machines elsewhere out there on the network.

It’s not that I don’t know which third party libraries I might need (and couldn’t write in the hooks and calls I’ll make to them), nor that I don’t know how the interfaces to remote systems will work when I finally get around to putting a program together.

No, what the lack of connectivity robs me of is the iterative way I normally put software together - write a bit, run and test it, then augment it to more closely fit the application I wish it to be. Programming, at least for me, is a little like sculpture - start off with a block of stone (the language I’m choosing to write in) and an idea of the final function, then chip away at the block until I have the system that I’ve envisaged on paper (like the sculptor’s initial sketches).

Like so many things in life, you don’t really understand the methods you use, or the facilities you use to execute them until something blocks you from that usual pattern.

So, instead, I’m writing a little prose here and there, and also reading a lot more than I often had a chance to do in London. Which, in its own way is helpful (today’s book of choice: The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker) because it’s helping to re-open my thought patterns, and certain avenues of interest.

By the time I’m back on the net 24/7, I suspect I’ll have a lot of ideas waiting to be furiously brought to life inside the confines of a parser.

Which is nice.

This article first arrived on the interwebnet on Saturday, February 12th, 2005 at 3:38 pm .
It's arbitrarily categorised as being about: Geeking, Trends and culture.
Supernerds with RSS readers will probably wet their pants over the RSS 2.0 feed.
Both comments and pings are currently closed.

You know, this article used to be 4000 words longer, but right before I pressed 'Save', the dog ate it. Honest.