Blog review: "Ken's Programming Blog"

"Ken’s Programming Blog" takes the tack of the informative older sibling or mentor. Kenneth Parker shares tools and tips for using code as well as no-nonsense advice for developing coders.

In some posts, Parker demonstrates an expert knowledge, yet he doesn't share much in his about section about his credentials. Sometimes he alludes to his role as a decision-maker in his company Beverage Metrics.

His post on whether you need a degree to be a programmer seems useful in creating a self-directed path of education to supplement and outpace a formal path of education. Here and elsewhere, his "down and dirty" "here's what you need to know" attitude is very helpful. I appreciate it.

Many of Parker's posts are opinionated in some way, which is fine, but like I said, he doesn't do a great job establishing his credibility, so it works against him often. At times, the way he expresses and supports his opinion actually undermines his credibility, IMO.

For example, Parker's argument to stop using privates is a little thin. He may be totally right, but I'm saying he's not convincing. The argument basically boils down to some underlying frustration he has with someone or some people he is working for/with whose use of privates makes his job harder. He slips into an oppositional first person voice (e.g. "So let your interfaces handle communication and stop trying to force good developers from solve problems with your solutions.") He kind of lost credibility there IMO.

And, here's why. He doesn't handle this thinly veiled frustration with a candid sense of humor, poking fun at his bitterness. It's not healthy. You get that reflective darkish humor in other blogs by professionals who are opening up the "human side" of programming, and it lends to enjoyability and trust.

Parker addresses programmer burnout in more than one post, and I think I know why. That said, he seems to have a genuine concern for programmer burnout, perhaps due to his personal experience with a coworker "losing it."

He does have a sense of humor though. Uses religious parody to poke fun at programming dogmas and crises.

Visually and audibly, the blog is uninteresting.

Now, here's a note on English. I’m really going to show my underbelly here. It’s one thing to have typos and missed punctuation etc. And, it’s one thing to have a casual or culturally specific style. But, it’s quite another thing to have a sloppy style. Parker has a sloppy style that I probably shouldn’t judge too harshly, but I do. I can’t help it.

I don’t like it, because it shows a character of carelessness, and it usually accompanies a similar carelessness in reasoning. You find that carelessness resonating in his shoddy arguments when his opinion is stronger than his expertise warrants. If he reads, he probably doesn't pay attention, or he reads others with similar sloppy habits. I don't have respect for it. Maybe it is cultural. I don’t like that culture then. Is that bad to say? Can you tell I am a copy editor who has to deal with this kind of thing all day?