Code Complete

I learned some new things from Code Complete by Steve McConnell, but the most valuable lesson is not about programming.

McConnell shares examples and guidance about the kinds of decisions you make when you write computer programs. The book has some very good advice that can help programmers write better code.  The suggestions can also help developers write programs that other people can read and understand.

The problem is that the book is very long, but only some parts of it are very good.  If someone wants to study the important parts then they have to find them somewhere in the middle of a big book, which means reading, or at least skimming, all of the parts of the book that are not useful.

From reading Code Complete I was reminded that if I'm writing and I run out of important ideas, I shouldn't add unimportant ideas to make my writing longer.  By writing less, the end result will be more valuable to readers.

The Penderwicks

The Penderwicks are a very talented family.  Their dad is a botanist, the youngest, Batty, has a gift with animals, Jane is a writer, Skye is an athlete, but with a temper, and Rosalind takes care of her family.  In this story the family goes on a summer vacation.  They wanted to go to their usual summer house, but it was already rented, so they eventually had to go to Arundel- a big mansion with a cottage in the backyard for renters.

A gardener named Cagney and a boy named Jeffery live at the mansion and make the summer lots of fun!  Rosalind becomes friends with Cagney, Batty almost gets killed by a bull, Skye, Jane, and Jeffery play soccer, and there is this awful Dexter Dupree always making trouble for the girls.  They made a target with his face on it! 

We liked this so much we got the second book and are looking forward to the third!

The Story of the World

For at least a couple of months we have been reading The Story of the World (by Susan Wise Bauer) together as a family for a few minutes each evening. We are just finishing Volume 2 of this four volume set. It has been an enriching experience for all of us.

The Story of the World is a history of civilization survey written for 8-10 year olds. But it has a lot to teach 38 year olds too. It turns out that Akkadians aren't from Louisiana and that Istanbul is not Constantinople now after a final Ottoman blow to the impressively long-lived Byzantine Empire, details barely intimated by They Might be Giants. It also seems that the Spanish Inquisition lamentably involved far fewer comfy chairs than my Monty-Python-based education led me to believe.

Our family has enjoyed reading these books together. I have enjoyed reading them aloud. Audrey has enjoyed listening. Valerie has crochet more than one blanket in two volumes. Lizzie has joined us for every reading session, usually with a Calvin and Hobbes book to pass the time.

The exposure to history and geography, not only of the West, but of Africa, India, China, Pre-Columbus America, and other areas has been a great experience for all of us. For certain eras, the treatment in the books tends to over-emphasize military history over the history of ideas and culture for my tastes and interests, but the sense of chronology, space, people, and ideas has provided us a valuable framework that we have been fleshing out with other sources from Wikipedia to Studio C (with a library in between). The Story of the World pairs especially nicely with the In Our Time with Melvin Bragg podcast from BBC.

Note also that Jim Weiss does an excellent unabridged audio-recording of the books that we used for part of Volume 1 on a road trip.

Elephant and Piggie!

I read Should I Share My Ice Cream, by Mo Willems. It is an Elephant and Piggie book. It is a funny book! It is funny because Elephant gets some ice cream and he wants to eat it. But he is always worried about things. So he was worried that Piggie would be sad and thought he should share his ice cream with Piggie. But he wants to eat the ice cream since it looks so yummy. But while he was thinking, his ice cream melted. And then Piggie came up to him and shared her ice cream. So it was the opposite of what he was thinking!

--Lizzie

Inheritance Cycle

About a month ago I started reading the Inheritance Cycle series by Christopher Paolini. I am on the third book, and really loving it:) There are four books in the series. I'd say that if you have read and enjoyed The Lord of the Rings,The  Ranger's Apprentice Series, and/or Harry Potter, you'll really like the Inheritance cycle. By comparison, the Inheritance cycle is a more grown-up book. In fact, its the most grown-up book I have ever read. It is more violent then the Lord of the Rings, more complex and violent than the Ranger's Apprentice, and  creepier than Harry Potter. But not so much that you shouldn't be allowed to read it!