Do you need control?

In this series, I’ve written quite a bit about explicit vs. implicit styles of communication, specifically about how the weight of culture is heavy in implicit languages. Another aspect of the difference between explicit vs. implicit communication is the that of control. In an explicit communication style, you are specifying that you want control of as much of the situation as possible- since, by providing...

Subtlety in Code

The more I deal with various languages, the more I realize that some resonate with me with a power far beyond what I was initially expecting. I prefer languages like Python, Scala and Ruby, and my preference for these types of languages is incredibly strong. Interestingly, I think that if my wife programmed, she would prefer Java or C#, or maybe even vanilla C. Why? The answer has nothing to do with the...

Language and Culture

I’ve been out of the tech blogging loop lately working on a really big contract creating a GUI for a big modeling application in .NET. It’s a good contract, with lots of hard aspects and challenges (which I like) but many of the challenges involve things that, while difficult for me, are easy for people who code in C# more than once every 5 years.1 I like writing blog posts as I learn things- to add to...