padobson

I agree with this approach.

Being highly competent and also un-ambitious has allowed me to build a very comfortable career. The ambitious people know they can use me without fear of me backstabbing them, and they more or less insulate me from the politics.

My kids eat and my job is low stress, perhaps at a cost of reaching my personal professional potential. I'm pretty happy with this arrangement.

This is the reason I find it useful. To me, OOP is as much about your organization as it is about the best way to load, transform, present, edit, and store data. I think the culture of some companies lends itself to various kinds of programming, but it's the cultureless companies where OOP is most useful. The places where nobody is trying to change the world, where people work to pay their mortgages, where an executive may only work for two years and a programmer may only work for six months.

It's in an environment like that where a self-documenting, self-configuring code base with custom classes and exceptions that guide the next developer is essential.

Every developer should have two users in mind. The person using the software, and the next developer who maintains the software after you're gone. OOP is a great way to empower the second user when the only thing that will reliably outlive the developer is the code base.

If it's a news-driven podcast, I'll look for topical content I've been interested in lately.

After that, it's just what every topic I'm interested in at the moment.

I would also recommend very liberal use of the pause button. If the conversation is bubbling specific thoughts up in your head and those thoughts seem more interesting than the conversation - PAUSE IT. Nothing will be more relevant than your own insight on the topic. Once you've synthesized the thought, unpause and see how your thoughts compare to the podcasters. This is probably my favorite thing about the medium.

I can certainly see the value of reading Shakespeare, but I'd almost need a long vacation to devote to picking up the language.

It makes me wonder how much of my school years I wasted, because I probably could have mastered Shakespeare at the time and still have that tool in my toolbelt today.

Were you stoned the whole time?

I only ask because if you're loving what you're doing, then there's usually some modus operandi or Summum bonum driving you.

A really good high is pretty straightforward.

Most others I know about tend to require something that contributes to a community, but certainly study or meditation can be lonely yet meaningful pursuits.

Fiction is a little tougher, but I've found conversations with my wife help me here. If I can make her as interested in the story as I am, then I must be retaining enough of the important points to say I'm absorbing enough of what I'm reading.

Is it? Or was platonic affection more socially acceptable at the time?

I don't have an answer, but I've seen solid arguments in lit crit circles for both.