In the next 20 years, we are going to face an extreme shortage of people who are able to focus single-mindedly on what they are doing. Children growing up these days face an onslaught of distractions thanks to news feeds and smartphones and it is only going to get worse.

Why is this a problem?

People cannot multi-task well. I know there will be many people who say they can, but they can’t – at least not on a task that requires concentration and focus. If you think multi-tasking is fine, answer me this: if you were going into surgery and saw your surgeon preparing while checking his mobile phone messages and watching TV, would you feel comfortable?

The ability to focus is a habit that can be trained or drained. Growing up in a distraction-oriented world, this will be a problem because the best work gets done when someone is focused on what they are doing.

When programming, my best days are when I don’t even check email until the end of the day. I have my tasks laid out and just start on them. When I need a break, I take a break but focus solely on the break during that time. Then when I am refreshed, I get back to work and focus just on the work. Days like these are bliss. I finish work feeling energized and enthusiastic.

The worst days are days I usually check email first thing in the morning. Immediately the distractions start. And even though I may check email only for a few minutes, it can throw me off for the rest of the day. On these days, I finish work feeling drained of energy and wondering what I got done.

My first full-time job after university was at a large, bureaucratic organization. As part of their IT policies, they blocked access to “time-wasting” sites like Gmail and Facebook. At the time, I thought this was a horrible, Orwellian thing to do. By restricting access, they were treating employees like children instead of trusting people to get their work done.

Now, I realise there is some benefit to this course of action (although it is better for people to figure it out for themselves – you can’t block every non-work essential website).

How to focus

What is focus? Focus is setting limits on yourself. In today’s world where most North Americans are in debt, setting limits is something that very few people do. The average person might even be annoyed at just the idea of setting a limit on themselves. Most people don’t even limit their spending to the income that they earn. After all, it benefits others when you don’t set limits on yourself. I hear advertisements all the time saying things like “Buy this. You deserve it.” I never hear an ad saying “Buy this if you have the money saved and can afford it.”

Luckily, the ability to focus can be improved just like any skill.

There are two parts to it – mental fitness and physical fitness

Mental Fitness

I meditate for 15 minutes a day in the morning. There are different kinds of meditation but for improving your focus, the best one I know of is just trying to focus on your breath and only your breath. Whenever another thought or sensation enters your mind, just picture a bubble or cloud forming around it and floating away while you come back to focusing on your breath.

It can be a very challenging activity. Currently, I can only last up to a few minutes before getting distracted without even realising it. However, improvement comes with practice.

After a couple weeks, you should start noticing that you are able to focus more while working. You will build up higher resistance to those thoughts that enter your mind throughout the day which tug at you saying “Let’s just check Facebook for a few minutes…” This will help you get more done in less time.

Physical fitness

It should go without saying but being physically fit helps you in so many areas of your life, focus being one of them. Your body can only expend so much energy at one time and if you are unhealthy, your body needs to spend more energy to keep your heart beating or your lungs breathing. The more energy your body uses keeping you alive, the less energy you have to expend on the task at hand.

As we get further along in the technological revolution, the focus divide between people is going to become more noticeable. If you want to set yourself apart from your peers, train and improve your ability to focus. While other people are distracting the day away, you will be able to accomplish more in much less time.

Focus.

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The bad thing about PHP is how easy it is to get started.

I’ve worked on a few PHP sites where the code lived up to these statements. While it is incredibly easy to get a site up and running with PHP, that ease of getting started could turn into a nightmare as the site grows and becomes more complex.

When you’re faced with a site which has no separation of view code, business logic and model code, it can be daunting to figure out where to start. Here is a simple list you can follow to keep from getting overwhelmed.

1. Write PHPUnit Tests

In Martin Fowler’s book on Refactoring, he proposes to always write tests before changing code. It is an easy way to know that the output remains the same even if the underlying code has changed. I think this is a great practice to follow, however, with a PHP site that may not necessarily be broken into neat, testable units, this may be a difficult process to follow.

Edit: Since I posted this, I came across the SimpleTest testing framework which provides an excellent format for testing PHP applications by imitating the browser.

2. Create models

If you have MySQL queries mixed in with HTML code, the first thing I like to do is get that SQL outta there! SQL should only be seen inside model classes. Each mysql_query() function should be replaced with a call to a model’s method for the table that is being accessed. For example, if there is a statement like:

mysql_query("SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = $id");

I would create a Users.php class that can be used as a model for the users table. Since the code above is needed quite often, it would be a good idea to have a parent class that the Users class can extend from which implements something like a find_by_id() method.

That would allow you to something like:

$users = new Users();
$user = $users->find_by_id($id);


If the site isn’t using PDO, this is also a good time to set that up. There is no reason not to be using PDO these days. It helps with security and Object-Oriented design while keeping queries cleaner.

3. Consolidate duplicate code

I’m a big fan of DRY – Don’t Repeat Yourself – and have worked many times with sites that have a lot of duplicated code. After separating the models, identify duplicated code and start separating that code into libraries. Use a tool like PHP Copy/Paste Detector which can help identify duplicate code or just keep your eyes open for code that looks like you’ve come across it before.

4. Separate views and controllers

Once the model code is separated out, the view and controller code should be separated from each other. In combination with the previous step, sometimes the header or footer HTML might be duplicated throughout the site. It’s good to create a standard layout that contains the common HTML. You might choose to use a templating tool like Smarty which can help to make sure PHP code stays outside of your templates and views.

5. Clean up PHP errors and notices

Make sure you have PHP error_reporting turned on to include all errors including Strict. (In PHP 5.4, E_STRICT will start to be included under E_ALL). This can help you identify stray variables, deprecated code, non-existent array indexes and much more. Cleaning up these errors and notices will make your application run smoother and can help reduce bugs.

Refactoring a whole PHP application can seem like a daunting task. Depending on the size of the application, it’s not something that can be done overnight or even within several weeks. It may take several months of minor, gradual improvements but the end result will be worth it. You’ll be able to add new features quicker, reduce the number of bugs and increase your enjoyment while working on the application.

These steps may not all be applicable to your refactoring challenge but the key thing to keep in mind is to break down a large and complex refactoring job into a series of smaller parts and steps.

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A couple days later she came over again and saw the lamp again. She immediately went over to it and wanted to try again.

Just do a search on Youtube for baby ipad and you see dozens of videos of 2 and 3-year-olds going nuts on the thing. They just jump right into it and try everything. No fear.

This is a great example of how kids just love trying things:

The amazing thing to me is that everybody used to be like this at one point. Unfortunately, growing up in systems like school where a lot of the learning is forced on to people, many people lose this excitement around learning. Instead of learning for its own sake, now it becomes about grades and the results. In high school, when questioned about the value of going to school, some teachers would reply that “You’re in school to learn how to learn.” That’s complete BS. Everybody knows how to learn from birth. We don’t need to be taught it. Did you need to go to school to learn how to walk or talk?

About 10 years ago, one summer I worked at the local library teaching free lessons to people how to use the Internet. The Internet was just reaching its critical mass stage where everybody was hearing about it. Most of the people who came were elderly – probably in their 70′s or 80′s. It was an incredible experience for me in seeing how people new to computers use them. It was also an eye-opening experience of how people’s mindsets affect their learning ability.

Some people would come in and say to me “I really want to learn how to use the Internet.” They would be very open-minded and would pick things up very quickly.

Other people had an incredibly tough time learning. Some people came back week after week and would repeat the same mistakes they made the previous week. They wouldn’t pay attention to what I was saying and would get frustrated. One specific guy I remember was telling me about how he had just been fired but he was swearing throughout the whole lesson and had a very negative attitude about pretty much everything. It shouldn’t be surprising that this guy had a really tough time learning. He ended up leaving after only half the lesson as he just got too frustrated.

The thing is, we all started out as those kids we see in the videos. We all enjoyed the process of learning how to walk, learning how to talk, learning how to hold things, learning how things worked. We all had incredible enthusiasm around learning.

Unfortunately, many people lose this enthusiasm as they grow up. Instead of something fun, learning becomes a chore. Instead of just enjoying the process, people focus on results. It becomes a matter of “What am I going to get out of this?” instead of just being curious about things.

We were all like those kids at one point. And because that passion for learning was within us at one point, it can be revived and re-discovered again.

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Everyone should block off a portion of their day for thinking long-term and investing in skills that may pay off later. Unfortunately, many work places don’t see the value in doing this.

Do it anyway.

My first job post-university was relatively slack. There would usually be extra time every day. Luckily, this workplace had an awesome IT library with pretty much every technical book I could want. (This was before I discovered Safari Books Online) Knowing that I had extra time, one day I decided to bring in “The Mythical Man-Month” to work to read on my downtime. I figured since it was a book about IT projects, it was related to my work and should be no problem for me to read.

After I started reading, my manager came by and asked what I was doing. I said I was learning. He looked at my book and told me “You can’t read here. If you need something to do, ask me and I’ll give you something.” That was probably the moment that I knew I wouldn’t work there much longer. From then on, I just read on my computer so he wouldn’t know.

Some people might say “You shouldn’t be reading on company time” but as long as it is related to the work you’re doing, I see it as a benefit to the company. After a while of doing this, I definitely noticed that I was progressing faster than colleagues and that long-term investment started to pay off in my work. A couple times, senior developers with many years more experience than me would be discussing a problem and I would propose a solution from something I had read which they then implemented. These are the times when the long-term investment starts to yield short-term rewards.

Only enlightened managers will understand the payoff an hour or two of long-term investment can bring and, unfortunately, we can’t all work for the enlightened ones. That is why, as a programmer, you need to take control of your own craft. Software development is a profession that not everyone can do. It’s kind of like plumbing in that aspect. Most of the people who plumbers work for do not know anything about plumbing. Most of the people software developers work for know next to nothing about software development. Remember that you are responsible for being the expert so be sure to develop your expertise.

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The Passionate Programmer is a book everyone in software can benefit from. For those of us working in software, there is the tendency to get complacent. After all, salaries are usually pretty good, working conditions are generally comfortable and good software developers are usually in demand. I know I’ve gone through phases in my career where I let myself get a little too comfortable. Maybe I stopped reading regularly about technology or stopped building things on the side.

The Passionate Programmer offers many ideas for how to improve your career. As with all self-help books, it would be impossible to implement everything but I think each person could find a couple ideas that can improve your work and your well-being. Early on in my career I wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue software development. At one time, I wasn’t very happy with what I was doing. However, once deciding to continue, I wanted to be the best I could be so I started to get more interested in learning about software development. I found that as I began to learn more, I naturally became more interested in my work.

I think this is the premise behind “The Passionate Programmer.” To become happy with your work, you need to put your full effort into it. I think we all know this. If you think of who is happier – a person giving their full effort or a person who is just trying to do the minimum to get by – the answer is obvious to us. It just jumps out in our mind that the person giving their all will feel more fulfillment. You get out of life what you put in to it.

One of the chapters that jumped out at me was “Learn to Love Maintenance.” The title will be an oxymoron to most developers for obvious reasons. Everyone loves building new things. The times in my work where I have been the most engaged have definitely been when I have been involved in building new things. It’s understandable. Progress is made quickly in new software projects and you know at the end of the day just how much you accomplished. Maintenance doesn’t offer those quick wins as much and yet more time is spent on software maintenance than developing new products. So no matter your career path, odds are we all have to do maintenance at some point. We might as well enjoy it.

In short, the points of this book can be summed up as:

• Learn the business side of software
• Invest in keeping up with new technologies
• Promote yourself
• Enjoy what you are doing

If you are currently excited about software development then this book may not help you much at the present time. If, however, years down the road you start wondering “Where did my passion for software go?” or if you are currently in this situation then this book may just help you wake up and re-discover your passion.

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The trouble with opportunity is that it always comes disguised as hard work.

The year was 1995. I was 14 years old and recently purchased a screaming fast 14.4 Kbps modem and signed up with a local ISP to finally get graphical Internet. This was the Internet with pictures! Ah, how I remember the days watching the purple going in and out waiting for pages to load. 28.8 Kbps modems had recently come out but they were around $250. Luckily for me, the 14.4 modems had been reduced in price to only $100 which I could afford with my paper route money. How could I complain though? Previously I had been using a 2400 bps modem to access the Internet in text-form through the Lynx browser.

This was incredible! I was amazed by the World Wide Web.

Fast forward a couple years and I was itching to learn how to make websites. What should I make one about? I was a big hockey fan at the time so after some thinking about it, I decided to make a website about my favourite hockey team, the Toronto Maple Leafs. I put countless hours into the site entering statistics from a book I bought and updating the site after games. I opened an account with Geocities, taught myself HTML and even a little bit about graphics to “pretty” up the site. It’s even still available on the Internet Archive. It wasn’t the best site but I put a lot of work into it and it was a labour of love.

Forward again another couple years to 2001. I was off to university and didn’t have the time to maintain it anymore so I let it die. Just before school let out for the summer one of my friends asks me if I can make websites. I say “Yeah, I’ve been doing that for a couple years now.” His brother wants to setup a simple online store website to sell some products. I talk to him about it and we agree on a price of $1500, half paid up front and half on delivery.

After getting back home for the summer I have lots of free time and figure it will be a piece of cake. But I procrastinate and procrastinate until finally a month later I feel bad about it and I tell him I can’t do it and return his money.

One thing I’ve since learned in life is that each time I do good work, I get rewarded with a greater opportunity as a result of it. It may not be from the same person or company but somehow life tries to put me at the next level and give me a reward.

Looking back on this decision to fail, I figure it probably cost me tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars and probably set my career back 5-6 years. I wouldn’t start doing any web development until after I graduated in 2007, six years later.

If I had successfully completed that project, I could have easily found others. The Internet was just getting started and was hot at that time. I could have worked while I went to university in web development instead of brainless part-time jobs earning barely above minimum wage. I could have built up a portfolio and client base that would still serve me today. But I chose to give up.

Life always seems to present opportunities when we’re ready. It might not be in the form we like and it certainly won’t be gift wrapped up in a nice perfect package with a bow on top. But you’re ready for it. You wouldn’t be receiving it if not. If you say yes and complete it, you will be able to move on to bigger and better things. However, if you reject life’s opportunity, it will say “Ok, never mind” and then you won’t get it again until you prove you are ready again. This may take years as in my case.

If you are currently being presented with an opportunity, are you accepting the present? If you choose to pass it along, it will take some time to get back.

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I’m the kind of person who rarely bought books. I would always try to get them from the library. I just don’t like owning a lot of physical stuff which was a big deterrent to buying books. Because what do you do with books? If a book was really good that I might read again I would buy it and keep it. Other than reference books, these books are extremely rare. There’s just not that many books I want to read more than once and even if I did, it would probably be a number of years until the next time anyway. If I didn’t want to keep it I could sell it to a used bookstore for maybe 50 cents, donate it to the library or just have it sit in the back of my closet somewhere.

Kindle and e-readers solve all this. It’s a no-brainer why Amazon prices it cheaper than other e-reading devices. If the Kindle is a loss-leader they definitely make the money back on the books ordered.

I had been thinking of getting a Kindle for a while now but what pushed me over the edge was my move to Japan earlier this year. Living in a small city in Japan, I was lucky to live near a library that had a surprisingly large selection of English books. I didn’t want to limit my reading to just whatever they happened to have on hand. I decided to take the plunge and this device has resulted in an immense improvement in my life.

I love reading on it and because of that I read more and learn more. In fact, a few times I have even forgotten I wasn’t reading an actual book and tried to turn the page from the top-right corner.

The only disadvantage to a Kindle I can see is that they currently do not support borrowing e-books from libraries (although they have stated they are planning to add support by the end of 2011). My library in Canada does not offer a large e-book selection yet so this is not such a big downside at the moment. The Kindle is also a device that obviously is heavily geared towards buying books from Amazon so if you want a device for borrowing from the library or don’t plan on buying many books, it may not be the device for you.

For me, I greatly enjoy reading and spending $50 a month on books that educate me and provide entertainment is money well spent. Now that I have a Kindle, this is definitely one of those things I couldn’t go back to living without.

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"Marty, you're just not thinking 4th dimensionally"

I’ve worked on a few different types of applications at this point in my career and one sure sign of poor programming I’ve noticed is the inability to program 4th dimensionally. You notice this when the application may be working but implementing features begins to take longer and longer. The performance starts to become an issue when more users are added to the system. These problems are a result of the programmer not thinking about the future.

PHP code is notorious for this problem because it is so easy and tempting to write code that just focuses on the immediate problem. A programmer gets the task done quickly and he is happy and the client is happy. It’s also the reason why on outsourcing sites there are many job postings looking for PHP programmers at $5/hour. I don’t see many postings looking for Ruby on Rails developers at that rate. Ruby on Rails forces developers to use a well-established framework that adheres to good design practices. With PHP, especially without using a framework, developers have the ability to just throw everything together if they so choose. This leads to a big mess. If the application grows, this mess gets bigger and bigger until it needs to be cleaned up.

Cleaning up a code mess involves a lot of work and it shouldn’t be done all at once. It’s like switching bank accounts. I’ve switched my main banking account before and it is a hassle that takes months to complete. Any direct deposits and automated bill payments need to be changed to the new bank account. Money needs to be transferred. When you think you’ve got everything switched over, it’s also good to leave the old bank account active for a little while longer until you are reasonably confident that you haven’t forgotten anything.

Cleaning up a code mess is similar. First you want to make sure that the logic will not break. This involves writing tests for the current system. These will most likely have to be done from scratch because if the codebase is a mess, chances are there is no testing being done.

Secondly, start with simple modules that are easy to understand and are loosely coupled to other parts of the application. These parts of the application are the easiest to switch over to cleaner code because you can be relatively confident that they will still work without breaking the application. Move on to more complicated modules as you understand the system better and all the connections.

Finally, when the modules have been re-coded into a more fluid design, remove the old code. Old code on a system just confuses new developers who don’t know if it’s important or not. Throw it out to keep things simple. You aren’t going to use it.

As a developer, how can you better program for the future? There are a few things you can do:

Every time you write code think about how it will look in the future. How easily can someone understand this code when they read it 6 or 12 months from now? What if the code needs to be used somewhere else? Is it easy to call from another part of the application?

In addition to thinking long-term while performing short-term tasks, start noticing code messes. Anytime you see the same code repeated more than once in an application, alarm bells should start going off in your head alerting you to a possible mess. Make a note of it.

Take some time regularly to clean up messy code you notice. This is probably the most difficult as it requires a developer to think independently. In my experience, very few managers are going to come to you and say “You should take the next week to work on cleaning up the code while no features are getting implemented.” As a developer, you need to just clean up the code as you go along without being asked to do so. You do it because even though the immediate task may take a little bit longer, you are saving more time down the road.

If all the effort is placed on the immediate short-term you will be like a public company that just focuses all its attention on the next quarter’s results. It may work for a while but after cutting their Research and Development budget to save costs and boost short-term profits, the company then realises that they have nothing in the pipeline for the upcoming years and begins to lose market share.

Your manager/client is always going to be providing the short-term, immediate tasks you need to work on but to become a professional developer, you need to carve out a part of your day to think 4th dimensionally.

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Disagree.

In life, we need both in our service to others. We need to contribute to many people but also contribute to just a few individuals close to us. For most people, the former comes from their work. In fact, most people get paid for being able to provide their skills for a product or service that is used by many people. It is very difficult to get paid well by only providing a service to a handful of people. This is the whole basis for the economic system – the more people that benefit from a person’s work, the more money that person earns. Our economic system is setup to encourage one’s work to connect with the most amount of people. This is why celebrities and athletes get paid so much. Their work is seen by millions of people.

To feel satisfaction we also need to contribute on a more deeper level to just a few people. For most people, this contribution comes from close relationships such as family and friendships. Inherently, I believe all people recognize this. Given the choice, I believe most rational people would choose to have a few very close friends with a deep relationship and understanding rather than many friendships on only a superficial level.

When either one of these is missing, a person feels like their is a big hole in their life. There are many cases of celebrities dealing with this issue. While their work is seen by millions, without the ability to have close relationships they feel empty.

I once attended a seminar where Tony Robbins gave a talk. One point that stuck with me is when he talked about his past where he would give a motivating and energizing speech to tens of thousands of spectators but then he would come home to an empty house or an empty hotel room and would feel alone. To other people it is shocking to hear something like this. They think this person has everything. Yet, without deep, close relationships a person can feel like they have nothing. I once read an African proverb that stated “No matter how many cattle a man owns, without a family he has nothing.”

I suppose the ultimate in devoting yourself to just a few individuals is stay-at-home mothers. I can’t speak for them if they find their work completely fulfilling but I think, as a man, I could not find fulfillment in just devoting my life to serving a few people. Satisfaction comes from doing work which benefits a lot of people a little and from relationships that benefit a few people a lot.

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Thank you Mr. Toastmaster. Good evening everyone.

It’s been three months since I came to Japan now and I was thinking this week about my time here so far. Before I came to Japan in my city in Victoria there are many Japanese students that go to Victoria to study English or to study at university so I had known some Japanese people before I came here and they seemed like interesting people. So I thought “Oh, Japan must be an interesting country.” And it is so far. There’s been many interesting things that I’ve seen so far, that are maybe different from in Canada or that I’ve noticed.

For example, I live in Gifu right next to a Konbini – convenience store – and I love Japanese Konbinis. They are convenient not like in Canada. In Canada our convenient stores are not convenient. Here in Japan, there’s konbini’s everywhere. You walk for a few minutes, there’s a konbini. Walk for a few more minutes, another konbini. It’s great. I love it. And I have one right next to my apartment. My apartment is here and next door is a Mini Stop. It’s great because I don’t like to cook so when I’m hungry I can just go to the konbini and for just a few hundred yen I get a meal. They put it in the microwave and they heat it up – they cook it – for me. So it’s great. That’s one thing that’s interesting for me – the konbinis in Japan.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that in Japan there are lots of signs everywhere. So my apartment is right on an intersection near the traffic lights where the cars go and one day I was walking home down the road to my apartment and I see a sign on the side of the road. It has an arrow pointing straight and it says “kono kosaten” which means “the intersection is coming up.” So I think that’s interesting because if I’m driving I’m probably not going to look over there to see that there’s an intersection coming up. I see ithe intersection. Why do I need a sign to tell me that an intersection is coming? But that was only one sign. I walked for maybe 10 more meters and there’s another sign “kono kosaten.” And I walk a little more and there’s another sign “kono kosaten.” In maybe 100 or 200 meters there’s 5 signs “kono kosaten” warning the drivers there’s an intersection coming up. I just thought that was pretty funny that you’re driving “Oh here’s an intersection, I better prepare for it.”

One of the other interesting things I’ve noticed is Japanese people’s favourite word – “arigatou gozaimasu”. I hear this all the time. I thought Canadians were polite but Japanese say “thank you”, I think, more than Canadians. And at first I would try to say it properly “arigatou gozaimasu.” But it’s such a long word. In English we can say “thank you” or “thanks.” It’s very short. But “arigatou gozaimasu” is so long to say and I’ve noticed since I’ve been here that I’ve become lazy when I say it. When I came here I would say “arigatou gozaimasu” but now it’s more like “ari…” because I don’t want to say it all the way and one time in a restaurant I heard someone say it as “agemasu” and another person told me I can say “asas.” So that’s good to know. At least I can make it shorter.

And “arigatou gozaimasu” is said so many times. Always when I’m at a restaurant and I’m going to pay they say “arigatou gozaimasu” because I give them the money. Then they give me the money back and I say “arigatou gozaimasu” and then they say “arigatou gozaimasu” again. So I asked my girlfriend about it and she said “Oh maybe they’re just saying ‘thank you’ for your ‘thank you’.” So last time at the restaurant I paid the money and they said “arigatou gozaimashita”. I got the change and said “arigatou gozaimasu” and they said “arigatou gozaimasu” and then I tried again saying “arigatou gozaimasu” but then that was it. They didn’t say it again so I thought maybe it would keep going for hours and keep continuing.

So those are some interesting things I’ve noticed in Japan so far. I hope there’ll be many more interesting things to come. And I’m looking forward to it.

In Canada we were always taught not to end your speeches by saying “thank you” but here I need to say “arigatou gozaimasu.”

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