A week's too short

I'm slowly getting up to speed, it seems. My target to send three article proposals during these two weeks is almost done. Today I sent the second proposal (of which I will hear some time in September) and started working on the third one. I'm using the rejected conference paper as a basis and doing the corrections I got from the peer review. I'm, for example, adding more detailed information about the use of the "Tick-The-Code" Inspection method. I did test it in Paris, you know.

I found a fivefold improvement in the average number of findings in an hour. That means that if software developers today are doing code inspections without special assistance they might be finding 10 items an hour. With the "Tick-The-Code" Inspection they would be finding 50 ticks an hour. The same people, with the same brains, just with a new technique. Isn't that exciting?

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International news:

Eero and Hannele are on the Azores. Thanks for the card.
Sonja and Matthes had been to Luxemburg. Thanks for the card.
Dougall in Australia has found work (in February already). Good for you.
Peter is about to start working, too. He sent me email from Utah.
Yrjö and Petra spent some time on the island of Crete. Hope it wasn't as hot there as it has been here...

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Suomennos: "Pääsin vauhtiin, harmi että viikko jo loppui. Ystävät maailmalta ovat muistaneet."

..and the silence breaks

* That wasn't so difficult now, was it? *
After a relaxing holiday, here I am again. I have felt very powerless and unorganized recently.
* But you ARE unorganized! Isn't it good that you feel what is real? *
I even had a fear of writing in the blog. I haven't really written much of anything during the summer. I feel like I should be writing. I've found excellent excuses not to write, like the extremely hot weather, feeling tired, filling out forms, playing Guitar Hero...
* I bet the list is endless! It must show that there's nothing wrong with your imagination, right? *
My goal is to send three article proposals to three magazined during these two weeks before the next visit.
* Who's coming? Somebody nice, I hope? *
Sure, Marko and Sini come to spend some time here. They are the most loyal friends I have. They have undoubtedly visited us here the most. I even remember a few New Year's we've spent together. The first time they visited us, we didn't even have all the furniture yet. All we had in the kitchen was the fridge. We couldn't even cook!
* Marko would have cooked anyway, wouldn't he have? *
Yes, he's an excellent cook. They moved to Hämeenlinna and he's made a grill out of bricks himself.
* So you want to get something done before they arrive? *
Yeah, I want to concentrate on them when they get here, so I don't have to worry about work or anything else. They'll be here only a few days, so I want them to feel right at home. After them my brother might be coming over.
* Which one? *
Sampsa, of course. I'd like Tuukka to come, too, but he wouldn't be coming on his own anyway. And taking the whole family is out of the question, I guess. It's great to see Sampsa. What's with the interrogation? What are you, my conscience or what?
* That's for me to know and you to find out... *
Anyway, thanks for the encouragement. I think I can handle it on my own from now on.


* You wish...*

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Loppuun vielä suomennos: "Lomat on pidetty, kiitos kaikille. Tsemppiä myös teille!"

Recovering from the football fever

If you are a Finn. If you've lived in Germany long enough. Even if you've never liked football before.... This is what you might end up looking like during the football world championships:

Deuterium Oxide Explanation

I'll explain the title of Miska's previous post.

It means that my photo albums (not 40 but 60 of them) are all over on the sofa, the sofa blocks my way to the kitchen, all my towels are hanging wet in the balcony (except the ones I had to throw away), even my shoes are still wet, and my nerves.... don't even ask me about my nerves.

That's what it means. Mystery solved.

Deuterium Oxide

Two weeks of nothing but sun, hottest day of the summer today, and what happens?

First it begins to thunder, and then rain like it's never rained before.

Virpi has been complaining for some time how she only has time to "put out fires" and no time to prepare for the future. And then she gets exactly what she ordered. Water.

Suddenly the water from the balcony started coming in under the door. By the liter. As quickly as we could, we moved the sofa to the middle of the living room, the water was heading towards the bookcase. "TOWELS, we need TOWELS!" I heard myself shout. The water kept coming in despite the dozen towels on the floor. I had to go and try to make the sink hole on the balcony bigger. It seemed no water was going through it. I ran to the washing room across the hallway, got a hammer and a screwdriver and hesitantly went out to the ankle-deep water on the balcony. The sky was flashing with thunder. God was taking a whole roll of pictures. Maybe he's gone digital and can afford to shoot however many times now without having to worry about running out of film.

After several hard hammer strikes I gave up, but noticed the water starting to spiral into the sink hole. I had succeeded and once we extended the marquee the danger had been averted. An hour later we had managed to get all of the water on the floor moved to the bathroom. (It's easy to make a towel wet, turning it dry is another matter altogether.) We had to remove all our photoalbums - probably 40 of them - and the lowest shelves of the bookcase where they used to be. Water has definitely gone under the floorboards.

And tomorrow we fly to Finland for two weeks. Any suggestions how we should leave our marquee? Completely open so that it won't rain on the balcony at all when we are gone? But then it gets dirty and if it gets windy, it can break and shatter the big windows. Completely closed? But then the rain can fill the balcony if the sink hole gets clogged. And if we leave it halfway, both problems can happen.

From Spiderman (Stan Lee) I learned that "with great power comes great responsibility". Now I've learned that "with a big apartment comes great responsibility, too".

Can anybody explain the title of this post?

Operation: "Code Inspection Book"

I've reached the end of Phase One of operation: "Code Inspection Book". Phase One was to write 30.000 words.

The second phase will be to sort the words into an order that makes sense. It's not as bad as it sounds, I was thinking ybout the order when I wrote the words. At least the words in each sentence are in the correct order. Whether the sentences flow in good order, remains to be witnessed and corrected in Phase Two.

Here's the structure and the number of words and the date of finishing:
1. Preface (654 words) 15.3.2006
2. Problems (3166 words) 15.3.2006
3. Root Causes (5523 words) 4.7.2006
4. Technique (4890 words) 9.6.2006
5. Rules (12102 words) 16.6.2006
6. Benefits (9402 words) 3.7.2006
7. Examples (38 words)
+ description of Technique (132 words)

Grand total: 34.000 words.

It looks like I will be dropping the two last chapters totally. What you'll notice by looking at the dates is that I didn't write the chapters in the order they are in. I made a skeleton for each chapter and then filled them in one by one in a random order. I kind of selected whichever of the chapters felt best for me to write at the time and then wrote it following the notes I had brainstormed before.

I think Phase Two will be self-reflection, making sure the chapters fit together, and Phase Three will need external reviewers. I hope to get some professional comments from my network. If you want to volunteer and proofread an unfinished technical book about "Tick-The-Code" Inspection, send me an email. Sometime later this year, the chapters will be ready for review. And somewhere I need to think about possible illustrations, maybe even code fragments for making the book less dry. (I actually don't think the way I write is dry, just that the topic might not raise everybody interest levels above the level of thirst.)

Phase Four will probably consist of finding a publisher. I've had my eye on the Pragmatic Bookshelf, because I liked "Pragmatic Programmer" but maybe my book is uninteresting for them. I'll just have to ask.

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Now I'm off to collect our Vietnamese au pair Katrin. Well, she isn't exactly an au pair, nor is she Vietnamese but it is still a good enough description, at least for the people who know her. She lives and works in Vietnam. This might be a good time to send greeting to Tom Muumilainen (who probably doesn't have access to this website nor know about its existence) somewhere in China. Your wife is fine, and she's an ace in karaoke!