The Whole Doubt

A Mature Hot Hatch

2010-04-30T00:00:00-07:00

I purchased a well-equipped 2010 Volkswagen GTI on the 30th of March this year. Having now put 1000 miles and 30 days on the car, I have a few initial thoughts to share.

The GTI is powered by a turbo-charged 2.0L four-cylinder engine based on VAG's current EA888 platform, and it is fantastic. Pushing down on the throttle at any time results in instantly available torque, seemingly across the entire RPM band. Looking at the torque curve however, there is a huge plateau across most of the powerband. This implies that Volkwagen has artificially limited the power output of this motor, likely for insurance purposes.

At partial throttle, the GTI is a supple and refined daily driver. There are few signs of the power available during an average day's commute. I am finding a respectible 30 mpg in daily mixed driving and the broad torque curve makes city driving a joy.

Like all direct-injected engines with exhaust gas recycling - an emissions requirement - the 2.0L TSI is subject to carbon buildup on the intake valves. Unlike port-injected engines, very little detergent-enhanced fuel washes against the intake valves in a direct-injected engine. This is something that bears watching.

The 2010 model comes equipped with both stability control ("ESP") and an electronically simulated limited slip differential ("XDS"). New on the 2010 GTI, XDS helps prevent inside wheel spin in hard cornering by applying slight brake pressure. This system is fairly unobtrusive and effective at keeping the front-driven GTI well-mannered in the twisties. ESP is also extremely effective in daily driving, but quickly gets in the way when the car is pushed. The stability control will intervene too often by cutting power and causing the car to shudder unexpectedly. As recommended by VW, be sure to hit "ESP off" before "spirited" driving.

The interior fit-and-finish is the best I have seen from an econobox, with few exceptions. The Interlagos plaid seats are well-bolstered and stylish. The dash controls are easy to read at a glance and simple to operate. I have experienced a rattle in both the driver- and passenger-side B-pillar. I plan to discuss the issue with my dealer at the 90-day checkup.

Steering is electronically-assisted, which is usually a recipe for isolation in the wheel. Not here. The steering wheel is well-damped, but still maintains road feel for the driver. My model is also equipped with a DSG 6-speed automated-manual gearbox. The DSG provides the convenience of an automatic in city traffic, with the control of a manual transmission via paddle shifters - hold the Formula One metaphors, please - or taps of the shift knob forward or backward.

Two fully automatic modes are provided, Drive and Sport, which offer a comfortable mix of fuel-sipping conservatism and smile-inducing power shifts. In the Tiptronic mode, shifts are executed at blazing fast speeds with minimal delay. This is not your father's manumatic. I do miss the clutch pedal, but the dead pedal decoy and a gearbox that shifts in a blink are an excellent replacement.

While the GTI is an economical and fun drive from the factory, there are some changes I plan to make which will improve the performance of the car. My initial goal is to help the car get the most out of the power it currently makes, before adding more.

Update: I've installed a larger intercooler, turbo and downpipe, which all have massively improved an already fun-to-drive machine. These upgrades aren't for everyone, but they were money well-spent in my book.

Django Niggles

2009-11-08T00:00:00-08:00

I have been doing a bit of work in Python, lately. As I am generally a "web guy," this means spending time with Django. This post is admittedly heavily bias and probably includes mistakes and omissions. The standard disclaimer applies. However, I am hoping that someone out there on the tubes will be able to help me understand these minor annoyances and point me in the direction of a better way.

The Model

Django has a usable ORM. For the majority of uses, it Just Works(TM). So there are a few more underscores than I would prefer to look at (my "_" key is looking haggard) and the related object API is a bit... odd. Whatever. I can deal.

However, to quote Jerry Seinfeld, what is the deal with transactions? Why is the middleware seemingly the only elegant way to control transactions? Okay, so Django likes to tie these things to the request/response cycle. Most of the time, that is what I want. Most of the time. Please tell me there exists some decorator-based support for transactional methods in the Model, though. Please.

The View

Most of the world calls this the Controller, in MVC parlance. Again, no big deal. They consist of methods that sit in between the Template (views, to the rest of us) and the Model. The rendering support arguably reads a bit oddly, but we all already know that I have a fetish for readability.

There must be a better way to handle error conditions in the Model. The typical action in Django seems to be to wrap each Model interaction with try/except clauses and hope you've caught everything. Yes, I know Python is predisposed to abusing exceptions, but this interface is crying out for something cleaner. Something saner. Something else.

I cannot for the life of me find a decent way to handle PUT/DELETE requests in views without wallowing in here. I strive for interfaces that at least pretend to be RESTful, but Django does not seem to care much for that philosophy. A shame.

Tests

This is a personal soapbox. At both the language and framework level, testing should be clean, unobtrusive, flexible and fast. xUnit-style tests are fine and well, given adequate support for the framework's primitives. In the web world, this means managing database state between tests, loading up fixture data, executing faux web requests and testing integration points with caches and peers.

Yes, Django has a cursory examination of testing a web application. Ironically, doctest is lauded as feeling more "pythonic," but there seems to be better support for testing each component of the stack using the unittest style. Moreover, doctest begins feeling like a cruel joke when test coverage grows to anything more than example method usage.

Django's documentation explicitly states that "most projects will end up using both." I hope this is an intermediate step, until someone builds a more elegant harness.

Administrivia

Django provides a script with each new project in the form of manage.py. It works as advertised and creating custom commands is straightforward. I do miss some other tools, but it gets the job done.

With its usurped motto of "batteries included," one would think log output has received as much attention as command execution, though. import logging and other boilerplate hoop-jumping is not the answer, here. When the application is running in development, at the very least console output should include useful tidbits such as SQL statements executed by the ORM and stack execution times (the template engine...). Also, the framework should provide an elegant way to output custom messages. I hope I have completely missed some part of this page. And yes, I know about this.

UPDATE: There appears to be an effort to improve this situation for Django 1.2.

Deployment has been covered ad nauseum elsewhere, but suffice to say Python web application have a long way to go before they reach parity with others.

The End... Or Is It?

Django is certainly an acceptable framework in daily usage. Its rough edges are bound to be honed by the raging torrent of time and use. The emphasis on pluggable "apps" is a pattern I am happy with, the middleware infrastructure is well thought out and well executed, and most of the common use cases for a web framework (nee CMS?) are covered.

As I said in the introductory text, this post is composed of minor annoyances that make my life a little harder than it really ought to be. I hope to post followups to this little diatribe exploring solutions to each of these gripes. If you have a solution that puts a smile on your face, let me know via email or twitter.

Reno.rb Coding Dojo

2009-10-14T00:00:00-07:00

Last night, our local Ruby programmers' group hosted its first hackfest. My employer agreed to host the hackfest in one of our (many) conference areas. Pizza was ordered. Code was written.

I had a fantastic time working with my fellow Rubyists and discussing others' approaches to our shared problem. I hope the other attendees enjoyed the experience as much as I did.

It's Not Tandoori

We took a page out of the Cleveland Ruby Brigade's book and chose the Randori format. These are the rules:

One computer, projected for the rest of the group.
All coding is done on this computer by a pair of developers.
The Driver (at the keyboard) has to get up every 10 minutes and let someone else join the pair.
The pair should constantly talk about what they are doing.
The pair must stop if someone in the audience loses track, and cannot continue until the member is caught up.
During the red bar (failing tests), the only audience participation is asking question. Once the test is passing, anyone can comment on the design.
Never move on to new code if someone is not happy with the design - always refactor.
TDD is required.

On the whole, we struggled to stick to the rules. Some audience members struggled to let the pair work, for example. TDD was a new experience for many in the group, and our adherence became less strict as the evening wore on.

Despite struggling to follow the rules, I found the format provided a successful framework for encouraging dialog between the group members. With additional practice, the group should gain a great deal of practical knowledge from our hackfests using this format.

The Kata

The Kata, again shamelessly copied from CleRB's playbook, was a Sudoku Solver as proposed in Ruby Quiz 43.

Like CleRB, we did not leave the meeting with a working solver, but the problem was thoroughly disected and several potential strategies were debated. After much of the group had left for the evening, four of us were so enthralled that we stayed for nearly another hour.

Repeat Performance

I hope to host and attend many more Randori-style hackfests with the Reno.rb group. Everyone seemed to have a great time and the insight gained from working with such a diverse group of coders is priceless.

If you'd like to attend the next hackfest, be sure to sign up for the mailing list. I hope to see you there.

How I Use Mac OS X

2009-08-28T00:00:00-07:00

With the release of Mac OS X 10.6, I think it's time to write down how I use OS X. Perhaps this will be of use to you, or a future me.

Dock

On modern widescreen monitors, vertical space is at a premium. Thus, the Dock is on the side. I keep mine on the left for no good reason.

My Dock is arranged somewhat by icon color. Strange, I know. I fiddle with it every so often, but mostly it stays just so.

My Dock, top to bottom:

The Blues: Finder, Mail, Photoshop, WebKit Nightly, Safari, iChat, iTunes
The Purples: Cocoa Emacs, TextMate
The Browns: iCal, Bridge, NewsFire
The Greys: Terminal, System Preferences, iBank

Menubar

My Menubar is perhaps the most cluttered place on my machines. I keep a variety of status notification-type thingies up there that inform (sometimes) and distract (mostly).

From left to right: Twitterific, SizeUp, Growl, iSync, iChat, iStat Menus, Spaces, WiFi status, Volume, American flag (the International prefPane), battery indicator, weekday and time.

Desktop

Clean. Clear. A grey background. I don't want distractions when I switch apps via Exposé. Perhaps I should do something about my Menubar, though...

Monitors

My laptop is usually, well, in my lap. It's a mid-2007 15" MacBook Pro. Matte screen, of course. I don't often hook it up to an external screen. I prefer to be on the couch or in bed with my laptop than at a desk.

The MacPro at work is attached to the largest monitor I could find (28"). Still, probably not enough.

Extras

My ~/Library/Application/TextMate and ~/.emacs.d are full of gold that I drag with me from machine to machine. I am unsure whether I could function effectively without them.

Lemon-Basil Eggs

2009-08-05T00:00:00-07:00

After making panzanella for dinner recently, I found myself with a few leftover ingredients that combine to make my otherwise-normal breakfast a bit more interesting. I have made the following a few times now, and find it to be a tasty diversion from The Usual(TM).

Remember, fresh is always best. Don't skimp on the lemon, basil or garlic - get the real deal. Bonus points if you find it at a local farmer's market!

The Recipe

* 1 tbs. butter
* 1/4 cup sweet onion, sliced thinly (I used Maui onions)
* 6 large eggs
* 1/4 cup lemon zest (about a whole lemon)
* 1/4 cup basil leaves, loosely torn (1 tbs. dried may be substituted)
* 1 clove garlic, crushed
* Salt and pepper

Melt butter in a 12" everyday pan or skillet on medium heat. After the butter has completely melted, add onion. Cook until clear and slightly brown - err on the side of undercooked. About 2 minutes.

In a small bowl, combine eggs, lemon zest, basil, garlic, salt and pepper. Scramble with a fork or whisk. Add to pan and stir lightly (too many people abuse their eggs). Cook until most of the moisture has evaporated, or until the eggs begin to brown. About 5-7 minutes.

Serve warm.

Notes

I like to add some Cholula for a nice contrast to the eggs' sweetness. These make a great compliment to a slice of soda bread with honey and a cup of Earl Grey.

Wheels

2009-05-31T00:00:00-07:00

Several years ago, my bicycle was stolen. Thinking I had done my best to keep it secure from the thieves of the world, I was at a loss and decided against replacing it with more bait.

After much talk and not much action, I have finally replaced that bike. Last week, I purchased a Jamis 2007 Commuter 3.0 - quite a mouthful. Being a technical type, of course I was obliged to research every aspect of each bike that fit my criteria: internally geared, 700c wheels, aluminum frame and mounts for a rack and fenders. Now that I have made the buy, I would like to present the numbers and my reasoning.

Purpose

My reason for finally replacing my lost bike is one of circumstance. I now live close enough to my employer to commute to work (~6km) and most of the places I frequent otherwise are within about that same radius.

The style of bike best suited to around-town recreation and commuting is called a hybrid - being a hybrid between road and mountain bike styles.

Gears

There are two basic gear types on a modern road bike, internal and derailleur. There are, as with everything, trade-offs to be made between the two. The aforelinked wiki articles explain that better than I could, but my principle concerns were maintenance and ease-of-use. Internal gears require both vastly less maintenance than derailleurs, but also allow shifting while stopped and keep the chain in the most efficient alignment.

The Jamis uses a Shimano Nexus Inter-8 hub with 700 x 32c wheels, 170mm crank and a 36 tooth sprocket. This hub has a very respectable 306% overall gear ratio and in this bike's configuration it provides a solid 16.6 gear-inches in the first gear - plenty low for most of the hills in the area I plan to ride.

As you can see, the gears are fairly evenly spaced over the available gear-inches:

However, the inter-gear ratios are a bit sporadic. A better hub, such as the top-of-the-line Rohloff Speedhub, would provide not only a wider overall gear ratio, but a smoother curve, here:

Of course, I could upgrade the hub or sprocket in the future, should I find this geometry limiting.

Wheels

The knobby tires of a mountain bike increase the amount of air resistance a bicyclist works against and really are not designed for around-town riding. It is important to me to have a lightweight, robust wheel that suits the area I am riding in. The best choice here is the 700c rim of a road bike; the Jamis uses a 700 x 32c, 622mm wheel that fits my need perfectly.

Frame

Frames in my price range are made from steel alloy and aluminum. Steel is easily repaired with a simple welder if it cracks, but aluminum offers light weight and no rust. The weight is particularly important to me - with a rack and pannier full of groceries, the weight of a steel frame will be noticeable.

Accessories

Not all bikes come with the tabs for fenders and racks from the factory. A shame, in my opinion. Fenders not only have an attractive, classic look, but also reduce the amount of mud and water the wheels spray back on the chain and gears. This is less of an issue with internal gears, but important for chain-life nonetheless.

I plan to use this bike as more than just a commuter. I live a short distance from groceries, clothing stores and restaurants that I would rather bike to than drive. With a rack and pannier, I can easily accommodate any small purchases (or leftovers!) I may find.

The Shop

Finally, I would like to say that my LBS - Bicycle Bananas - was helpful, courteous and had an extremely competitive price for the Jamis. What's more, the new bike comes with a year of free maintenance, a free water bottle and holder and 10% off accessories for the next year. A great deal all around!

Spotted Dog

2009-02-03T00:00:00-08:00

Irish Soda Bread has become something of a staple in my house. As with most Irish foods, the basic ingredients are cheap and easy to find.

It is important to note that traditional soda bread contains only the following: flour, baking soda, salt and sour milk. Therefore, the recipe below is non-traditional and is more properly called a "Spotted Dog" or "Railroad Cake." I substitute buttermilk for sour milk because of its availability, and prefer the Saco Cultured Buttermilk powder to liquid buttermilk.

These cakes are a tasty compliment to a cup of tea or a hearty stew and freeze well.

The Recipe

* 4 cp. unbleached flour ("soft wheat" pastry or cake flour is best)
* 3 tsp. baking powder
* 1 tsp. baking soda
* 1/3 cp. sugar (making this a "cake," rather than a "bread")
* 1/4 tsp. cardamom
* 1/2 cp. firm margarine or butter, cut into small chunks
* 1/4 cp. caraway seeds
* 1 cp. raisins
* 1 large egg
* 1 3/4 cp. buttermilk, or equiv. powder
* 1 oz. Irish whiskey (stereotypical, I know... but it's tasty!)

Preheat oven to 375 °F.

In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar and cardamom. Add the butter and blend thoroughly in mixer or using two knives until crumbly. Stir in caraway seeds and raisins.

In a separate bowl, beat egg lightly and add buttermilk and whiskey. Stir into dry ingredients.

Turn out onto a floured board and knead until dough holds (only takes a minute or two). Divide dough in half and shape each half into a round loaf. Place on a cookie sheet sprayed with non-stick spray. Cut a cross into the top of each loaf.

Place in pre-heated oven and bake for 35-40 minutes or until nicely browned on top. Tapping should yield a hollow sound.

Serve warm or cold.

Obligation

2008-12-22T00:00:00-08:00

This horse has been beaten by innumerable people much better than I (the people and the beating), but there is something unifying about our common obligations that provides a perennial opportunity for 'me, too' consolation.

Most of us have had childhoods defined more-or-less by whim, with the occasional reign-tug by a parent. A lucky few have experienced that independence well into their adult lives by luck, birthright or sheer force of will. The rest...

The rest of us work each day at a job in which we hopefully find some measure of entertainment - eight hours can seem a long time - out of necessity. I know very few who would continue their lives as they are, had they come across the means to make that decision. Those that would have already found their fortune, I think.

I keep a glamorous notion of my "life's work" floating in the back of my mind. It is an idealistic light switch that, should I find the force or knowledge to flip it, will change my life in an instant. I doubt any of my personal heroes went through such an instantaneous transformation... perhaps no one has.

Another day at the salt mine.

Rituals

2008-12-15T00:00:00-08:00

For the past three-ish days, I have been struggling with a dose of the Common Cold. As fun as these things usually are, they provide ample time to lay in bed moaning about this-or-that and generally contemplating one's own existence.

In this happy state of affairs, I turned to a couple of go-to rituals to assuage my anguish: Patton and Yogi Triple Echinacea.

For some reason, unbeknownst to me, the combination of George C. Scott roaring, "Rommel... you magnificent bastard, I read your book!" and the tranquil feeling of green tea pulls me up by my bootstraps every time.

Circle of Confusion

2008-09-30T00:00:00-07:00

Just in case a similarly befuddled audience turns to Google as its beacon of hope, I thought I'd document a few points of confusion I ran into, tonight:

Skunked Trunk

In the Cisco world, where I've spent a considerable amount of time and training, a "trunk" applies to an interface on which VLAN tagging is applied. HP refers to this as simply a "tagged" interface.

Cisco refers to a set of bonded interfaces as a "channel-group", whereas HP refers to this same functionality as "trunking."

Tag It and Bag It

HP uses the term "untagged" and "tagged" to refer to Cisco's "mode access" and "mode trunk," respectively. This was my original point of confusion; i.e. what defined an "access" port and a "trunk" port on an HP switch...

Finally, in Cisco-land, an interface without a VLAN association has no configuration at all. To achieve the same thing, HP added a "no" mode at the interface level, as well as the usual disabled VLAN mode, globally.

Put On A Happy Face

Having worked with IOS for so long, fiddling with HP's SROS tonight was a bit of an impedance mismatch. The bottom line:

* Cisco "mode trunk" == HP "tagged"
* Cisco "mode access" == HP "untagged"

With that little bit of confusion resolved, go forth and bring HP and Cisco switches into heterogeneous harmony.

Pebble

2008-09-22T00:00:00-07:00

During stressful periods, I like to practice a small meditation. I am by no account a very religious person, but this practice helps to ground my thoughts and find some measure of peace in a hectic world. For those that may be interested, I present a short description.

This method is based heavily on the teachings of Thầy Nhất Hạnh, so it may be recognizable to those familiar with his work.

Over a fresh cup of hot tea, close your eyes and begin to focus on the feeling of the steam as you inhale. Try to use a short sentence or mantra to time each inhalation and exhalation of breath. It is important that each breath be even.

After twenty breaths, begin to imagine a small pebble, perhaps the size of a quarter. Imagine this pebble dropping into a clear stream; perhaps a brook along a favorite trail or the cool, smooth surface of a river on a windless, autumn day. Imagine the pebble slowly falling into the water.

As it strikes the surface, imagine the sudden weightlessness of the pebble. Feel how the pebble slowly drifts through the current, effortless and unburdened. The pebble is completely at the whim of the water, having shed its weight with ripples on the surface. Watch as it floats lazily toward the bottom.

As the pebble nestles itself softly in the silt, take a slow, deep breath of the steam from the tea. Exhale. Keeping the image of the pebble, repeat the short sentence for each inhalation and exhalation of the steam.

Count twenty even breaths, using the sentence as a metronome, and begin breathing normally.

First Post

2008-09-17T00:00:00-07:00

The first moments with a new acquaintance often shape a relationship. Regardless of whether the word 'judgment' ever enters the conversation, the freshness of each ensuing feeling form the mold that defines the experience. These are the first words of a new dialogue between us. Allow me to show you around.

As you may have noticed, this blog is authored and served with an exciting technology called Git. There are enough resources on the web, that I don't feel compelled to introduce it any more. Suffice to say that the concept of using this software for this project excites me a great deal.

The principal motivation for this blog is not technical, but creative. As surprising as this may sound to those that know me, I have a creative writing habit that (humbly) deserves a public face. This is it. Any content that finds its way onto these pages may be of interest to others, but tumblr and twitter have proved inappropriate mediums for.

This Space has no preconceived notion of grandeur, organization or time. I don't pretend to be capable of maintaining a fixed schedule, topical prose or large audience. The content herein is provided without warranty, but might just put a smile on your face or spark a thought between your ears. I think that justifies its existence.

With that brief introduction, I introduce my blog(git).