Kids vs Adults

It is raining in San Jose, there are little puddles of water on the sidewalk.

I'm walking with Vian in our neighborhood. I notice a small puddle and step over it to make sure I don't get my shoes wet. 

Vian walks right through the puddle. Stops. Turns around and jumps in the puddle for good measure and then runs over to hold my fingers as we proceed with our walk.

Wet shoes are a small price to pay for the joy of jumping in puddles. It is wonderful being a kid.

The Floss!

Dancing is in my blood.

Yoshi decides that the kids need to learn how to dance properly(?). So she starts teaching them "The Floss". Not to be outdone by her, I decide to show the kids how to do the Floss correctly.

As I start to get into the groove, Vian runs over and turns the light off, just as Yoshi remarks "Yeah, nobody needs to see that".

Tough crowd!

Examples are Awesome

There are two things I look for whenever I check out an Opensource project or library that I want to use.

1. Screenshots (A picture is worth a thousand words).

2. Examples (Don't tell me what to do, show me how to do it).

Having a fully working example (or many examples) helps me shape my thought process.

Here are a few projects that are excellent examples of this.

1. https://github.com/prompt-toolkit/python-prompt-toolkit

A CLI framework for building rich command line interfaces. The project comes with a collection of small self-sufficient examples that showcase every feature available in the framework and a nice little tutorial.

2. https://github.com/coleifer/peewee

A small ORM for Python that ships with multiple web projects to showcase how to use the ORM effectively. I'm always overwhelmed by SqlAlchemy's documentation site. PeeWee is a breath of fresh air with a clear purpose and succinct documentation.

3. https://github.com/coleifer/huey

An asynchronous task queue for Python that is simpler than Celery and more featureful than RQ. This project also ships with an awesome set of examples that show how to integrate the task queue with Django, Flask or standalone use case.

The beauty of these examples is that they're self-documenting and show us how the different pieces in the library work with each other as well as external code outside of their library such as Flask, Django, Asyncio etc.

Examples save the users hours of sifting through documentation to piece together how to use a library.

Please include examples in your project.

Tattling

Vian: Amma, the roomba is not cleaning anything.

Yoshi: Let me check.

She finds lego pieces and strings blocking the Roomba wheels.

Yoshi: Thank you, Vian. You're right it wasn't picking up anything.

Me: Vian, did you just tattle on Roomba to your mother?


Monkey Bar

Sempi is a big fan of Leonardo Da Vinci. Ever since we got back from Italy he's been talking about the various inventions of Leonardo.

Earlier today he was playing in the park after school. Apparently, he fell down from the monkey bars trying to do something brave. Yoshi took him to the ER and the doctors announced he has a small fracture and put his arm in a sling.

He's quite despondent about the whole ordeal and told me that he wished he hadn't tried that special monkey bar maneuver. I reassured him that his sling is a badge of honor, it is a sign of bravery, it shows that he is someone who pushes the boundaries.

Me: Do you know who else is the kind of person who pushed boundaries?

Sempi: Who?

Me: Leonardo. I bet he wore a sling many times in his life.

Sempi: Yeah. But he probably knew how to use a monkey bar though.

Me: LOL!!

I have to agree with him on that one.