Methods and classes, constants and variables. It’s amazing how much programming is like life, or perhaps not so amazing when you consider that everything follows some set of rules. As far as we know, I might add; physicists are fond of coming up with spooky theories that sometimes seem to suggest otherwise. But today, at least, followed some rules. Penelope had her first day of classes downstate, and the drama continued, but with a few twists. It seems that Maude’s daughter is going to pay her rent because she is responsible for Penelope’s plight, having been the one to kick her out of the house. That might make life somewhat interesting, and it at least lessens the chance that Penelope will be dropping out of school and moving back with us. One obstacle at a time, that’s all I ask.

Day five of Java went off without much of a hitch, although I’m not convinced I understand that bit about casting. In any event, I’m off to day six and finally getting down to the business of creating actual programs. I have an exercise in mind, but it will probably have to wait for Week Two since it involves a fair number of graphics calls. We’ve been introduced to the concept, but haven’t really explored it. Thus far it’s all been about the basic building blocks. There are sixteen more days left; I will have to complete the lessons on time if I am to return the book to the library without asking for an extension. It seems perfectly doable. It will be something of a challenge, though, to do the other things I was going to do in that time frame. This — the journal that’s documenting everything — is one of those tasks, of course, but the rewrite of Henry is another, and I’m not sure I can do that. I’m not sure I can even start it, to tell you the truth, and if I can’t find the version I printed… well, I can always print another, so that’s not much of an excuse. Maybe tomorrow I can finally put that checklist together. That would help tame my days.

The key is to develop some kind of a method, something to help me whip the chaos into order, something to limit the amount of digression that takes place. That’s the real problem, the trail that starts here but never quite gets there because of all the side trips in between.

Friction is a constant, isn’t it? There seems to always be friction, so it’s a constant in that sense. Can it be a good thing? I would think so. There’s such a thing as creative tension, and there are many examples in nature where the very act of having to fight through something makes an organism stronger. That’s friction, isn’t it? The struggle to poke its way out of the shell strengthens the chick’s muscles. Maybe. That’s a guess on my part, completely unbacked up by any science, at least science that I can cite. Maybe it’s true and maybe it isn’t, but it sounds like it should be true, and that’s probably the only important thing. It’s not whether you know what you’re talking about or not. It’s whether you sound like you know what you’re talking about.

Let’s say you have 100 people looking for work and there are only 50 jobs available. Who gets those jobs? The common wisdom holds that the people who try the hardest get those jobs. The people who find a way to distinguish themselves get those jobs. The people who do the best job selling themselves get those jobs.

So, in other words, it’s a crap shoot. If there are only fifty jobs, there aren’t enough jobs to go around, and no matter how hard everyone tries, only half of those 100 people are going to get those jobs. The other half are going to feel crappy about themselves. The other half are going to hear from the so-called experts that the fault lies within, that they didn’t try hard enough, they didn’t acquire the right skills, they didn’t do enough.

And yet, the problem will remain the same. There are fifty jobs and one hundred people vying for those jobs. If this were the wild, those fifty would perish and the species would benefit. Unless, of course, those fifty had skills that were of benefit to the species but weren’t especially applicable to those specific jobs. So let’s say the jobs went to the biggest and strongest, but that survival of the species really depended on cunning and wile, on intelligence and resourcefulness. That no matter how cunning and wily and intelligent and resourceful these fifty were, there was no way they could make themselves bigger and stronger. That even though those fifty could eventually invent methods and devices that would mitigate the difference, it would not help them in that moment because it was, after all, a moment. One hundred people walk into a room and the biggest fifty are selected.

How do you prepare for that?