I was thinking lately about the different philosophies programming languages expose when it comes to guaranteeing code semantics. It’s interesting to compare two of my favorite languages - Ruby and Clojure - and a third I like, but don’t know well enough to love: Haskell, since each lies at a different point along the imperative to purely functional spectrum, and each can give you a different level of confidence in your code’s execution.

In particular, I’m referring to the level of confidence a language can impart that when you call some method (or evaluate some function) in a particular language, your code will work the same afterward. This is directly related to side effects, and how much you have to “know” about the function’s implementation in order to use it. I’ll colloquially refer to this as “trustworthiness”.

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B-A and I just returned from vacation in the lovely beachside town of Cambria, CA. We first went there for a friend’s wedding and fell in love with the town; it’s small, not too far from an airport, not too crowded, and right on the beach, which means the weather is usually fantastic.

I was also very glad to avail myself of the opportunity to dive into some books. I used to read voraciously. To my chagrin, these days I spend a lot of time skimming or reading articles instead of reading books. But, I read a few on the trip, and the one that’s fresh in my mind is Stephen Fry’s Moab is my Washpot, an autobiographical account of his years as a child in the British preparatory and public school system, up to his acceptance at Cambridge.

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Most of this post will be about Clojure, a LISP dialect that is implemented on top of the JVM. The Clojure community is quickly growing; every day you’ll find new blog posts describing people’s experiences with it. The Clojure mailing list is filled with helpful posters and great advice; the Clojure IRC channel is, similarly, a great resource. It’s no surprise that this is the case, since Clojure as a language comes with some very compelling features. In no particular order, I’ll enumerate some of the things I’m really enjoying about Clojure. Then, I’ll discuss a solution to Euler problem #24 in Clojure, since examples are always fun.

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I continue to work on bread. It’s a tricky one, but I think I am slowly absorbing the Zenlike secret of good baking, which is to say it usually turns out great when I don’t care, and terrible when I’m really trying hard to make good bread.

Here’s my latest:

How’s the crumb, you ask? Behold my works, ye mighty, and despair:

I’ve been working on bread lately. Here’s a good one!

I bought a peel on Amazon, and decided to try it out by making some pizza. I hoped the peel would help dough to stick less, but it was still thoroughly sticky. Either I’m not using enough cornmeal or I have to grease it or something, or it sticks, and that sucks, especially when you go to slide a pizza into a hot oven and the toppings slide off instead. So I read about a trick with parchment paper that should hopefully work for all sorts of stone-cooked things. You place the dough on a piece of parchment paper on top of the peel, and it slides straight off onto the stone. The stone’s hot enough to bake the bottom of the crust through the paper; parchment paper can withstand the high heat for a few minutes. After waiting a couple minutes for a crust to form, pick up the pizza a bit with the peel and slide the paper out, so the crust is right against the stone, and then just finish as usual. Very handy!

After making some dough and letting it rise, this ball (B-A said it was “adoughable”):

Plus basil, chopped garlic, olive oil, and shredded mozzarella, became this:

And after a short failed peel experiment, came out like this:

You can see the streaks on the crust where some of the cheese slid off due to the sticky peel. It tasted really good, although it was a little high of an edge-to-topping ratio. It’s a nice meal and a good way to use up those mushrooms or peppers that are about to go bad in the fridge.

It went pretty well. Going to the Pearl St. Whole Foods the weekend before the Christmas holiday, was, in retrospect, bad news. The store was a total madhouse. Not to mention their terrible parking lot. But, the meal went off pretty well. I made it essentially as described in my previous post. I didn’t have much time to prep the fish, so there were a few bones. In the future, the whole process would be much faster if I just ordered bones for the stock from the fish supplier, then took pre-cut fillets for the actual poaching.

I also went to the Savory Spice shop, which was pretty incredible. Nice smells and a huge selection.

For dessert, I made an apple-pear tart. There were some really nice apples at Whole Foods, so I just went for it. Everyone really enjoyed the meal. I got a request for beef or poultry next time.

Really, I like to cook anything, but specifically, I enjoy cooking French food. It doesn’t hurt that I love to eat and have no aversion to butter. I’ve also been lacking in blog inspiration, and was thinking about trying to generate more posts. Finally, I recently saw Julie/Julia, and imitation being the highest form of flattery, I’ve decided to blog about cooking, specifically my cooking.

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This post is for friends who I’m running a local Call of Cthulthu game with.

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This post is a summary of a Call of Cthulthu session I ran with some friends last month. It’s intended as an introduction for new players at our next session, or a refresher to the players from the last session. A subsequent post will introduce important background for the next game.

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Let’s talk. I know we haven’t spoken much lately, but I’m ready now. The thing is, we’ve changed. We used to fit together so well. Everything about you was new and exciting to me. You completed my sentences. You helped me discover all sorts of fun things I never knew about. You were an eloquent and knowledgeable partner. You opened the world up to me. And who could forget those steamy nights?

But lately, we’ve been distant. To be honest, you’ve become a little shrill. I spend a lot of time now just trying to filter all of the stuff you spew at me every day. You’ve always been a little slangy and cliquish, but I have to admit that I’m beginning to honestly despise what you’re doing to the English language. Because I hang out with you all the time, I have to put up with it, but honestly, can you try to control yourself a little bit?

You’re caught up in fads. I don’t want to gossip all the time, and I don’t need to know the minutiae of all your friends’ lives. How do you even have that many friends? Why are you telling me what some girl you went to kindergarten with is going to see at the movies tonight? You talk an awful lot, but say little. I think you’re giving me ADD, if such a thing is possible. It’s always little soundbites with you. You can’t talk about a single topic for more than 30 seconds.

So I think we need to go on a break for a little while. I’ve… I’ve decided to read some books and stay away from you for a while. Look, I know we have to see each other at work, and I know I can read books on you too, it’s just… I need some space. Let’s just try to be adults about this. It’s only a few novels, and maybe, a little nonfiction. Just give me some time. We can work this out. Wait, why are you laughing? What do you mean, ironic?