Dave's Blog

Thursday, November 20, 2003 7:00:46 PM

Life is change.  I've been looking at all the definitions of 
life, including the modern scientific ones, and all of them have 
one common element:  change.  

Why did I think, at 24, that I had learned everything there was 
to know about life?  Why did I believe, to some degree, that 
change was at an end?  The past two years I have seen more rapid 
change than at any time since I was 24.  Perhaps the past two 
years have actually shown me more rapid change than ever before.  

I used to be a devout atheist, but I don't practice that anymore.  
These days I recognize that the Universe is God, and it's all a 
matter of vocabulary.  This idea can be experienced as coldly or 
as reverently as one chooses.  Infinity can be awesome and 
mysterious no matter how one looks at it.  

One thing that change implies is growth.  All that I know and 
have known was used to get me where I am today.  If I learn one  
new thing, then I move forward.  The past experience doesn't just 
disappear, but it is supplemented with new knowledge, perhaps a 
new perspective.  One of the things I knew at 24 was that men 
drank coffee and women drank tea.  Where did I get that idea?  
That's what my father and mother drank.  I had overgeneralized.  
It wasn't until I was about 35 that I realized all the actors on 
BBC were drinking tea.  In light of this new recognition, I was 
able to modify what I knew, and to gain a new perspective.  

In modern business environments I have discovered that many 
people who provide software products and services have been 
frustrated by changing requirements.  They have imposed 
"specification freezes" to get the job done, and have felt some 
conflict with their business clients over when and how these 
freezes were implemented.  What has really been going on, and 
what transcends individual companies, is that the both the 
providors and the clients have been learning, growing, as they 
go.  That's why there is never a final version, why things are 
added as features for the next release, and why rapid prototyping 
is essential.  The prototype is the project; if there is more 
refinement to be done, of course it can be done after delivery.  
The clients aren't as interested in efficiency as in 
functionality, and the functionality is what they ordered.  It's 
all change, and change is part of life!  

I've seen similar behavior in job descriptions and recruiting.  
Recently someone called me to tell me he needed a system 
administrator, and then after several people interviewed with his 
client, he reported that the client was actually looking for a 
database administrator.  Sure, the word "administrator" was in 
both job descriptions, but the client learned along the way that 
there were two specialties, and that he preferred the latter.  I 
once interviewed with a software company that was looking for a 
system administrator who knew Perl.  I determined in the 
interview that they really needed a Perl programmer, and that the 
amount of system administration in the job would be negligible.  
So, although in the past I was frustrated with changing job 
requirements, I understand now that change is normal -- change is 
part of life!  

This may help explain why, when all the world seemed to be in a 
recession, I was still moving forward.  There was a global 
economy, and then there was my personal economy.  The two were 
not in sync; as over a million American workers were laid off 
(and not in high-tech industries, primarily), I was hired on.  
As salaries rose, mine declined for a while.  As my personal 
compensation seemed low to me, I was being trained for a change 
in my specialty.  This change is currently making my life 
easier, and as the reporters of the world look to optimistic 
projections of how employment will improve, I am already 
employed.  I accepted change.  

Now, one of the hard parts for me to get was that I was not being 
compensated to work, per se, but to think.  Sure, it seemed that 
a gun was pointing at my head as I worked 50-plus hours to get a 
software application rolling in a test environment.  Sure, it 
seemed, I had to be on site to troubleshoot things as they came 
up, or to placate a supervisor who did not think I was working if 
he could not see the back of my shirt.  Sure, it seemed, I was in 
the only bank in the world using an arcane technology, and for 
that reason the hope of moving out of that environment was slim.  
But it turned out the arcane technology I was mastering is one 
that all banks are turning to, and one that should be stable over 
the next decade of business growth.  It appears that Java is 
going to be implemented both in software and in hardware, and 
that regardless of Sun's stability it is a technology that will 
stick around a while.  It appears that I don't have to be in a 
cubicle at a customer site to do the kind of administration it 
takes to keep Java systems on track.  And so, I find that my 
prayers have been answered, and I can manage systems and software 
personally from anywhere in the world.  

Life is change.  What I knew when I was 24 no longer applies.  I 
am paid for who I am, what I know, and my ability to think.  I am 
not paid to be in a specific place at a specific time of day.  
This in itself is an awesome revelation!  In my old way of 
thinking I had to be somewhere.  Working at a software company or 
in a software division required me to be as close to the product 
as if I were bottling CocaCola.  Now that I am not required to be 
at location X between times Y and Z, I have to change my way of 
thinking to catch up to reality.  That is, I have to learn!  I 
have to accept my good.  I have to use it responsibly.  I have to 
be open to receive in ways which are new to me, and I have to 
give as I receive.  For I am involved in a new mode of creation, 
and as good circulates around and through me, I have to adapt to 
the new mode in order to let it flow.  I have to be able to 
recognize a gift when it is handed to me.  And I have to dare to 
say "yes" when I am asked whether I am ready for that gift.  I 
have to grow.  

Today I have to trust that everything is moving for my highest 
and best good.  Whatever is going on in my life, I have to accept 
it and let it work for me.  If a cruise in the Caribbean Sea is 
part of the action that works for my highest and best good, then 
I have to accept that I will be there.  I have to forget all my 
old thinking habits, look at the new situation, and decide that 
I am going to accept reality as it is today, not as I understood 
it when I was 24.  The reality today is that right now I am in 
the perfect place for my growth and my life.  Everything is 
improving in my world, and I am here to recognize, enjoy, and be 
grateful for it.  

Old habits have no power over me.  What I have heard about money 
was just an opinion; I choose information that makes me rich.  
My own experiences about money are in the past; I choose a new, 
rich, and powerful future.  

Thank you Bijan, Elouise, Harv, Margaret, Maureene, and Stan, for 
being my teachers.  


Monday, November 17, 2003 7:32:15 PM 

OK, guardian angels, today I am open to receive miracles.  I have 
declared that Margaret and I will be on a cruise ship in Spring, 
2004, touring the Caribbean Sea.  I declared this in front of 
Bijan, Samia, and a room full of Truth seekers:  "I do not 
presently have the money or the time, but we will be on that 
ship."  Now that I have made my declaration the Universe moves to 
support me.  Whatever it does to make this happen, it is the 
unplanned and the unexpected that reminds me that I am seeing 
miracles.  Today I am open to receive miracles. 

What's so special about this cruise?  For one thing, it takes "a 
lot of money" that we were not planning to allocate.  Whether it 
falls out of the sky, rises up from the sea, or appears in the 
dark of night, this new money is the proof that the Universe is 
intelligent and supports my every declaration.  So, it's a test 
of God.  Another thing is that it's a prosperity consciousness 
raising experience.  When we go on this cruise we will be aware 
of a level of power that we have not felt before.  The price of 
the cruise will not be "a lot of money" any more.  Third, it's a 
relationship seminar.  Margaret and I attend a relationship 
workshop every year, and this will be a good one.  We'll be going 
somewhere neither of us has been before.  We'll be visiting 
pirate territory.  We'll be seeing a part of history that we 
haven't really thought about or heard very much about. 

So angels, George, Henry, God and everybody, I am open to receive 
miracles today.  Bring them on! 


Tuesday, November 11, 2003 11:39:36 PM

I believe that the Universe is intelligent.  What we see as 
intelligence is only one part of a larger pattern that extends 
throughout the Universe.  Life, energy, and matter are all bound 
in one thing, the Universe itself.  God actually is the Universe, 
not something distinct and separate from it.  

Life, which modern science has yet to define completely, is 
everywhere, and is part of the Universe.  The Universe is alive, 
as are its parts, and thus all life is the one Life that is 
experienced by the Living Universe.   

The entire Universe is integrated.  I am part of the Universe, 
and therefore I am part of everything in the Universe, and 
everything in the Universe is part of me.  Since the Universe by 
definition is all that exists, I am part of all that exists, and 
all that exists is part of me.  

Humanity and divinity are actually the same thing.  Matter and 
energy cannot be created or destroyed.  As an integral part of 
the Universe, I have my own perceived identity -- and I am part 
of all that is.  The Universe constantly creates, shifting its 
matter and energy in intelligent patterns.  I am part of the 
Universe that has always existed and will always exist; for a 
while I have chosen to experience my existence as a human on this 
planet.  


Saturday, November 01, 2003 12:58:19 AM

After struggling with Bruce Eckel's Thinking in Enterprise Java and 
Thinking in Patterns with Java, I was beginning to doubt my own 
competence as a programmer.  I've taught C and C++ for several years, 
languages that are reputed to be among the most complex available.  
But I have to hand it to the Java programmers, their "simple" 
language is even more complex.  

I've been doing a bit of comparative reading tonight, and I have 
found the smoking gun.  I was reviewing a couple of volumes to see 
whether I understood the interfaces necessary to build a 
Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP (LAMP) server.  The books were Apache: the 
Definitive Guide, by Laurie and Laurie, and Managing and Using MySQL, 
by Reese, Yarger, King and Williams.  Both books contained numerous 
integration examples in several languages.  The revelation came as I 
studied the somewhat equivalent efforts to build practical web sites 
in each of the languages:  C, PHP, Perl, Python, and Java.   Each time 
an author gave an example in Java, he would start with lip service to 
how "simple" the language made the program, and then would launch into 
a dissertation so arcane it would embarrass even the Perl programmer.  

Several years of study have made Java understandable to me, but it is 
a language riddled with exceptions (pun intended).  It is a language 
that requires programmers to write three programs for the benefit of 
one:  two programs for each class, and a third as the underlying 
design of the classes themselves.  It is a language almost impossible 
to trace statically.  Tonight, as I read the comparisons and the 
opinions of the authors, I discovered I was not alone.  Java is out 
of control.  The code that is being generated for large sites, using 
Java and commercial object containers, could be more easily and 
elegantly produced in other languages.  PHP or Python could do it 
cleaner.  C could do it faster.  

I have also discovered that WebSphere, WebLogic, and SunONE are not 
the only containers in town (hi, ColdFusion!).  jBoss, Orion, and 
Tomcat do the job for free.  If a programmer has enough energy and 
concentration to learn the interfaces required for any one of these, 
then he or she has the wits to learn any of the others.  

Java looks hot, hot, hot today.  Perl looked hot in 1999.  In 1996 X 
was the language of the day.  In 1992 it was kernel drivers in C.  
Pascal was the Java of 1984.  I've seen many commercial packages 
written in BASIC, of all languages.  I think I can resist the 
temptation to put all my eggs in one basket now.  

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