This is a comment for fellow software developers. Has this ever happened to you?

I just awoke at about 3:00 AM from a sound sleep with a single thought: “I should have used an IdentityDictionary object.”

Yesterday I completed an activity at work that concluded several days of redesign and code refactoring. I deleted quite a bit of code and unified how some basic operations were performed. And I just realized that one of my new core operations was always using Symbols when accessing a Dictionary.

I know what I’m doing first-thing when I get into the office this morning.

Yesterday, while listening to someone at work on another team talk about how difficult their day had been, I was reminded of a funny Woody Allen line.

There were these two elderly ladies standing at a buffet, looking over the food choices. The first lady starts commenting about how everything looks awful and how the food isn’t prepared properly, etc. And the other lady, agreeing, says “Yea. And such small portions.”

He was giving an example of how we can live our lives and find all these horrible things (and some truly are), but then before you know it, life is over.

I’ve been fortunate and grateful, and as I have gotten older, more aware.

Regarding work, I was just telling someone last week how amazing it is that we can live in a time where you can love the work you do and be paid well for it.

Sometimes I realize when facing a crisis or high stress situation, I’ve never been more alive.

I recently posted a BLOG entry on my board games review site documenting how I store my copy of TI-3. This was in response to a query on Board Game Geek.

A World Without String.

– Steve