Yeah, but it's VB

Don't tell anyone, but despite the fact that my current contract is in VB6, I'm actually enjoying myself. While at HV, I would go days, sometimes weeks, without being able to write and code. On this gig, I've been nothing but productive, cranking out a TON of code. It's so nice, I'm almost able to forget it's VB! (Ok, so not entirely. I had to write a "smart" Collection class because VB's sucks, and I'm having to jump through the non-deterministic-form-load hoops. ugh.)

Why do I hate VB so much? Who asked that? You there... in the back. You obviously haven't ever used the language for anything substantial before. (BTW, I'm referring to versions of VB prior to VB.Net. I still don't like VB in the .NET incarnation, but some of the problems do go away.)

The main problem with VB, as I see it, is that it was intentionally designed to make poor progammers be productive. You can write crap code and it'll probably work -- just not well. And, if it doesn't work the first time you keep adding hacks and slashes until it does work. So, you're left with a working, but incredibly crappy, app.

Now, a good programmer can obviously produce good code in VB. But, usually, those good programmers find a language they like better (something with curly braces), or they create a good framework in an app, then move on to something else, leaving a crappy programmer to destroy all they created by allowing VB to take them down its evil path.

Sigh.

Yeah, VB sucks. But, I'm grateful for this gig for allowing me to have fun at work again for a change.

Dallas to OKC

Flights from Dallas to Oklahoma city are amusing. It is a whopping 1/2 hour of flight time. It's like "here's how you work your seat belt. (pause) You can now use your notebook. (pause) Here's your Pepsi. (pause) Put your crap away, we're landing." You hardly have time to read. Who the hell gets their notebook out for the 6 minutes of usable time, anyway? I spend far more time in the airport waiting for the flight than I do with my butt in the far-too-small-for-normal-humans seat on the plane.

While I'm in OKC, I spend an awful lot of time playing poker at night. (What else am I going to do?) You can catch me on PokerSchoolOnline.com (link in sidebar to the right) as "prionkyle". I've *got* to stop staying up 'til 1:30a, though. It's brutal.

Been A While...

It's been a while since I last posted, but I have a good excuse. Two, actually. The first excuse is that I know no one really reads this thing (except for Paco, when Blam tells him to). But, more importantly, it's because I've been busy at Artecha...

I'm on contract in Oklahoma City for a client with a home-grown app that needs a little love. It's in VB6, which is my least favorite language in the universe, but it's a good gig for a good company. The people are nice, they've got money for the tools that are needed, and they're very interested in the success of the project. Good stuff!

When not working on that (and mostly when I'm in Dallas, where my development Linux box lives), I'm working on DFWPoker.net. It's not live yet, so don't expect to be impressed. Ultimately, it will be a community site for DFW-based poker fans to learn and talk about poker, and even get together for games. What could be better?

Spring

I'll be the first to tell you I hated it when I moved to Dallas. But, I must admit it's not as bad as I thought at first. It's April 2nd (Dad's birthday... gotta call him!) and I'm sitting on my deck playing poker and sipping coffee, while watching the birds at the feeder. Life is good.