Dependencies are generically tough to deal with, especially when you’re talking compiled code. In terms of consistent just-works-ness bundling has huge advantages, but it’s also a huge pain to recompile everything, especially when they all have different build systems.

Sometimes I think maybe in the future the way to go will be to distribute VM images with prepared development environments. Trade off download time for compile time and complexity.

I thought it was weird when I noticed some simulation codes copy their dependencies into their own version control. Now I know why this is a good idea sometimes. It’s really too bad there’s nothing like rubygems or pypi for lower-level code.

I have a different tactic for this problem, which is that my work requires giant, fast computers so there’s a lot I simply *can’t* do at home. If there’s more work to do, I have to stay at work.

Otherwise I don’t really have any coping mechanisms for this. Occasionally if all my work can be done from a web browser then I might stay home and do it there. Usually that kind of work doesn’t take a lot of deep concentration, though, so I can knock some items off the todo list in between refreshes of twitter.

My last resort is that if I find myself mindlessly refreshing and I notice that I have reached The End Of The Internet (http://www.endoftheinternet.com/) I try to just shut the lid and try to go do something else, or think of something useful I can do. This is often when I notice the sink full of dishes, but by that time Char has usually come home already and it’s too late.

Have you guys read Tweetage Wasteland? The guy who writes it has some very insightful opinions on this type of problem.

Note: I am replying to this blog at work. So there’s that.

One thing about my situation is that I still do most of my work in the office … it’s just that sometimes I feel like I should try to get a bit more done at the end of the day. So I have the luxury of it being OK if I don’t get much, or anything, done at home. If I was working primarily from home, I know that I’d need to be a lot more aggressive about making sure that things got done, as it sounds like you are. (Given that my home and office environments are pretty similar [chair, keyboard, computer] I’ve always been amazed by how much of a psychological difference there is to working in one versus the other.)

As you know I work from home so I think about this a LOT. I have not encountered perfection yet, and YMMV, but here are some things I have found true for me, FWIW (I was going to try to add in another acronym but AFAIK I’m all out of them):

Leechblock + Firefox can be very helpful

When sitting down to work, write down your essential goals for that work period. It is a lot better to have something specific (write up X, complete Y) than open-ended (work on X for a while)

I sometimes use a periodic reminder–comes up every few minutes–to stop and ask myself if I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing to achieve that goal

Task transitions are hard for me, I can’t just flip the switch from dinner to work or whatever, so I have to allow time for that, and also at the start of one. But not get sucked into the transition.

Make use of the small comforts of home, like comfortable clothing, tea and a snack, etc. to make work more enjoyable

Overall, working in the evening is very dangerous. After around 8 I find it almost impossible to not fart around and get distracted. Also the bright screen makes me less tired and I stay up late. I try to avoid screen time altogether, but if it’s necessary, I have to be doubly careful about not getting sucked into anything irrelevant. It’s best to not even have a browser open. … All that might be a lot worse since I’m now chronically sleep-deprived, though.

Anyway, I think your idea is a great one, because a half-hour is usually about all I’m good for anyway; even without being sleep-deprived I suspect evening thinking is not usually our best.

Sorry, guess I should have written my own post on my own blog instead of blarting all over yours!

As a side note, it’s sad how bad most of the CSS/HTML tutorials out there are. I feel like whenever I have a question on this stuff the best solution ends up being to read the standards directly.

CSS
.clearfix { clear: both; }

HTML

Of course, the desktop client works on Linux or I wouldn’t be mentioning it.

(A link removed by Peter to remove some minor Google-juicing)

I’ve heard good things about Zotero too. I’m a bit weirded out by the fact that it’s implemented as a Firefox plugin — I’m not sure what exactly that gets you that a well-designed website wouldn’t have, and when I took a look at it the UI seemed a bit awkward.

Python isn’t perfect, and launching subprocesses is definitely one of its weaker points.

One would hope Python 3000 would’ve cleaned up a lot of this junk, but I don’t get the sense that it has. print is now a function, though!

Still, I think Python has nailed the balance of neatness and messiness better than any other language I’ve used. It’s better than perl at writing large apps, and it’s better than C for writing quick-n-dirty hacks.