daniel bigham.ca

Swimming Across Lake Ontario
July 31, 2007

Last week I read an article in the KW Record that piqued my interest. It was about a teenager from New Hamburg that was planning on swimming across Lake Ontario, hoping to break the female record. So this morning it put a smile on my face to see a photo on the front page of the newspaper of "Sam" as she was heading out from Niagara on the Lake across a vibrant red sunset. I did a quick Google search to see whether there were any updates on her progress and was sad to read that she had asked to be taken from the water pretty early on in her swim. My guess is that she wasn't on pace to set the record and decided that she'd call it quits early on rather than endure the grueling 14 hours and come up short... anyway, hopefully things work out for another attempt. I can imagine you'd feel a lot of disappointment after receiving so much attention from the media and local politicians.

Rapberry jam
July 21, 2007

When I was 10 I had the opportunity of staying with my grandma and grandpa Bigham for a week or two while my parents vacationed in Florida. I remember that my dear grandmother would always have the kitchen tidy and the breakfast table set before bed. The next morning, we would gather at the little round table, often covered with a colourful table cloth, for breakfast. My grandma Bigham's jams were a delight. Her tart, sweet, raspberry freezer jam was my favorite.

So this weekend, while Meredith was away in Ottawa, I decided I'd make some raspberry jam for the first time. I grabbed my back pack, a couple 1-pint cartons, and headed off on my bike to Nauman's.

It was a perfect day for picking, and I enjoyed the peace and quiet of the raspberry patch for half an hour, sometimes standing bent over, other times sitting in the grass peering into the foliage to see if there were any berries I had missed. A couple times I bumped my carton and I imagined how horrified you'd be if you knocked it over. On the other side of the row was a elderly couple that reminded me of my grandparents... it's pretty neat to be blessed with so many fond memories.

Bjarne Stroustrup
July 18, 2007

Yesterday I had the pleasure of going to hear a talk at uwaterloo by none other than Bjarne Stroustrup, inventor of the C++ programming language. Hey, cool... he's the top search result on Google if you search for "Bjarne" :) Because C++ is one of the premier programming languages on the planet, used by most large software companies, and favored by many proficient developers, Bjarne's impact on the software world has been pretty huge to say the least. His talk was on C++0x, the next revision of C++, due out hopefully by '09.

As a would be programming language designer, it was utterly fascinating for me to sit there and hear this guy talk about the challenges of revising C++. Frankly, it sounded painful: Wanting to improve the language, but having to be meticulous about not breaking existing code. Talk about hand cuffs. After his talk he took questions, and mine was essentially "As you've said, revising C++ is very difficult because you have to be very careful not to break existing code. Do you think you'll ever invent a new language where you wouldn't be limited by these restrictions"? His answer, not surprisingly, was "No". I have to respect the man: You get the sense that he really does want to do what's best for the community, and in his case, that is improving C++, not starting from scratch and making something new.

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