pat macpherson

asdf - Brutally utilitarian

Fri, 01 Jan 2021 05:20:23 +1100

I am a programmer. Too often I forget this.

I get caught up in my day-to-day work, battling bugs and slow IDEs, silently cursing shortcomings in my OS.

One day I remembered that I am a programmer - I can use code to brighten my day.

For me it started with the need to “find and replace” across multiple files, in a way that regular tools couldn’t do. Next came common snippets that I found myself cutting and pasting several times a day.

Secret Santa CSP Talk

Tue, 28 Jul 2015 00:20:23 +1100

“Christmas is a time for joy, good-will and over-engineering. For far too long, yuletide present-givers have struggled with non-optimal Secret Santa drawings.”

Tonight, Tuesday 28th July 2015, I will be giving a short-ish talk to the Sydney Alt.Net meetup.

My speciality subject will be using a constraint satisfaction problem solver to help (over) optimise a secret santa draw.

RSVP from the Sydney Alt.Net webpage

Talk resources

References

Upcoming Sydney Alt.Net Talk

Tue, 21 Jul 2015 15:20:23 +1100

“Christmas is a time for joy, good-will and over-engineering. For far too long, yuletide present-givers have struggled with non-optimal Secret Santa drawings.”

Next Tuesday night (28th July 2015), I will be giving a short-ish talk to the Sydney Alt.Net meetup. My speciality subject will be using a constraint satisfaction problem solver to help (over) optimise a secret santa draw.

Also speaking is wonderfully engaging Aaron Powell on the Internet Explorer usurper, Microsoft Edge.

Marriage Equality and Databases

Wed, 01 Jul 2015 15:20:23 +1100

“Well, that started as a stream of consciousness about equal parts nuptial rights and Structured Query Language and finished up moving into graph theory, something I, for one, did not see coming.”

The recent Supreme Court decision in the US has brought to light an unexpected opponent to marriage equality - database administrators.

Dubbed the Y2Gay bug, government departments across the America have been rushing to deploy software patches to correct their now incorrect assumptions about marriage

WHICH PILL DO YOU CHOOSE?

Mon, 15 Jun 2015 15:20:23 +1100

“People’s minds are heartbreaking. Not because people are so bad, but because they’re so good.”

From a twee little 4chan meme, comes a deep and beautiful short story. I think what makes it special is the subtle optimism it brings to the idea of the heat death of the universe.

Happy App Building

Tue, 02 Jun 2015 15:20:23 +1100

ManifoldJS is a simple way to create cross-platform hosted mobile applications. At it’s lowest level, it is a wrapper for [Cordova], but for platforms with better mobile-web-app support (Windows, Firefox) it uses the proper tools.

The ManifoldJS deployment documentation demonstrates the ease with which to test, build or submit. No single process takes more than 5 steps.

Quite simply, you can be up and running across all the app stores in next to no time.

Move fast and break nothing

Sat, 28 Feb 2015 20:20:23 +1100

“All of this gives you evidence to prove the safety of your code before you deploy it to your entire userbase.”

In his talk and article “Move fast and break nothing”, Zach Holman from GitHub subverts the famous Facebook motto.

Through the use of Science™, new code can be measured against existing code and in essence tested by the user’s shadow.

Tomorrow is when the future began

Sun, 16 Nov 2014 15:20:23 +1100

“Begin at the beginning,” the King said, very gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”

Welcome to my little blog. Coding and tech, hopefully presented wisely and with a touch of whimsy.

about

Sun, 16 Nov 2014 15:19:35 +1100

I am an experienced software developer who loves to learn and teach. I have a deep knowledge of C#, micro service architecture and quality assurance, but this is backed by my broad general knowledge across a wide range of technologies.

I love working with inspiring people, and I can help teams become more than the sum of their parts. I am always looking to improve and fine-tune. I follow the mindset of “leave it in a better condition than you found it”.