Programming Demons

Well, today was another day mostly spent programming on my class project. I faced a particularly nasty problem today. Something was inexplicably not working. Basically I was trying to draw something to screen but failing. Confusingly, when I drew the exact same thing to another part of the screen it was working. Let me clarify. I had two drawing windows, the drawing commands were working in one, but not the other. I talked to the TA of the class about it. After some more investigation it was apparent that the drawing list, a piece of code that's stores drawing commands, was not being shared between the two drawing windows. Very Very confusing. my TA was confused and looked up what he thought was an answer. He found a little piece of communication between a confused programmer and one of the Qt developers. He showed it to me, but it turned out to be answering a different question. It did, however, inspire me to look in the same place for an answer. I was able to find out that the windows had to be created specifically knowing baout each other in order to share the drawing lists. I changed the code accordingly and VOILA!! it worked.

This is an example of a programming demon. This one was particularly devious and subtle. It involved my ignorance and a whole lot of witch hunting (I tried several other solutions before finding this one). In the end, it was so easy to defeat, I just had to know where to strike at it.

Yay for me!

Programming

I love programming. It's strange how much pleasure I find in getting stuff to show up on the screen and work RIGHT.

Today I spent most of my discretionary time working on a programming class project. It's a big term project that's supposed to be of significant scope. I've been thinking about it and slowly programming it over the entire semester. It involves two tools I've never used before: Qt, a graphical user interface (aka GUI) programming tool and OpenGL, the universal programming language for graphics. It's amazing how much these two tools have opened up in the way of powerful programming. Yet at the same time, they get in the way as much as they help. Maybe more to the point, they are so much more powerful and complex that when they break (due to a lack of understanding or error on my part usually) they break very hard.

It's not a very good analogy, but it reminds me of a conversation I was having recently with a friend of mine. He was asking me whether there was any advantage, any tangible advantage in marrying in the temple as far as Earth-life was concerned. "As far as the scope of this life, is there anything that's gained from marrying in the temple as opposed to simply being in a committed and loving marriage relationship not sealed in the temple?" We talked about it for a while. He pointed out that many prophets have promised such blessings but left out the specifics, saying rather that the Lord would give an added measure of his Spirit to keep us together. He has been married for a few years and hasn't noticed any significant difference in happiness. After pondering the question a while I pointed out that just because the power of the Lord was more present in his life didn't mean that he would automatically be happier and more successful, rather it meant that he would be able to meet greater challenges, "for of him to whom much is given much is required."

I'd love to hear everyone else's views on the question, especially those who have been married longer than I. What difference does the temple sealing make in a marriage if all other things are equal?

Happy Thanksgiving!

I would just like to say that I'm happy with practically every aspect of my life. I admit it sounds far-fetched, but the fact remains that I am simply a happy man.

Ergo (I hate Matrix II for ruining that word), I am thankful for life and everything in it.

I was planning on writing more about specific things I'm thankful for, but I'm full... still.

Blogs

I've been avoiding this for a while. Recently I've realized that I haven't been diligent in my journal writing. I thought this would be a fun way to get me back in the habit. Plus, Kamis is always bugging me about writing down all these crazy ideas about role-playing that I have, so I might post some story snippets or ideas. If you read this and like it, you're welcome to borrow it as long as you give me credit. If you make millions, maybe you can give me REALLY generous Christmas presents or something. True credit goes to Andrea for her pioneering spirit into blogging. At least I know what it means now...