First Bike Commute of the Season

Spring has been slow a'coming in Minnesota this year, but I finally biked to work today. (Last year it was a month earlier, but then I hardly biked again over the summer). I have been out on my bike a couple times this spring and last Sunday did an 11 mile trip so I figured might as well start biking to work.

The trip is a little over 9 miles and it took a little over an hour (a slight head wind). Today's weather is sunny with a high in the 60's; the rest of the week will be rainy and cold, although it may clear up by next Monday or Tuesday.

I was concerned that my usual route to downtown using the Cedar Lake trail would be blocked because of the new construction on the Twins Ball park. When I drove past, it looked like it was totally blocked: I figured I might have to go over to Hennepin Ave before the bike lanes started. However, when I got onto the Cedar Lake Trail, I saw a couple of bikers heading down it toward downtown so I followed. The trail keeps going and cicrumvents the construction and just exits a little further down the road then it used to. I circled up to 6th street and got on Hennepin pretty much my usual way.

For reference, I am creating a personal 'google' map outlining my route:
Google Map of Bob's Bike Commute
(Note that it may be a while before I complete the map, but I got a start on it today).

From Hennepin, I get on the path by the river and cross at the Stonearch Bridge. From the bridge, I usually take 2nd street to 11 Ave SE, but then saw that 2nd street was blocked around 8th Ave. Oh yeah, there is a collapsed bridge that wasn't there last year. So I went up to University Ave a few blocks early. I got up to 5th street and went through Dinkytown and found the next alteration to my route: the U's football stadium construction. There was a turn I missed, so I ended up on gravel, but did get to the bus transit way that connects the Mpls and St. Paul Campuses.

I took the transit way to Energy Park Drive and found no further surprises before getting to the office two miles or so down Energy Park. I'm a little stiff and sore but looking forward to the ride back.

Fashionable Prgramming Languages

Doctor Dobbs Journal's May issue has an article which is a 'conversation' with Paul Jensen, who is the managing director of TIOBE Software. The article (which is not on line yet, but will be in May), discusses the TIOBE Programming Community Index, which 'ranks' programming languages based on how often they are searched on line (see here for details). In the article, Paul states that only one new language has cracked the top 10 in the last five years: Python replaced COBOL. He also says that Perl has had it's day and that C & C++ are on the decline. He notes that a lot of new languages are arriving on the scene, mostly due to web programming. However, he sees Java and C# dominating over at least the next 5 years.

Of the 20 languages listed in the chart I have done at least some 'production' coding in the following: Java, C, C++, Perl, JavaScript and COBOL. (I've also know a bit of SQL, but this is mostly embedded in Java or C++). Since Java, C and C++ are ranked 1,2&5 - I think I'm probably in pretty good shape for the rest of my career (ending on or before Nov 14th, 2012).

I am most comfortable in Java, but have just started a longish project in C++. I took COBOL and FORTRAN when I as at the U in mid 1980's. FORTRAN is still used, but not much in business (mostly science applications). I did some work in a tool that had a BASIC like language, but never did much in BASIC itself. The first product that I worked on for our company to sell was written in COBOL so I became pretty fluent. In the early 90's we started migrating to C - I took a night class in C and learned a lot from a C Guru who worked with me for a couple of years. Java and C++ I picked up as needed. I spent a lot of off work hours learning Java, but now use most of that time for making music.

I'm guessing when I retire (I call it quitting the day-job), I'll focus on music but still need to do some sort of programming to keep that part of my brain 'happy'. I have no desire to change company's but it is good to see that my skill set is current just in case.