Last weekend we went to the Portland Yard, Garden and Patio Show. This was a convention center of displays and vendors that had anything to do with gardening (and some not — there was a booth selling just socks!!??). Some companies brought in a phenominal amount of plants and stones to create their display areas.
But, in the end, it was a little disappointing. Everyone was selling something. Even the designers seems to want to build walls and stone walkways. In some sense, it wasn’t very gardeny. It seems artificial. The only real garden people (and they seemed happy about it) were the booths selling bulbs and plants — they were selling the beauty and fun of gardening. Most of the other companies were selling the details of gardening.

Because my job is changing, I’ve been spending some time learning some other languages since I’ve been focused on Java and XML tools for the last few years. So, I’m refreshing my skills in C++ and PERL and trying out JavaScript and LSL.

All my Java programming has been done in Eclipse which does a wonderful job of flagging errors as you type. That is, the development cycle of “write, compile, fix compile errors, compile, …, run” because if Eclipse doesn’t show any errors while you’re typing, it’s sure to compile.

So, what does this have to do with C++, JavaScript and most of the XML tools? After Java and Eclipse, I feel like I’m being thrown back 20 years to using Lint with my C programs. And this leads me to the topic of ’strongly typed’ languages.
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Valentine’s Day found us in DisneyWorld celebrating our wedding anniversary and enjoying the themed ambiance of Walt’s lands. One of the neat things, since it was our wedding anniversary, they gave us buttons and all the cast members said “Happy Anniversary” and the restaurants gave us special attention and desserts. Special and yummy.