Our staff made some progress on Goldenseal Pro, then the holidays hit. This week we are futzing with payroll tax tables for 2021. Next week it’s back to working with QT. The big question is, how fast will it go?
Since the pandemic started, I have done a lot of of construction work. As a result, I’m now almost as lean as during Turtle Creek Carpentry, 30+ years ago.
The other day I carried a bucket of joint compound upstairs. About 60 pounds, the difference between my current weight (195) and my maximum during programming spurts (255). I imagined carrying that kind of load around, every single day. Nope. I really, really don’t want to go back there again. The mass piles on gradually so you don’t notice it right away, but I sure notice the lack of it now.
From 1987 to 1992, I was the main programmer for Turtlesoft: writing Excel spreadsheets and a HyperCard app. It meant many days sitting at the computer full-time. I gained 60 pounds. Then I switched to supervising real programmers, bought a fixer-upper house, and did a major rehab evenings and weekends. By the end of that I was lean again.
After the year when Apple almost died, I ended up finishing Goldenseal myself. It was six years of C++ frenzy, and back up to 255. That seems to be the usual max. Some combination of burning more calories because of the extra burden, and feeling unhealthy enough to do something about it.
Since then, my weight has correlated pretty closely to the amount of time spent sitting at a computer. Usually it’s somewhere between the two extremes.
Programming work is intense. It requires that you hold a huge mass of stuff in your brain’s RAM. The big picture is necessary so new code fits in well. Remembering many hundreds of names is necessary, so you can whip out code without looking up functions and classes. C++ syntax and good programming rules need to be in the brain’s best Level-3 cache, on call constantly.
Loading it all is a big mental effort. But once it’s in, you can get into a productive groove and really fly. Write a few lines and boop, something works when you run it. The process is very satisfying. I can’t think of anything in construction that gives such amazing results so quickly. But it requires sitting still, only moving fingers and eyeballs, and living in a fantasy world of CNextRecordButton and ShowBreakdownTable(const SInt32 tableID) for hours at a time.
Losing it is like a blown engine. Bye-bye forward motion. Programmers are often surly, because a single interruption can pop the whole mental picture like a balloon. It may take hours to restore it.
Because of all that, when not programming, it’s hard to start. Then once you’re in, it’s hard to stop. If it were a drug, a programming buzz would have the unpleasant start of mescaline, followed by the addictive rush of cocaine.
Some types of programming don’t require all the intensity. Fixing small bugs is possible to do in shorts spurts. Adding a small feature to familiar code is easy. Problem is, building a whole new QT interface for Goldenseal will require full-on high-impact frenzy. I’ll need to be in the zone for quite a while. Maybe 100 days of it? It’s still just a guess now.
I still haven’t figured out the right balance, to be both code-productive and healthy. The next few weeks I’ll try scheduling two-day spurts, and see how that works out. Then tweak it if needed.
The goal for 2021 is to finish Goldenseal Pro on a reasonable schedule, but not get fat. And not get Covid-19 before a vaccine is in my arm.
Dennis Kolva
Programming Director
TurtleSoft.com
