Business litmus test: eating your own cooking

In my experience, the test of the products a business produces in this navel gazing industry of developing software tools is whether or not the company eats its own cooking. Does a visualization company use its own tools for its employee update meetings? If not, then why not and why isn't it a critical priority item to make sure that the tools are feature rich enough to display what they need to convey and easy enough for the executives and their assistants to use in preparing their talk? Why is it easier for them to use PowerPoint?

Similarily, with software tool companies I find it questionable if a company doesn't use its own tools for development. If you have a specification tool, why aren't you using it? Why are your developers still using other tools to write them up?

If you won't use your own tools then no one else will. While good sales people can sell anything, shelfware is never good. Getting people to use the tools is the only way to ensure a long lasting product from a long lasting company.

Just the opinion of this software developer...

Third strike at writing attempts

Once again my writings just haven't worked. Decent ideas -- if there's an SF paragraph writing contest, let me know... but nothing will develop properly even into a short story. Once again I wonder, does that mean it was the right thing to take a B.Sc. instead of a B.A. or would I have become a writer if I'd been an english major? Now I suppose I'll never know but I believe I chose the right track.

Golf, canoeing, fishing, rockets, Japanese

Looking back that was a great summer. My oldest child is my five year old son and he's now old enough to really do stuff with him instead of just supervising him. This year we enjoyed many things I enjoyed as a child and it was great to do it more as father and son than as babysitter and child.

Like when I went fishing with my Dad, I still spend so much time helping my son out that I don't catch anything but that's OK. Harrison enjoyed catching bass, sunfish, catfish and perch this year up in North Bay and out near Picton where we also had fun canoeing and for a five year old he does great in a canoe. We had our 20 month old and my wife in the canoe as well which didn't work quite as well as our little girl just couldn't sit still. Luckily my father's old St. Maurice canoe is wide and stable so nothing dramatic occurred.

I've been flying model rockets since I was ten years old and Harrison now enjoys it as well. I helped him build a couple of rockets this year which we flew many times. He's been lucky so far, no losses, while I lost a rocket, The Pegasus, that I've been flying for 23 years but I guess after 17 flights it doesn't owe me anything. Too bad I didn't have any B engines left that day; the C6-7 was just too much for the wind. The AIM-54S landed in the Speed River on the same day with a D12-3 but was recovered by a couple of boys who probably planned on taking it home but handed it right over when I walked up and claimed it.

Golf is another thing that I'm now able to do with my son, not just at the driving range but on a course as well. He doesn't last 18 holes of course but we have fun on most of the front 9 anyways. Kid club sets at Play it Again are under $40 so the equipment is cheap at least and so far most courses have let him play for free which is nice. Boys love to hit things and for once I'm not yelling at him about it so he really does enjoy it.

I've always wanted to learn Japanese and have had my father's old Teach Yourself Japanese book for years which I brought out now and again. With some work done on a Japanese version of software last year and this year I really swung for the fences this summer and I've managed to pick up quite a bit of reading skills at Japanese. Speaking I'm sure I'm terrible and anyone who's seen my english handwriting knows kanji calligraphy will never be for me but with a computer I can write fairly well. I've bought a few Japanese books which I'm now struggling through, the originals of some manga I've enjoyed for the past fifteen years, Gun Dream Last Order. See http://www.yukito.com Graphic novels are not a new art form in Japan as their literature has long relied on illustrations to aid in the understanding of a writing form which was borrowed from the Chinese and developed over many centuries. I'm enjoying the material in it's original format and have been enjoying some anime on DVD as well, as most of them allow me to choose the language and whether or not to provide subtitles which is much simpler than old VHS where you had to pick dubbed or subtitled (for some reason more expensive) when you bought.

Overall, a very good summer.