Fresh Start

I've just created this blog as a branch from my original over at Shared Illusions.

This is going to be my programming blog. I'm going to still post to Shared Illusions, but I'm going to try and keep this blog as a discussion of various coding topics and continue with rambling and general stream-of-consciousness over on Shared Illusions.

As for the name, it's basically drawn from this picture that my wife drew the other day:


The caption was initially meant to be a play on the fact that it's a code-monkey reflected and that there is a programming technique called reflection (this part obviously only clear to coders with a fairly poor sense of humour, i.e. me). After reading This post from coding horror a third meaning became apparent. A reflective coder is a programmer who thinks about programming all the time, and uses this to constantly reflect upon and improve their skills.

I'm not a reflective coder yet, but I have the first part down as I never seem to stop thinking about coding (well, apart from when I'm thinking about physics, maths or the latest PTerry book :)). My discussions here will help me, and possibly anyone reading, along the path to being reflective coders and better programmers in general.