Nick Bradbury

The Code That No One Touches

Published on June 19, 2015June 19, 2015 by Nick Bradbury

Every app that’s been around for a while has code that no one touches.

The rest of the code may be great, but there’s that one area written a long time ago that everyone is scared to work on. It’s so fragile that if you touch it you’re likely to break something, forcing you to descend into its unfathomable depths in order to repair it.

If you do have to work on it, the rest of team turns somber and treats you like a soldier headed to battle. They know they won’t hear from you for a while, and there’s a chance you won’t return.

Perhaps one day you announce you’re finally going to refactor that code. “It’s ridiculous to have this awful code in our app, and I’m going to correct it,” you foolishly say. A few days later, after discovering new swear words as you try to figure it out, you decide now isn’t the best time to fix it. “Maybe I’ll tackle that after the next version ships,” you proclaim, secretly hoping nobody remembers you saying that.

When a new developer is hired, the rest of the team wants their first task to be repairing that old code. They’re new, excited to be on board, and eager to prove themselves – so let’s welcome them by throwing them into the dark pit that hides beneath our software.

But that never happens, because the people in charge don’t know about the problem. Nobody mentions it to management for fear of being assigned to take care of it.

And so the old code lingers, like a basement closet nobody wants to clean out. The code that no one touches never goes away.

Monty Python and the Holy Roller

Published on May 17, 2015May 17, 2015 by Nick Bradbury

french-taunter It’s only Sunday, but I can honestly claim to have had the highlight of my week already.

There’s a local rock radio station whose weak signal sometimes gets overlapped with that of a religious station. This has led to delightful moments such as a Primus song morphing into a hellfire-and-brimstone sermon.

This morning, for some reason the rock station was broadcasting parts of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. As I drove out of my neighborhood the scene with the French taunters was playing. I heard John Cleese utter, “You tiny-brained wipers of other people’s bottoms!” and then it suddenly changed into a hymnal.

Maybe it was a “you had to be there” moment – but I was there, and I found it so hysterical I almost had to pull over.

Cartoon: The Salesman

Published on April 6, 2015June 11, 2015 by Nick Bradbury

My daughter is reading Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven,” so I figured I’d dust off this old cartoon of mine which was inspired by it.

Septoplasty and the Deviated Stunt Man

Published on March 27, 2015March 27, 2015 by Nick Bradbury1 Comment

Yesterday I underwent septoplasty surgery to repair a deviated septum I’ve had since childhood.

The injury was the result of pretending I was a stunt man when I was a kid. I enjoyed throwing myself onto foldable chairs and tables like I was in some sort of bar fight scene, and one time it didn’t go well. ‘Nuff said.

I’ve had breathing trouble and sinus infections ever since that day but avoided corrective surgery because of the horror stories I’ve heard about it. This year my nasal woes became so severe that I decided to finally have it done.

Turns out it’s not that big a deal, at least not in my case. The surgery took about an hour, and the only real issue for me has been the mental fogginess and irregular sleep caused by anesthesia. I have two splinting “straws” in my nose which are pretty uncomfortable, but they’ll be removed in a few days.

As part of the procedure the doctor cleaned out my sinuses and removed a number of nasal polyps that have affected my breathing. I can already breath better despite the straws, and within a few weeks I expect to feel like I’m wearing Nose v2.0.

Mandala

Published on March 3, 2015March 3, 2015 by Nick Bradbury

This is the third of my youthful compositions. I almost didn’t share it because it’s full of mistakes and teenage pomposity. I probably had a very serious look on my face when I played it :)

Coda

Published on March 2, 2015March 2, 2015 by Nick Bradbury3 Comments

Here’s another short song I wrote as a teenager. As with the previous song, I have no idea why I named this one what I did (I probably just thought it sounded cool).

Back When I Wrote Music

Published on February 27, 2015 by Nick Bradbury3 Comments

When I was a teenager I composed piano instrumentals. Every now and then I dreamed of making it as a musician, but really I only played for fun (I still do, but not nearly as often as I used to).

At one point I borrowed some recording equipment from my older brother and made a cassette tape containing several of my songs. That cassette miraculously survived nearly three decades of neglect before being converted to MP3.

Here’s one of the songs. I wish I could provide a thrilling back story for it, but I can’t remember what I was thinking about when I wrote it and I have no idea why I named it “Lost Prelude.” I do, however, remember that I wrote it in 1985 (the year I graduated high school), and it’s the only song I still remember how to play.

Code is Temporary

Published on February 25, 2015February 25, 2015 by Nick Bradbury

Developers sweat blood writing code but in the end our code will vanish. That language you’re learning or framework you’re devoted to will disappear in short time. At some point what you create will only be able to run in some nostalgic emulator.

Your code isn’t important: what matters are the ideas your code brings to life. Shitty code that makes a point is better than perfect code that proves nothing.

Don’t waste your short life getting lost in the geeky details of the toolkit du jour. Spend it using your skills to create something that matters to you, that may even last longer than you.

Most developers have far more power than we realize but too many of us squander it building things we don’t care about. Now is your time to make a difference. If you don’t do it now it may never happen.

Cartoon: Dead Spider

Published on February 24, 2015 by Nick Bradbury

I Wear a Hearing Aid

Published on February 23, 2015 by Nick Bradbury

Ten years ago I underwent surgery for an acoustic neuroma that resulted in the total loss of hearing on my left side.

At the time I didn’t think losing hearing in one ear would be a big deal – after all, I had another ear which worked just fine – but I quickly discovered otherwise. Unilateral hearing loss makes it very hard to hear anything over background noise, and sound on the same side as the deaf ear doesn’t always reach the good one.

Trying to hear people in a group situation became very stressful. I’d have to aim my good ear at the person talking which made me look pretty awkward, and I often got nasty looks from people because I’d talk over them without realizing they were already talking.

So I started avoiding group situations. I stopped going to conferences and stayed away from large get-togethers. If I really needed to be somewhere with a group, I’d make sure to arrive early so I could position myself on the left.

That’s the background story.

Today I got a CROS hearing aid, which transmits sound from my left side over to my right ear. It’s far from a perfect solution in that background noise will still be an issue, but it does enable me to hear those talking on my left side. After a decade of turning to hear people on my left it’s pretty amazing not to have to do that.