TITLE: The Will to Run, or Do Anything Else
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: November 18, 2010  3:43 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
In "How Do You Do It?", an article in the latest issue
of <EM>Running Times</EM> about how to develop the
intrinsic motivation to do crazy things like run
every morning at 5:00 AM, ultrarunner Eric Grossman
writes:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
The will to run emerges gradually where we cultivate
it.  It requires humility -- we can't just decide
spontaneously and make it happen.  Yet we must hold
ourselves accountable for anything about which we
can say, "I could have done differently."
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

Cultivation, humility, patience, commitment,
accountability -- all features of developing the
habits I need to run on days I'd rather stay in bed.
After a while, you do it, because that's what you do.

I think this paragraph is true of whatever habit of
thinking an doing that you are trying to develop,
whether it's object-oriented programming, playing
piano, or test-driven design.

~~~~

<A HREF="http://yfrog.com/6eingcj">
   <IMG SRC="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog-images/speaking2011-17-techtalk-cv.jpg"
        ALT="Eugene speaking at Tech Talk Cedar Valley, 2010/11/17"
        WIDTH="250"
        ALIGN="right" />
   </A>

Or functional programming.  Last night I gave a talk
at
<A HREF="http://www.meetup.com/tech-talk-Cedar-Valley/calendar/15435226/">
   Tech Talk Cedar Valley</A>,
a monthly meet-up of tech and software folks in the
region.  Many of these developers are coming to grips
with a move from Java to Scala and are peddling fast
to add functional programming style to their
repertoires.  I was asked to talk about some of the
basic ideas of functional programming.  My talk was
called "Don't Drive on the Railroad Tracks", referring
to Bill Murray's iconic character in the movie
<A HREF="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107048/">
   Groundhog Day</A>.
After hundreds or thousands of days reliving February
2 from the same starting point, Phil Connors finally
comes to understand the great power of living in a
world without side effects.  I hope that my talk can
help software developers in the Cedar Valley reach
that state of mind sooner than a few years from now.

If you are interested, check out the
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog-images/computing/dont-drive-on-the-railroad-tracks.pdf">
   slides of the talk</A>
(also available
<A HREF="http://www.slideshare.net/wallingf/dont-driveontherailroadtracks">
   on SlideShare</A>)
and the
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog-images/code/basic-fp-in-ruby.tar.gz">
   code</A>.
both Ruby and Scheme, that I used to illustrate some
of the ideas.
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