Pat Kayongo

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.

1 – and – 2 – and – 3 – and – 4 – and –

It’s a Tuesday evening, and I’ve spent most of it sitting at my keyboard practicing for my piano lesson tomorrow. I’m a semi-beginner, so at the moment, I don’t really hear the music, but hear myself counting 1 – and – 2 – and 3 – and 4 for every bar. This doesn’t sound good. When I listen Jamie Cullum play, I don’t think he is hearing 1 – and – 2 – and 3 – and 4 – and – for every bar he plays. But at some point in his life, I’m sure he did. And to be good, I first have to be not so good. So here’s to a few more hours of 1 – and – 2 – and – 3 – and – 4 – and –

*Life lesson: Brilliance takes hard work. Nobody started perfect at anything. If you don’t start off by making mistakes, you’ll never be brilliant. Ceylon tea goes well with blog writing.

I Need A Doctor

Generally, I don’t get sick. Last weekend, I got sick. Runny tummy, weak, slept the whole day, bored.

While one is sick, they tend to get deep. There is nothing better to do than to think. And stare at the ceiling. And continue with that same lame boring dream you had before that, and then think some more. In addition to this, I went and read someone’s speech at Smuts Hall, UCT my former residence for the Alumni dinner. I thought I was going to collapse on stage. I didn’t. I like writing in short sentences. I’m being melodramatic. I need a doctor. Like Eminem.

Top 5 Songs of 2010

So 2010 is over, and with every year, there are new songs, new artists, new genres in music, and new everything. So below, you’ll find my top 6 songs of 2010. Also, let me know of your top [insert arbitrary number here] songs of 2010.

The Hero Saving The World

Something I mentioned in one of my previous posts were my career aspirations as a kid. I obviously went through the obvious boy fantasies of being a policeman, a fireman, a warrior, and all of that, but from the time I was about 9, I wanted to be Bill Gates. Bill Gates was my hero, this man who came and completely revolutionised the world, and the world knows him as absolutely brilliant.

2010 Thank You Note

So 2010 has been a long difficult awesome amazing wonderful challenging boring exciting year, and there are so many people who have contributed to this in my life. There are so many people to mention, and I didn’t want to miss out on anybody, so I thought I’ll just mention them by twitter username, and you can follow them and be play play friends with them. If you’re not on Twitter, unfortunately I would love to mention you, but the filter cut you out 😦

Aluta Continua

From Nursery School to Sub A (or Grade 1 as it’s known now), I went to school in a small private school in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. While each of us played on the playgrounds, the boys always used to compete about something. Whatever it was, the boys were trying to show off why they were better than the other kids in the playground.