short takes

[cellio]

Okaaay... "thingamabob" is sort of in the dictionary. But I don't think the first entry (from American Heritage) counts. :-)

(This arose from a bit of linguistic anthropology. The words I use for this are "thingamajig" (spoken only, except in meta-conversations like this) or (more common) "doohickey" or "thingy"; Dani uses "thingamabob".)

I persuaded a developer today to implement the correct, general solution to a problem, rather than the expedient solution that would have been good enough for his current needs (only) but would be hard to maintain. Yay. As an extra bonus, I anticipated one area where he might have been tempted to hard-code a value and persuaded him not to. I love it when these things work. :-)

Speaking of developer interactions, it's nice when "how do I do such-and-such with this interface?" generates the response "you're right, that should be supported; I'll take care of it". :-) (I thought the problem was my lack of knowledge, not his lack of support.)

I tried a new-to-me recipe for fish stew tonight (thanks src). It had a mix of spices that struck me as unusual, but it works well. Definitely a keeper. I couldn't find cellophane noodles (would that be dry, frozen, or refrigerated?), so I served it over rice and that worked.

(For anyone who's wondering, src is her initials, not a Unix reference. I didn't get that right away either. :-) )

Comments

cellophane noodles

[geekosaur]

They're usually dry. I've seen them in Asian food stores and sometimes in the larger supermarkets (but I don't recall ever seeing them in a GEagle).

[aliza250.livejournal.com]

It's "thigamajig". :-P

[dglenn.livejournal.com]

thingamabob, thingamajig, thingy, thingumy, doohicky, whatzit, whatchamacallit, frobnitz, from, fiddledy-bit ... depends a little on subtle nuances of the thing in question and a lot more on the number of such nouns I need in a short time (and probably somewhat depends on the accent of the person I'm talking to). "Dongle" is useful too, but that's more specific (it has to plug into something ... but it doesn't have to technically be a proper dongle to get that word used in place of "thingie", etc.).

[moose]

I _have_ found cellophane noodles in some of the bigger Big Birds, but your best bet is Lotus Foods in the strip.

Also, I'd just like to say that the collision of "people I know" always amuses me.

[jducoeur]

I persuaded a developer today to implement the correct, general solution to a problem, rather than the expedient solution that would have been good enough for his current needs (only) but would be hard to maintain.

Y'know, every time you say something like this, I'm forced to conclude that your project desperately needs a good Lead Engineer. This is really the important part of the Lead's job, in my book: making sure that the architecture is clean, and teaching the younger programmers how to do it better.

(My current project doesn't technically have a Lead Engineer, but I've wound up taking on that role anyway. It's really important to have someone thinking about the maintainability equation, and driving things in a good direction.)

*Sigh*. The better I understand system engineering, the more convinced I am that most programmers need some serious re-education...