August 13, 2004
At the Airport
Civic Center is a convenient place. When I left the company, it was already around five, but I was already at the San Francisco International Airport at six. BART made it possible for me. I love BART, a commuter train system of San Francisco. It is safe, frequently coming, and off course, bike-friendly.
Thanks to BART, I arrived at the airport too early. In the departure lounge, I found that I was trapped. Somehow, the lounge of my airline company was isolated from the other part of the airport. I could not go out from the lounge, which had nothing but a small snack bar. I had more than three hours in that small place.
That’s why I am writing this now at the Airport. Maybe, this is a good time to review this week. First, I had an opportunity to write a new module from scratch. This was a wonderful experience. Last week, I was writing maintenance code most of the time. Maybe I moved forward a bit this week.
However, my skill was not still adequate. I was writing codes while I was looking for information on the Net and experimenting on it in my computer. This took time. But let me excuse about it a bit here. I did have some experience in database programming. But programming scheme has changed dramatically. Five years ago, all we had to know was Visual Basic. Database was integrated to VB seamlessly (this wonderful function was called DAO). Operating database was easy. But now, I need SQL, HTML, and ASP to write a simple Web database program. Worse than that, those languages cannot do the task alone. I have to use them at the same time in one program. It is like speaking Japanese, Chinese, and English in the same meeting. Simply speaking, it is confusing. Microsoft advertises that their new developing environment is wonderful, but I doubt it.
Other than my skill, I think I can do more to improve my listening and speaking skill. I do not have to speak English so frequently. In fact, I spoke rarely when I was concentrating on my programming.
But now, the departure time has come. I will write about it more sometime soon. Anyway, I did not get boring for waiting.
Posted by hfuruichi at August 13, 2004 11:59 PM