A Good Commute

I seem to have an endless supply of energy for shows about fixer uppers, moving to Hawaii, and deciding to love it or list it. Every now and then, particularly when the weather is why-did-I-ever-leave-San-Francisco bad, we load up Zillow and begin peering at houses around various cities. One lesson I've learned over and over again is that one person's bad commute is another person's normal commute.

For example, this is from the well-designed move-to-austin.com site about the nearby Round Rock:

The commute can be AWFUL. See if you can avoid driving to and from Austin on I-35 every day.

I dug a little deeper, which was easy with the estimated commute times map. The commute to Round Rock during rush hour is estimated between 45 and 75 minutes. If you're a suburbanite, this is clearly an awful commute. Here's some anecdotal data:

• My dad's commute was about 15 minutes (six miles)
• My mom's commute is about 15 minutes (six miles; different place)
• My girlfriend's dad's commute is about five minutes (two miles)

My story has been far different. Since heading to Chicago in late 2008, I have rarely seen a 15-minute commute to work.

• Chicago #1: 40 minutes L train (six miles)
• Chicago #2: 40 minutes express bus; 60 minutes regular bus (five miles)
• Little Rock: 20 minutes car (eight miles)
• San Francisco: 50 minutes muni; 25 minutes bicycle (four miles)
• Toronto: 50 minutes TTC; 35 minutes car (seven miles)

From these experiences, my idea of the perfect commute is 20 minutes by bicycle.

What's a good commute? What's an awful commute?

Toronto Snowman

Stop It, a photo by sghill on Flickr.

Today we built a snowman!

It had been a long, long time since I last built a snowman. Balki fought us every step of the way, but we were able to distract him just enough to get it finished.

Happy holidays!

The Rules of Software Development

Last year I was working at a large enterprise. Over the summer we had an intern join us, who I couldn't help but show the ropes. We managed to cover several rules of software development in just a few months. After the internship wrapped up, he was nice enough to forward the notes he took while on our team:

  1. Follow your heart
  2. Never volunteer for meetings, because then you become "The Guy"
  7. If all else fails, ask your neighbor
  9. If it's final, then it should be final
 13. Decision trees
 16. Always favor something that saves you 45 seconds
 22. Assertions should assert on something
 52. Monkey patching is for the zookeeper
 72. Always try to work in a place where there are palm trees
 82. Kernel panic is rarely good
 86. If you ever see a cool test, run!
 94. It's all slashes these days
 97. Agile doesn't work if you just hear things
186. Always use an attached keyboard
763. We were talking about splitting purchase orders, 
     they were talking about revision history, 
     now they're talking about splitting purchase orders 
     with revision history, and that's why agile works!

All the best, Michael! This advice will carry you far.