Back to getting things done at work

A few weeks ago I mentioned a slow, tricky period at work battling popular enterprise software libraries and, later, that things had started going better again. Last week I caused some amusement at a meeting in responding to a comment about writing parsers in PL/pgSQL that such would be one of the better tasks I have been given. Sure, my favorite parser writing so far was over a decade ago in Haskell, using Frisby and Parsec, but, while PL/pgSQL is as limited and basic as, say, PostScript (if we ignore the font stuff), that it is basic really helps. It is well-documented and the abstraction that it does present simply works.

In contrast, the frustrating technologies are those where they purport to offer a simple helpful view but the illusion is repeatedly shattered as unexplained dragons keep breaking out from inside. The best software for building things, of which I also offer Basser Lout as an example, is that where you ask even more than it seemed was promised and it still works seamlessly: one cannot help but suspect that some good, clean design underpins them rather than an unholy nest of worms that are not all entirely friends with each other.

Perhaps in contrast to that tricky period, recent weeks at work have felt rather productive. Admittedly, some of the to-do's that I checked off the list were trivial: a few are but minor changes to our codebase, even to comments, but still worth doing in my opinion. Others do involve more code, largely bugfixes, but again they were clearly bugs in our code, rather than unclearly arising from interactions with third-party code, so they were far more amenable to inquiry and correction than my challenges this time last month.

Colman's mustard

I am partial to Colman's English mustard. It looks like the generic yellow mustard that Americans are wont to squirt onto hot dogs. However, not only is it rather hotter but for me it also has an attractive taste that I do not find in other mustards. Perhaps that is related to the turmeric they add.

I do quite like a range of mustards. In my childhood I would sometimes use Colman's French mustard: not at all like Dijon but instead a smooth, dark brown. It then disappeared from the grocery store shelves and a little research into that suggests that its absence is probably one of the many things for which some people blame the European Union.

To my surprise I discovered that Colman's variety of French mustard remains available but, it seems, only in 2¼ℓ bottles from catering supply stores. If, like the English mustard, they also sold the French as powder in a tin then a larger quantity might make sense but, as it is, I suspect that it would take a like-minded group of people to make sufficient use of quite so much of it.

Finally pruned the tree

At last I have pruned the crab-apple tree. It was a bit breezier outside than I would have liked but it was sunny and not freezing and this late in the season I should take what chances I can get. (Update: Shortly after I had finished there was hail then rain.) The poor thing had already started to bud but because of my stressors last year it had already missed a year's pruning and was getting out of control.

Inconveniently the tree is located in the corner of the lot. I do not want it to be overly asymmetrical but I also do not want it much encroaching over the property line. The tree fills that corner up to the fence so I cannot erect a step-ladder to reach it from all directions. I also had to trade off the fact that I had a couple of years' worth of trimming back to do with that I wanted to leave the tree with at least some of its new growth.

As always I expect that one would judge my pruning efforts to have been decidedly mediocre yet adequate. I consider that the important thing is to keep the tree alive and approximately in control, anything beyond that is gravy.

Having brought the gardening gloves but not donned them, at one point I managed to ( injure myself. )

I have spray iodine that nobody else uses so I rinsed out the wound, sprayed it then applied a bandage to protect it. I expect it to be fine; I am quite robust.

The yard is now littered with severed tree branches. There is less urgency there; when I feel like it I can wander around gathering them then cut them down to manageable pieces.