onStart

Maybe this post should be titled "Naming a Blog".

I started this thing yesterday and wasn't happy just naming the blog for myself, but couldn't really think of a better name.

So I went into a spin of up-front thinking.

What's this for anyway? I guess I'll be writing about Agile Software Development, my primary interest right now. I specifically have interest in the idea of refactoring across the borders of the Object-Oriented, Relational and Functional paradigms, and conceived the name "Paradigm Shift" to reflect that. But no, too specific - I might use that for a post title later... I might even ramble about the Structure of Scientific Revolutions and connect it to the rest of the blogging somehow.

I might also talk about math a bit, especially if I start in on functional programming... But the only math term I came up with that seemed somehow appropriate was "Convolution". That has some unfortunate overtones of complexity. Runs counter to Agile values. And again, the metaphor was too specific anyway, and really sort of the same as the previous try. Another reject.

The final rejected name "Refactoring Abstraction" might end up being a title for a post rambling on about what abstraction means in software and in math, and how I see my two careers as mathematician and programmer being related. But it sounds way too pretentious to apply to the blog.

Finally, it occurred to me that all of these thoughts are about changes. Kent Beck's dictum "Embrace Change" for me captures the essence of Agile. And that led me to the chosen blog name - "onChange". I couldn't put it in the url - someone already has it. So the url will keep my name.

And of course I had to continue the wordplay to the title of this "Hello World" post!

So there it is. I've started a blog and found a name for it. I promise not to title every post "onXxx".