Another cartoon
Which four should you check out?
- http://www.flickr.com/photos/pah57/
- http://torontophotowalks.ca/
- http://twitter.com/paul_henman
- and http://henman.ca/ of course!
YAGNI
I was explaining “YAGNI” (You Aren’t Gonna Need It) to someone recently and I wanted to send them an XKCD cartoon which I think sums it up, but I couldn’t find it. Well, just so I have it handy next time, here’s the cartoon:
In case it’s not clear from the cartoon (which is called “The General Problem“), the idea is only to develop (design, document, code, whatever the verb is) enough to address the current requirements – you don’t know if there’s a future need, so how can you try to address it without making the current solution generic and unwieldy? And of course there’s a chance that the imagined future requirement won’t be exactly how you picture it, or just now exist at all, in which case your carefully crafted generic work is largely waste. Meet the current requirements and try not to paint yourself into a corner, but don’t worry about the future until you get there.
Goodbye 2011, hello 2012
My aims for this year were “more of the same, improving my skills and helping others do the same … and trying to catch up (and stay on top of) all my email!” Did I do that? Well, somewhat – I’ve continued to work on my photography (attending a workshop, practicing with Toronto Photo Walks, and shooting on my own) and coaching Agile teams (multiple teams at a time), but I don’t feel I’ve done as much as I could/should have done.
Although we’re still making arrangements for the TOPW exhibition (it will be in March 2012), I did finally show some shots in public – it was nerve-racking at first but once people started to arrive and comment (positively) about my work, I felt a lot better. [I posted a 2011 photo review earlier.]
2011 photo review
I posted a round up of photos at the end of each month (Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec) but I thought I’d pick out just a few of my favourite photos/events from the year:
- The 3-day Marillion concert in Montreal
…although my favourite shot is one with me in it, not one I took! - The first showing of some of my work, albeit only for one night
- Shooting the Honda Indy Toronto again
- The Toronto Photo Walks (TOPW) “air show and night walk” at the Ex
- The Urban Photography Workshop with Chris Marquardt
- Leading one of the Worldwide Photo Walks again
- The first Toronto Photo Walks weekend event
It’s been a great second year for Toronto Photo Walks (we have well over 450 members) and we are organising our first group exhibition which will be in March. (I’ll be posting some photo-related resolutions later this evening.)
As always, you can find more of my photos elsewhere:
- my portfolio set on Flickr; I also have a few “best of” shots on 500px
- PaulHenmanPhotography.com is my photoblog
- my “most interesting” photos and all my albums on Flickr
- TorontoPhotoWalks.ca if you’re interested in exploring Toronto with your camera
- my monthly round up posts on this blog site
Photo updates, December 2011
We crammed a lot of photo walks into just a few weeks but I still managed to stay on top of processing my shots [November's updates]
- Warden’s Banquet
- TOPW: Orillia Weekend
- TOPW: Christmas Market at the Distillery District
- TOPW: Seasonal Lights night walk
- TOPW: Danforth and East Chinatown
- BLASC: Brickworks
Find more elsewhere:
- my portfolio set on Flickr; I also have a few “best of” shots on 500px
- PaulHenmanPhotography.com is my photoblog
- my “most interesting” photos and all my albums on Flickr
- TorontoPhotoWalks.ca if you’re interested in exploring Toronto with your camera
- my monthly round up posts on this blog site
Amazon wishlist