Pat Kayongo

Communication

A few years ago, my goal was to be the best software developer ever. Over time, that didn’t go away, but I realised that best is an almost impossible tasks, as there are many different kinds of good.

I was never into movies for a large part of my life. The idea of sitting in front of a screen for more than an hour didn’t seem to make me jump. This was until I came across a film student who was discussing an assignment of theirs. The purpose of the assignment was to deconstruct a movie, from the lighting, to the colouring, to the character development, to the plot, to the climax, to the closing, to the music and all other elements that people more deep than me can think of.

Hello world!

My name is Patrick Kuteesa Kayongo. I am a software developer based in Cape Town, South Africa. Thought I’d create this blog to write down what I’m thinking, and what I’m learning. Enjoy it.

Someone to Blame

Isn’t it nice to have someone to blame?

Isn’t it nice to glide out our doors and see hurting, pain and injustice, and have someone to blame? Isn’t it nice to walk in our shoes with a hint of superiority perceiving our intentions greater than others’ actions? Isn’t it nice feeling secure in our fickle securities of achievement, thinking that it was only by our hard work and self-created circumstance that we have the privilege we do now, and others just didn’t work hard enough? Isn’t it nice to ask the question “What will I lose if I give of myself?” instead of “What will they lose if I don’t”? Isn’t it nice to have someone to blame?

I Review: David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell

Three years ago, a friend of mine and her dad bought me Outliers as a gift. Before this, I hadn’t really heard of Malcolm Gladwell except a few references to his book Tipping Point by people I considered somewhat intellectual. I gave the book a read, and it absolutely blew my mind! So when his new book, David and Goliath came out, I was reading pre-release statements, watching videos, and waiting in heavy anticipation for the book.

Catechisms for a Secular World

Aren’t we happy we’ve moved away from the days when religion ruled the world. Thank heavens the universe we are no longer subject to rules and regulations created by archaic institutions subjecting everyone to oppression. But, in order to survive in this world without the bondage of organized religion, we need to create some laws common understandings so that everyone can just get along.

Social Business

In Summary: All business is social business.

Over the past few years, I’ve had conversations with people, asking them what they are doing with their lives, and there are various brag-worthy claims such as “I graduated cum-laude”, or “I ran the two oceans full marathon this year, twice”, or “I released red balloons into the air because all the blacks want to kill me”. But one of the most common brag-worthy traits of individuals is “I started an NGO”. The new ISO approved sign to show that you are a success in life is no longer a Bentley, or a house in Camps Bay, but an NGO.

Names, Addresses and Other Uncertainties

I was working on a little database on a project I’m working. The issue that arose is the storage of names and addresses. Ideally, I wanted the number of names to be variable, and the person’s birth and death address stored. So this was Draft A.

Artistic Roadmaps

A few months ago, I decided to start a little after-hours for fun project. I decided that I want to do this in Java, so opened up Eclipse, started creating classes, methods, tests, etc, and hoped that everything I did would eventually work up to something absolutely beautiful. Few weeks later of this, I got stuck, and I get over it.

Front-End Separation Of Concerns

From studying object-oriented programming in university, it was drilled into us how different classes separate concerns, and how different layers of an application should serve different purposes e.g. you can’t have database access procedures in a class that deals with the front end page.

But, lo and behold. Something else has been advised from the secret organisation that designs international best practices that everyone should conform to without questioning it.

When developing a web user interface, the html should determine the structure, the stylesheet should determine how the page looks, and javascript should determine the behaviour. These should be separated.

This means that there shouldn’t be any styling beyond the basic structure in the html. There shouldn’t be any click actions in the html.

Truly revolutionary. Changed my life.

Author Archives: Pat Kayongo