About My Father's Business

I hope Mike is okay with me using his name in my blog.  I don't really have a way to confirm because I've never actually met Mike.  I don't know what he looks like, where he lives, or his favorite color.  I don't know really anything about him other than the fact that he saved my life, in a very figurative sense.  Mike, just like me was a guy with a problem.  The particulars of the problem are not important.  What matters is that Mike was somehow able to solve his problem and what makes Mike my hero is that he posted his solution in his blog on the Internet.  (Those interested in the gory details of my issue can visit  Mike's blog .  Don't say I didn't warn you though). This is not an uncommon situation for computer nerds.  Often when we run into a problem the first place we turn is Google.  I've often told people who ask me what I do for work that I'm a professional Googler.  The amount of information at our fingertips is am...

You don't have to be a computer programmer to appreciate the value of words within a language, but it sure does help.  Your entire career and the success of the programs you build depend on your ability to choose the right words in the right combination, which the provide the proper instructions to the computer to run your program.  Choose the wrong words, or put them in the wrong order and it doesn't work.  The computer can't guess what you meant to say.  It only knows what you actually said.  And while you may not realize it, people behave in much the same way.  We can't rely on the other person guessing what we really meant to say.  It helps to say the thing you really mean in the first place. Now, when you dive a bit deeper it's turns a bit into a chicken/egg type of dilemma.  While it's true that your choice of words and commands instructs the computer what to do, it's also true that you choose your commands based on what you want the comp...