Matthew Darling > Recent Status Updates

The pacing of this one is very strange. Large chunks of the book are devoted to nothing at all, and then climactic battles are given no time at all. Still, I keep wanting to read further...

Something about reading a story that's thousands of pages long, over the course of five years, makes it pretty intense when you get to the end. I'm not sure I can recommend other people start the series, but it'll be my favourite series for a very long time.

After buying a digital copy, I'm getting through the book much more quickly. Things are happening now! Characters we haven't heard from in a while are brought back into the fold!

Man, I'd forgotten what it was like to read such a heavy book. Also, somehow I still remember all the characters? Glad the story of "the Snake" finally got somewhere in this chunk of the book.

Still thoroughly enjoying the concept of the Engines and the Guns. Hopefully, with everyone converging on the hospital, there will be more Hillfolk and interesting magic stuff.

So far, I'm really enjoying the mythos of this world. The Hillfolk, Gun, and Line are all super cool.

Some really good, practical stuff so far. It's not necessarily a "how to" guide on the things they've covered so far - more like a "here's some things you should look into". Which I appreciate, actually, because it makes the book far more concise.

I'm not sure whether I enjoy Haskell itself, or just enjoy this book. I've had to stop a few times to share the more interesting language features with people, though, so that's a point towards the former.

Refactoring: Probably always a good idea. Performance tuning: Maybe not such a good idea.

"My computer science education was excellent, but our education in debugging was sorely lacking." Pretty common situation. Same thing goes for testing. So, this was a good chunk.

Table driven methods was pretty enlightening. The section on general control issues, take it or leave it. The data on quality assurance was impressive, however.

The Demon of the Desert and a god "back from the dead", who would have thought!

A bit sad that the section on recursion doesn't make any mention to any extra resources on the subject, simply saying "recursion might be good sometimes, maybe?"

On to the chapter on table-driven methods, which will either be completely new to me or just talk about arrays a lot. Assuming they're different from arrays, should be good stuff in there.

The variables section wasn't as bad as you might think. It's more of a reference than a sleep-inducing lecture.

Muriz and Sabiha?!

Oh boy, it's time for the 30 page chapter on variable names! Well, I did like the preceding chapters (8-10).

It can't possibly be that bad...

Oh boy, it's time for the 30 page chapter on variable names! Well, I did like the preceding chapters (8-10).

It can't possibly be that bad...

Oh boy, it's time for the 30 page chapter on variable names! Well, I did like the preceding chapters (8-10).

It can't possibly be that bad...

The chapters on routines (or functions, or methods, or what have you) and defensive programming may seem kind of dull to more conscientious programmers. But they're not excessively long, and there were definitely parts that made me think. Assertions are totally new territory, for me, and I'm fond of the idea.

I'm really liking this book. I'm happy to learn new things, but I also like that I'm developing a deeper understanding of things that I sort-of-kind-of-knew.

Reading this book is exhausting, much unlike Dance with Dragons. I will persevere, however!

Fondak! The spice trance!

Wheels within wheels!