behind the a-pillar

macvim dev env update

2012-01-21T15:17:00.002-06:00

ok, so i've mentioned that i'm revisiting vim as a dev tool and, quite frankly, i've been impressed with some of the plugins out there. i've been using NERDTree and the grails plugin. NERDTree has been very nice and the grails one is ok.

as i've been watching grails webcasts like bobby warner's jump into grails 2.0, i've been a little jealous of textmate's ability to "find files." so i started searching for a vim plugin to do the same and found command-t. it's pretty cool. as i've mentioned before, i've been doing a few things with keymappings to make macvim act the way my fingers need it to work. i had to add a little magic to my .gvimrc to make it work for me.

macmenu &File.New\ Tab key=<nop>
map <D-t> :CommandT<cr>

now, command + t enables the file finding feature of the command-t plugin.

plowed bike path

2012-01-20T19:56:00.001-06:00

wow, snowed this afternoon and the city of roseville had the bike paths plowed by tthe time i rode home. those are MY tax dollars at work.

more space on the road with subzero temps

2012-01-19T08:38:00.001-06:00

i wonder why?

have a ball

2012-01-18T12:45:00.001-06:00

of soup! literally, a ball of soup! my frozen soup thawed from outside in, leaving a baseball-sized frozen chunk in my bowl.

keymappings for mac vim

2012-01-17T22:44:00.001-06:00

thought i'd share... i hate the goddamn keymapping of command+W closing mac vim. i can't seem to get my fingers to actually use control + W + [h,j,k,l] when i want to move to a different pane in vim on the mac, so i have a tendency to hit command + W, which has horrible consequences in mac vim. ugh! anyway, after digging around i found info on how to remap some keys. i now have remapped all my vim pane navigations in mac vim by adding the following to my .gvim file:

if has("gui_macvim")
        macmenu &File.Close\ Window key=
        macmenu &File.Close key=
        nnoremap <D-w>h <C-W>h        
        inoremap <D-w>h <C-W>h       
        nnoremap <D-w>l <C-W>l        
        inoremap <D-w>l <C-W>l       
        nnoremap <D-w>j <C-W>j        
        inoremap <D-w>j <C-W>j       
        nnoremap <D-w>k <C-W>k        
        inoremap <D-w>k <C-W>k       

endif

so, i guess you want this in a .gvim file because .vim file options are loaded first and macvim then puts all of its mappings on top of that. if you add these to .gvim they are preserved.

my understanding of how i needed to put this in the .gvim file as opposed to the .vim file came from this posting on superuser.com.

no lie, this goldfish does the backstroke

2012-01-14T18:37:00.001-06:00

fried egg sandwich topped with black bean chili and cheese

2012-01-08T10:57:00.001-06:00

when i said what i was making, my wife asked, "are you pregnant?"

the dog asked, "can i have some?"

it was great

running a simple rails app (like wagn) with ubuntu upstart

2011-12-26T23:48:00.008-06:00

I had a hell of a time getting my upstart script to start. It kept launching, reporting that it started and even showing a pid, but it would die. This was a version of the same script I had written in a shell script and it would execute just fine. The addition of the export HOME, suddenly made things come together.

I'd been chasing the various values in the expect stanza, but nothing made sense. Once I had the HOME export in place, I was able to find the right setting for the expect stanza after a couple of tries.

Anyway, I wanted to run a very simple rails app, called wagn, as an internal tool on an internal server. In the event that our box goes down, I want wagn to restart. Furthermore, I don't have a bunch of time to muck about with all of those full-on production ways of deploying ruby, so I went looking for the best way to run this on the platform I had in front of me. I found out the new way of running services on ubuntu is through upstart.

After looking through a bunch of things on upstart:

I found a hint... well, something I hadn't tried yet. Anyway, upstart seems to need a HOME var set when you execute. So, if you've been searching, here's a good example to go on if you want to run a rails server with upstart. You can create something similar to the following in /etc/init/servicename.conf. If you are using it specifically for wagn, edit my path below to match your install location for wagn.

# example script offered with NO WARRANTY. 
# feel free to use it or just learn from it

# wagn-server - wagn-server job file
description "wagn server"
author "robert tomb"

# restart process if crashed try 10 times every 5
seconds
respawn
respawn limit 10 5
# let upstart know the process will detach
expect daemon

# When to start the service
start on runlevel [234]

# When to stop the service
stop on runlevel [016]

# don't know why but home=root is necessary
# found it here: http://kevin.vanzonneveld.net/techblog/article/run_nodejs_as_a_service_on_ubuntu_karmic/
script
   export HOME="/root"
   exec /usr/local/wiki/wagn-1.7.0/script/server -b 192.168.1.54 -e production -p 3000 -d > /var/log/wagn.log 2>&1
end script

the squashes are stuffed

2011-12-24T10:56:00.001-06:00

and placed in the baking dish with care...

we're hosting christmas for t's family and she asked me to make little stuffed squash for everyone. the rice, honey, butter, raisins, craisins, cashews, cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg have been mixed and the squashes are ready to go in the oven.

--rt

Hate bat scripting? Me too...

2011-12-14T17:06:00.171-06:00

Abstract
Hate BAT files? Yeah, so do I. Stuck on windows for reasons beyond your control but need to do some scripting? Sure, you can use perl, ruby, python or jruby, but all of those require the installation of an interpreter.

How do you survive if you have a bare-metal windows box and aren't allowed to dictate prerequisites? You could fall back on bat scripting and risk the integrity of your hairline or you could fall back on your JavaScripting skills and go against the WSH.

I'll show you a couple of minor examples in a JS coding idiom that makes sense to me and share as many of the references as I remember that helped me with my code. Lastly, I'll give a few suggestions as to where this can be used. Hopefully, this will be enough to spur your imagination to use JavaScript solve problems you have on the windows platform.

Windows Scripting Host
Here's your goto microsoft site for this http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/9bbdkx3k.aspx . This site is going to give you all of the conceptual stuff you need to know about this. I'll talk about some things I had to reconcile and give you a codesample walkthrough.

Executing your scripts

just execute a js script from the cmd line
jsmn_all.js
execute it from the command line with cscript
cscript /Nologo jsmn_all.js
create a .wsf file to define and execute it with cscript
cscript /Nologo jsmn.wsf
or just execute your wsf file from the command line
jsmn.wsf

wsf? WTF?
Go here for info on wsh files. Basically, they offer the ability to define a script and do imports, similar to what you do in an html file with

I'm not going to get too far ahead of my self decomposing this entire script. Suffice it to say that this allows you to connect to jsmn.js and use things in it, such as the ScriptHelper object. Objects that are part of the windws scripting host, e.g., the WScript object are going to be in your execution scope no matter what, so there's no need to root around for some WSH javascript file to "include."

You can have multiple script references, but I don't know the limitations. You can even have your script entry point in one of the referenced scripts. I can see where it might make better sense (and make your editor of choice happier) if you put all logic in a js file and only used hour WSH file like a project file.

What can you do with this here WSH thingy?
Good question. Well, I have a progressive "hello jsmn" demo for you that might help to enlighten. You'll really have to dig through the Microsoft pages to see all that you can do. You can even use this to wrap windows commandline commands.

I see it as a great way to drop a toolkit onto a bare metal windows box and make yourself productive. Seems like something that could be very powerful for sysadmins or testing engineers especially for windows VMs.

Oh yeah, the demo

Running just this with no Arguments yields a dialog box with:Needs two arguments: one to specifiy the subject and another for desired action. Here's the ScriptHelper class we instantiate and call methods from:

/*
 * Class for grouping functions that are important to this script.
 */
function ScriptHelper(word1,word2) {

    this.desktopiconfolder = "";
    this.envname = "jsmn";
    this.write_script;
    this.fullFileName = WScript.ScriptFullName;

    this.wshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell");
    this.objFSO = WScript.CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject");

    this.wordOne = word1;
    this.wordTwo = word2;

    this.speak = function() {
        WScript.echo(this.wordOne + " " + this.wordTwo);
    }

}

That's all well and good but...
I'd like to do something slightly more sophisticated than just echo some crap out

So, let's write to a file. I'll add a speakToFile function to my ScriptHelper class

this.speakToFile = function(loc) {

        this.write_script = loc;

        var filelocation = loc;
        if ( this.objFSO.fileExists(filelocation) ) {
            this.objFSO.moveFile(filelocation,filelocation + ".bak");
        }
        var ForWriting = 2;
        propFile = this.objFSO.OpenTextFile(filelocation,ForWriting,true);
        propFile.WriteLine("WScript.echo('from file:" + this.wordOne + " " + this.wordTwo + "');");
        propFile.Close();
    }

and tell my WSF file to call that instead of speak.

Now, when I run

jsmn.wsf hellooooo jsmn

it writes a file to disk called jsmn_write.js. This file contains one line of javascript and if I execute jsmn_write.js, I'll see

"hellooooo jsmn"

So, I can write a file, what else?
There's all sorts of windowsey stuff you can do like write shortcuts... So, I add a call to a createShortcuts() method

And, this takes a few more methods to support it, but I add the following methods to ScriptHelper

this.createShortcuts = function() {
        this.createShortcutFolder("Shortcuts for " + this.envname);
        this.createShortcut("TestShortcutFor-" +
                this.envname,this.getScriptDir()+"\\"+this.write_script,this.env
name);

    };

this.createShortcutFolder = function(name) {
        var desktop = this.wshShell.SpecialFolders("Desktop");
        this.desktopiconfolder = desktop + "\\" + name;
        this.objFSO.CreateFolder(this.desktopiconfolder);
    };

this.getScriptDir = function() {
        var forShortening = this.fullFileName;
        var lastSlash = forShortening.lastIndexOf("\\");
        var shortened = forShortening.substring(0,lastSlash);

        return shortened;
    };
    this.createShortcut = function(linkName,tgtPath,args) {
        var myShort = this.wshShell.CreateShortcut(this.desktopiconfolder +
                        "\\"+linkName+".lnk");
        myShort.WindowStyle = 1;
        myShort.TargetPath = tgtPath;
        myShort.Arguments = args;
        myShort.Save();
    };

Now when I run

jsmn.wsf hellooooo jsmn

I get a shortcut folder on my desktop with a shortcut in it that has a link to jsmn_write.js. That's it for my demo, I hope it was simple enough to follow but sophisticated enough to give you some ideas for new ways to use your javascripting skillz.

Debugging?
cscript has an option for a debugger, but I have not successfully used it.
//X Execute script in debugger
NOTE: I will research this further and update or write a new entry on this

Soo... What else is possible?
Unit testing is pretty cool and if you're developing some sort of a toolkit with WSH scripts, you might want to be able to build them with TDD or just have some tests to prove that your code doesn't toally suck. I have not tried either of these, but they look very promising:

The next time someone tells you that JS is a toy language and you can't do anything with it, you can tell them to kiss your asterisk.

Acknowledgements
Also, this post uses the awesome syntax highlighter from alex gorbatchev it's some pretty cool javascripting in its own right.

bike roof racks come in handy when tree hunting season rolls around

2011-11-25T16:42:00.001-06:00

be sure to look for our results when they're posted

2011-11-24T06:45:00.001-06:00

getting up early to run the turkey day 5k as a family. i can't wait until they post the race resultz. lookz likez we're all winnerz.

my 2011 mn cx championships experience

2011-11-19T13:58:00.000-06:00

rode in the cx championships today. i didn't finish DFL, but i was RFC to the end. i was about 1/2 way through my last lap when i heard the announcers call the winners. i can't complain because this was my first bike race of the year. i was a little tentative on some of the grassy turns on my first two laps, but i handled the transitions really smoothly. the stairs are always a killer because they're randomly spaced and it's hard to establish a rhythm, so you just gut it out and allow your steps to syncopate and unsyncopate, randomly.

anyway, b, my youngest daughter came along and snapped a few photos of me. here's my story:

in the staging area at the start, i'm chatting it up with, what i believe to be the only other single-speeder in the race. we ended up battling it out for a couple of laps, but i eventually pulled away from him.

getting ready to grind up the hill... this is a mean course because right in the middle of the hill they send you on a zig zag that steals any momentum you thought you had.

just past said zig-zag!

the course loops around and here i get to go down the hill i'd fought my way up only just 1/3 of a lap before.

and then there's the stairs. these classic stairs have become a mn cyclo-cross tradition.

the stairs on another lap.

and... i'm done. this was a fun day AND i completed my race before the snow fell. the experts will be cranking through an epicly snowy state championships for the second year in a row. thanks to @smithersmpls and his promotion and setup teams for putting on this race. it's an awesome event.

playing with gimp cx photo

2011-11-19T13:41:00.001-06:00

the photo credit goes to my youngest daughter, b, i'm the dork in the picture. i'm also the dork who edited the pictures.

shoecovers of mostawesomeness

2011-11-17T10:46:00.001-06:00

the endura mt500 is what i recommend for @banana_patch's cold toes!

lather, rinse, repeat

2011-11-15T00:43:00.003-06:00

last friday, i went to agile day twin cities and it was just what i needed. after a 13 year stay at my last job, i changed employers, recently. i came to the new job to help bring order to a development organization that was struggling with quality issues and degrading customer satisfaction. it's a great challenge, but i came from a much larger company and was part of a long, slow evolutionary path to agility. i'd gotten used to having people around who "just got it." now, i have people who are willing to let me try things, but there are too many near term fires to be fought to concentrate on future infrastructure.

since getting the job, i've experienced a number of up and down days. the days running up to agile day were some real down ones, and i was feeling quite isolated. i have some customer issues on my desk that are keeping me from implementing the infrastructure we need to get this shop running smoothly.

anyway, agile day was kicked off by a video address by ward cunningham download it here. in it, he makes some great suggestions that have already affected what i'm doing and how i feel about heading to the office.

programmers are at their best when the help others succeed
put the top list of things out there for the team to accomplish, together
work from the known to the unknown
when you have a good idea, you have to put it into code or else you're wasting the good idea

this last one hit me pretty hard. i had some catchup work to do over the weekend. as i sat there trying to iterate on a problem with some spaghetti code that can't be tested in isolation, i finally threw my hands up and said, "i'm not typing another 20 steps worth of data into this browser just so i can iterate!" the agile day experience had sunk in and, so i spent a little while researching web testing tools. i settled on watir and was driving tests within an hour. this enabled me to iterate much more quickly. i'm way more productive.

ok, back to ADTC, after ward's video, i attended sessions on building teams, continuous delivery, and agile engineering practices. then, during the openspace, i took part in a new-to-agile support group session called "from cowboy to agile." it was good to hear that other people are trying to grow into their agileness.

cool stuff.

so, building on ward's thoughts about programmers helping each other and working from the known to the unknown, i decided to introduce watir to our team. everyone smiled as i talked about it. that made me smile. really! nobody even flinched at the "opportunity" to learn ruby. cool. i do think we have the right team in place in this new shop, we just need to create enough space for us to breathe and develop software as a team.

anyway, our watir experience isn't going to be a big bang implementation. we're not going to try to write a massive, durable test suite for our entire product set, in the near term. we're all going to use it to solve our own testing needs for a while and we'll reconvene in a couple of months and see what the team has learned from using it.

so, we're going to start with the known and work toward the unknown. once we know that, we'll circle back, so lather, rinse, repeat and we'll work our way to operating as a high-functioning team. together.

this could be trouble

2011-11-04T21:36:00.001-05:00

a 22oz of "double bastard" from stone brewery. for 10.5% alcohol it's a scary-smooth beer.

don't tread on...

2011-10-20T17:45:00.001-05:00

my shadow, don't tread on my shadow, man! or do... whatever.

beer on a "school night"?

2011-10-19T21:47:00.001-05:00

well the can says "don't age," so i'm just doin' what it says

stuffed squash... fall has arrived

2011-10-09T19:24:00.001-05:00

stuffed acorn squash with brown rice (spiced with cinnamon and clove), cranberries, rasins, honey, and cashews. mmm...

i'm rooting for my habenero plant, but...

2011-10-01T18:46:00.001-05:00

these are number 4, 5, and 6 of the season and i have at least 20 more dark green ones on the plant.

stuff i find

2011-09-30T08:29:00.001-05:00

i love the random crap i come across on my cyclecommutes.

got it on the first try this morning

2011-09-27T08:08:00.001-05:00

heh... we moved from 10th floor to 12th floor last week. this is the first morning on which i pushed the right button on the elevator.

moving labels

2011-09-20T12:54:00.001-05:00

that heath guy really gets around... product marketing, cloud technology, boxes (literally, moving boxes)

wildlife on my cyclecommute

2011-09-14T08:27:00.000-05:00

totally would have missed the bald eagle sitting on the swimming raft in lake mccarrons this morning if i'd been driving a car. totally would have had a better camera than the one on my phone, though. time to start packing the compact 10x zoom camera on my commutes.

today's home office

2011-09-13T14:31:00.001-05:00

with a coworker, too!

new booooooots!

2011-09-08T21:18:00.001-05:00

ugliest soccer boots ever == most awesome soccer boots ever

shadows to and from work

2011-09-06T18:10:00.001-05:00

ruins by the river

2011-09-05T22:05:00.000-05:00

Did some shooting near the mill ruins by the river, today. Here are a few samples, some are heavily edited.

broken window

2011-09-05T15:23:00.001-05:00

visitor during dinner at sea salt eatery

2011-09-04T19:12:00.003-05:00

shadows growing

2011-09-04T19:12:00.001-05:00

today's commuter bike in motion and at rest

2011-09-02T08:39:00.001-05:00

faint shadow on a misty morning

2011-09-01T08:58:00.001-05:00

well, since i had the surly out, anyway

2011-08-24T21:08:00.001-05:00

i figured i'd put its bottle opener to use!

look who i met on my way home

2011-08-24T18:34:00.001-05:00

a spotted salamander was pulling a rango! it appears that, yes, he got to the other side.

the nicest thing about working from home

2011-08-22T13:48:00.001-05:00

real live serviceable windows. a window seat at the office today would be hell.

sapcicle

2011-08-20T17:20:00.001-05:00

we trimmed our pine tree today. it wept.

--rt

the pier at grand marais michigan

2011-08-14T22:57:00.001-05:00

the pier at grand marais michigan is built to withstand the destructive forces of the great gitcheegumee (lake superior). we all know about its fury and power, if not first hand, at least from mr. lightfoot's lyrics. it can be pretty crazy.

well, the pier--actually a sea wall protecting the entry to the harbor--has some sections built out of interlocking steel sections that are filled with rock and cement.

we wandered out on this structure last week and i found a bunch of interesting perspectives i wanted to capture. first, i was intrigued by the metal outer shells of the structure. their lego-like interlocking fingers were very cool, so they are the "interlocks." later, i found some rocks that still had the holes in them that were used to mine them from wherever they were quarried, and that set was dubbed the "rockholes."

the interlocks

the rockholes

Tax the Cyclists!

2011-07-31T14:37:00.001-05:00

Seriously, I mean it!

Today, reading an opinion piece called The Dutch Way: Bicycles and Fresh Bread, I was jealous of how, "the coexistence of different modes of travel is hard-wired into the culture." In the US, as a cyclist, it doesn't feel as if we're just seen as yet some other Americans who've chosen a different mode of transportation, we're, "them." We're a counter culture. I wish we could be seen as humans first (all of us, in cars on bikes, whatever...) but even if we were to take a nationalistic look at it, I wish people in cars could look at those on bikes as contributing to the overall good of our nation by a) increasing our general health, b) improving our environment by cutting down on pollution, or c) increasing the security of our nation by reducing consumer pressures on our strategic oil reserves. But, alas, those vectors of thought are a bit too abstract.

So, how do you legitimize anything in the eyes of US citizens (or permanent resident aliens)? You tax it! Well, you create a user fee of some sort. (No matter how you put it, paying money to your government is tax whether it's a user fee or a general contribution to VAT or payroll tax. At least that's my interpretation and I'm just going to use the word tax intertwined with user fee for the sake of this diatribe.)

Seriously, though, us and them mentalities come from someone thinking the other group is "getting away with something." We cyclists should save the money we don't spend on fuel and auto expenses, but maybe mandatory licensing or bicycle tire taxes would eliminate the feeling that cyclists were somehow avoiding something by choosing not to get around by car. The reality is that we contribute to the tax base in other ways with our income, homeowners, and all sorts of value-added taxes, but the drivers have those too, so cyclists are seen as someone consuming space on roads we somehow didn't pay for.

In Minnesota, however, bicycle licensing was eliminated in 2005. (Point of interest, I did not know that until I set out to write this. I was looking up fees and was intending to step up and license all of my bikes as a way of putting my money where my mouth was.) Sheesh, law-abiding and anarchist cyclists alike should bristle at the lack of registration requirements. The anarchists who ride unregistered bikes are no longer stickin it to the man, they're just passively following the law, and in the same vein the law-abiding doo-gooders have no badge to prove they're following the law.

Anyway, I digress. The point is, that cyclists who use their bikes for legitimate transportation (not just sport or recreation) might be seen as "one of us" on the road by people driving cars if they also contributed to the transportation budget. I know, nanny-state, big-government haters will poo poo this as expansion of government and somehow twist this into a loss of liberty, but, seriously, when was the last time any of you substituted a car trip with a bicycle?

Oh, by the way, I'd sure love to be wrong on this stereotype. So, let me know if you don't share my views on government but share my passion for bicycle transport. I am all for casting aside clichès and having real conversations.

(Yes, this is over simplified. It's meant to be a conversation starter.)

effin around with ibonacci

2011-07-16T15:31:00.000-05:00

First off, thanks to Alex Gorbatchev for his awesome SyntaxHighlighter. I've used it here with his great instructions for embedding. I took his instructions here using the "pre" method and just embedded the scripts within the script tags of this post instead of referencing them. If I use this again, I'll figure out how to upload the scripts I need to blogger, so I can just reference them. Anyway... this is really high quality stuff, nice work Alex.

So, I was playing around with, or did I say effin around with ibonacci? (Yes, putting the "f" in fibonacci.) I wanted to try out a few variations of Fibonacci algos to do some speed comparisons. I was knew that recursion would take a bit of a hit, but I was really surprised that it would be this bad.

recurFib(45) took 6813 milliseconds to calculate 1134903170
iterFib(45) took 0 milliseconds to calculate 1134903170
iterNoArrFib(45) took 0 milliseconds to calculate 1134903170

I love the elegance of recursive code.

 public static int recurFib(int n) {
  if (n == 0) {
   return n;
  }
  if (n <= 2) {
   return 1;
  }
  return recurFib(n - 1) + recurFib(n - 2);
 }

As opposed to the faster-performing iterative code.

public static int iterNoArrFib(int n) {
  int f = 0;
  //special case #1
  if (n == 0) {
   return f;
  }
  
  int x = 1;
  int y = 1;
  //special case #2
  if (n <=2) {
   return x;
  }
  
  for (int i = 3; i <= n; i++ ) {
   f = x + y;
   //set up x and y for next loop
   y = x;
   x = f;
   
  }
  return f;
 }

So, I tried a couple of things. First, I tried to neaten up the iterative version with an array instead of shuffling through the variables:

public static int iterFib(int n) {
  int[] f = new int[n+1];
  f[0] = 0;
  f[1] = 1;
  if (n >= 2) {
   f[2] = 1;
  }
  for (int i = 3; i <= n; i++ ) {
   f[i] = f[i - 1] + f[i - 2];
   
  }
  return f[n];
 }

It was no faster or slower (by my crude benchmark), but a little cleaner. Then, I tried to speed up our recursive version with a little caching. I was pretty sure that the recursive version recalculates all of the children for each node of the tree, so, I added an array to cache values, checking to see if it was already calculated before doing a recursive call:

private static int[] recurCache ;
 
 public static int recurCacheFib(int n, boolean first) {
  
  recurCache = (recurCache == null || first)? new int[n+1] : recurCache ;
  
  if (n == 0) {
   recurCache[n] = 0;
   return n;
  }
  if (n <= 2) {
   recurCache[n] = 1;
   return 1;
  }
  
  int f = recurCache[n];
  if (f == 0) {
   f = recurCacheFib(n - 1,false) + recurCacheFib(n - 2,false);
   recurCache[n] = f;
  }
  
  return f;
 }

Well, low and behold, it was just as fast as the iterative version:

recurFib(45) took 6813 milliseconds to calculate 1134903170
recurCacheFib(45) took 0 milliseconds to calculate 1134903170
recurCacheFib(45) took 0 milliseconds to calculate 1134903170 a second time
iterFib(45) took 0 milliseconds to calculate 1134903170
iterNoArrFib(45) took 0 milliseconds to calculate 1134903170

I ran it twice just to see if I would take much of a hit recreating the array for the cache. Apparently not.

However, when I compare the cached recursion code to the array-based version of iterative code, I think the array-based version is slightly more elegant. This is mostly due to the addition of the external array and not just lines of code. What do you think? The entire code is below.

package org.bikeonastick.examples;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

public class Fibonacci {
 
 public static void main(String[] args) {
  int toFib = Integer.parseInt(args[0]);
  long start = System.currentTimeMillis();
  int fib = Fibonacci.recurFib(toFib);
  long finish = System.currentTimeMillis();
  System.out.println("recurFib(" + toFib +") took " + (finish - start) + " milliseconds to calculate " + fib);
  
  start = System.currentTimeMillis();
  fib = Fibonacci.recurCacheFib(toFib,true);
  finish = System.currentTimeMillis();
  System.out.println("recurCacheFib(" + toFib +") took " + (finish - start) + " milliseconds to calculate " + fib);

  start = System.currentTimeMillis();
  fib = Fibonacci.recurCacheFib(toFib,true);
  finish = System.currentTimeMillis();
  System.out.println("recurCacheFib(" + toFib +") took " + (finish - start) + " milliseconds to calculate " + fib + " a second time");

  
  start = System.currentTimeMillis();
  fib = Fibonacci.iterFib(toFib);
  finish = System.currentTimeMillis();
  System.out.println("iterFib(" + toFib +") took " + (finish - start) + " milliseconds to calculate " + fib);
  
  start = System.currentTimeMillis();
  fib = Fibonacci.iterNoArrFib(toFib);
  finish = System.currentTimeMillis();
  System.out.println("iterNoArrFib(" + toFib +") took " + (finish - start) + " milliseconds to calculate " + fib);
  
 }
 
 public static int recurFib(int n) {
  if (n == 0) {
   return n;
  }
  if (n <= 2) {
   return 1;
  }
  return recurFib(n - 1) + recurFib(n - 2);
 }
 
 private static int[] recurCache ;
 
 public static int recurCacheFib(int n, boolean first) {
  
  recurCache = (recurCache == null || first)? new int[n+1] : recurCache ;
  
  if (n == 0) {
   recurCache[n] = 0;
   return n;
  }
  if (n <= 2) {
   recurCache[n] = 1;
   return 1;
  }
  
  int f = recurCache[n];
  if (f == 0) {
   f = recurCacheFib(n - 1,false) + recurCacheFib(n - 2,false);
   recurCache[n] = f;
  }
  
  return f;
 }

 
 public static int iterFib(int n) {
  int[] f = new int[n+1];
  f[0] = 0;
  f[1] = 1;
  if (n >= 2) {
   f[2] = 1;
  }
  for (int i = 3; i <= n; i++ ) {
   f[i] = f[i - 1] + f[i - 2];
   
  }
  return f[n];
 }
 
 public static int iterNoArrFib(int n) {
  int f = 0;
  //special case #1
  if (n == 0) {
   return f;
  }
  
  int x = 1;
  int y = 1;
  //special case #2
  if (n <=2) {
   return x;
  }
  
  for (int i = 3; i <= n; i++ ) {
   f = x + y;
   //set up x and y for next loop
   y = x;
   x = f;
   
  }
  return f;
 }

}

a different side of south dakota

2011-07-14T22:01:00.001-05:00

graffiti alley in rapid city is a bit different than president heads and baaaaadlands.

sodak

2011-07-14T21:44:00.000-05:00

sooo, south dakota! we took a trip to south dakota to see rushmore, the black hills, and the badlands. we had a pretty good time. after seeing the presidents peeking at you from that mountain, they seem to be everywhere.

so, these faces, they seemed to follow me everywhere...

we found them in tunnels!

and hiding behind trees!

phew! but they didn't follow us everywhere...

just some of your everyday ditchweed next to a really big ditch!

badland shaaaaadows

not a huge fan of wagon wheel furniture, but...

2011-07-13T17:41:00.001-05:00

this thing was freakin comfortable!

a bad land

2011-07-13T14:35:00.001-05:00

badlands!

unintended irony?

2011-07-12T13:07:00.000-05:00

just try to find american made jingoistic tschotchkies in the shadow of rushmore. sadly, the irony is more likely unnoticed than unintended.

rushmore

2011-07-12T12:08:00.001-05:00

happy birthday to me

2011-07-09T12:13:00.001-05:00

the kids got me a birthday present. we'll be settling all arguments around here with rock-em-sockem-robots grudge matches.

family and fireworks on the fourth at central park

2011-07-04T22:44:00.001-05:00

yeah, fireworks

2011-07-04T22:14:00.001-05:00

roseville's central park

shadows on the commute to work

2011-07-02T13:08:00.001-05:00

shucks, this was sitting in my queue as a draft. i did not go to work today! i am still on vacation. :-)

in minnesota, we call these rock gardens...

2011-06-29T16:12:00.000-05:00

here (hall's ranch) they have another term for them, they just call it "trail."

estes park riverwalk

2011-06-28T18:21:00.001-05:00

hey, look, an elk

2011-06-27T19:14:00.001-05:00

we, truly, stumbled across this guy on our walk to the restaurant.

visitor in the lab

2011-06-23T10:03:00.001-05:00

our QA was missing his former manager, today.

the UHC train at the front of the pack

2011-06-21T22:48:00.000-05:00

went to the nature valley grand prix final stage in stillwater on sunday. i got significantly fewer good photos than i had hoped. :-( the best of the rest will be posted later, but i decided to do a little processing with this pic of the UHC team pulling back in the break to get rory sutherland positioned for his eventual stage win.

and here it is after a little work in gimp (the gnu image processor, which is free... and really good, and... did i say free?)

kind of fun. it did help that i was desaturating the background and much of that was the street, which was already gray!

june snow in minnesota?

2011-06-17T08:05:00.001-05:00

i don't have a studded tire mounted!

oh, nevermind, it's just the freakin' cottonwood trees.

b's new bike

2011-06-12T16:52:00.001-05:00

b grew out of her little 24" wheeled bike over the winter so we put a road bike together for her this year. the frame is a dumpster find from quite a few years back and the parts are a mix of new stuff combined wit parts i had lying around and some parts off her old bike. i had to do a whole lot of crazy things to get it all to fit together. it's only a 7speed (no front derailleur), but that should be good enough to get her around town.

eeeeerie plants!

2011-06-11T22:54:00.001-05:00

mmmmwwwaaaahahahaha

got any marshmallows?

2011-06-11T21:35:00.001-05:00

time for smores! the backyard fire's ready.

gonna leave these two together...

2011-06-10T21:41:00.001-05:00

gonna leave these two "kids" together, tonight. hopefully when i get up in the morning, there'll be a new member of the family. anyone know what the estimated gestation period is for bicycles?

the smart bunny rabbits in my yard

2011-06-06T23:01:00.000-05:00

ok... look at the photo, can you see what's happening? there are a couple of bunnies toward the right who are staying just out of reach of the rottweiler. he has an invisible fence, and i'm convinced they know it.

here, i'll fill in some of the details for you. the bunnies are just across my property line, but sitting in plain view of the dog.

the bunnies were so nonchalant that they allowed me to get within 15 feet of them to snap this photo (yes, the camera is crappy, it's on my phone). i'm sure they know the dog can't get them from this spot.

funny stuff...

my new bamboo bottle

2011-06-06T18:14:00.001-05:00

i ordered a bamboo bottle from (http://www.bamboobottleco.com) around christmas but forgot about it because they were backordered. i got my shipping notice the other day and, bam, it arrived today. here it is in all its glory! sweet!

shadows of the morning commute

2011-06-06T18:09:00.001-05:00

you cannot check out right now, sir

2011-05-31T21:08:00.001-05:00

i'm rebooting

storm over the nuclear plant

2011-05-28T15:09:00.001-05:00

creative fixed gear conversion

2011-05-16T08:08:00.001-05:00

yes, that's duct tape holding the bottle cage on!

stocking cap yesterday, summer hat today

2011-05-15T15:34:00.001-05:00

what a difference a day makes.

what a difference a lensecleaning makes

2011-05-14T12:01:00.001-05:00

these are both taken with my htc aria. i've been noticing that picture quality sucks, well... it has at least a little to do with pocket lint. unfortunately, the aria has a recessed lense and it's actually kind of tricky to clean.

what a day to get around by bicycle!

2011-04-12T19:22:00.002-05:00

had to soak in the sun today as it sounds as if i may need raingear for the next few days

back in the shadow, again

2011-04-12T08:53:00.002-05:00

wow, warm enough to slip off the gloves and snap a couple of photos on the ride to work, today.

plumbing, meh...

2011-04-08T15:21:00.001-05:00

well, we seem to have pushed the hose season a little too far last fall and we had us a nice little surprise when we turned on one of the hoses today. good thing our basement is still unfinished! hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to the hardware store i go.

fred is super-pumped

2011-04-07T12:54:00.002-05:00

super-pumped that we're having deck weather, again.

boston sunset

2011-04-05T18:21:00.001-05:00

looking west in the evening can be pretty interesting sometimes.

first bare calf ride of 2011

2011-03-17T11:40:00.001-05:00

it was warm enough to skip the legwarmers on yesterday's ride home.

my new endura jacket

2011-03-14T09:12:00.001-05:00

here's my new endura jacket about to take its maiden voyage. i now know it works well in the cold, let's hope it works well in the wet. thanks to the guys at one on one (http://oneononebike.com) for carrying such great gear!

mourning dove infestation

2011-03-06T14:20:00.001-06:00

there were 9 of them at one point, but i couldn't convince them to line up for a group photo.

sunshiny commutes mean...

2011-02-18T17:49:00.001-06:00

shadow pics!

new studz

2011-02-13T20:49:00.001-06:00

replaced my mangled nokian with a schwalbe marathon winter tire. now i've got german up front and finnish on the back.

sure, with all the melting i won't really be needing studded tires tomorrow, but winter will be back. this is minnesota, after all.

it'snotfunny

2011-02-09T08:22:00.001-06:00

snot

the flat tire

2011-02-06T18:37:00.001-06:00

finally getting around to fixing last thursday's flat on the commuter bike. it turns out i picked up abouy a dime-sized shard of glass. cuh-razy. it's hard to see the glass through the snow.

blogger android app

2011-02-04T12:28:00.001-06:00

well, not the most exciting post, but i've installed the blogger app and i'm going to give it a try instead of the post-by-e-mail method i've been using from my phone.

nice, this is really sweet, it lets you start an entry, take a photo, and return to editing the post.

hoo-yeah it's staying light later

2011-02-01T18:09:00.001-06:00

it seems like just last week, my rides home were in complete darkness.

looks like i was the only one stupid enough to...

2011-01-31T10:51:00.001-06:00

ride a bicycle into work today, soo... i'm guessing my bike'll be a little lonely at the rack today

i might have been the only one stupid enough to...

2011-01-31T09:21:00.001-06:00

ride a bicycle into work today, soo... i'm guessing my bike'll be a little lonely at the rack today

pair programming from the bat cave

2011-01-28T11:15:00.001-06:00

do i really want to go out there?

2011-01-21T08:18:00.001-06:00

oh, what the heck, why not. i've ridden in -13 before.

you might not be able to handle this

2011-01-20T14:27:00.001-06:00

chilly, but not bitter cold

2011-01-20T08:30:00.001-06:00

the four horsemen of the coldpocalypse didn't show in full force today. it was cold enough for the mask, but it wasn't as bad as was forecast. 2f, no big deal.

cold moonshine

2011-01-19T18:53:00.001-06:00

was riding home today just as the moon was rising.

a slog of a ride

2011-01-17T18:09:00.001-06:00

sure leaves its mark on your bike.

winter repairs brrrr

2011-01-15T14:08:00.002-06:00

my garage isn't heated, and the winter bike is entirely too messy to bring indoors, so i took advantage of the sun shining in through the garage window and wrenched on the bike today.

i had to switch to a different wheel because a spokenipple oulled right through an eyelet the other day (very likely the result of some hamfisted truing i did in november).

with that wheel toast, i had to pull my only 18t cog off the dead wheel for install on the other one.

i was the witness of a january miracle. the cog came off and i didn't leave any knuckle skin on the spokes! thankyou babyjeeebus for anti-seize!

clingon

2011-01-11T08:40:00.001-06:00

much snow from today's ride is hanging from the bike.

packed (with snow)

2011-01-07T08:25:00.001-06:00

the cold skyline in three parts

2011-01-02T21:54:00.000-06:00

b and i were at the minneapolis institute of arts today. about 1/2 hour before sundown, we were right by a second-story window looking north at the skyline. i thought the city looked so sad and metallic in the diffused winter light. there was also a slight haze created by a fine mist of snowflakes, but that didn't show in the picture.

i was unsatisfied leaving the picture just as it was, so i first desaturated it in gimp. wow, it got colder, yet. us bank place looks like a thermos full of the coffee (or soup) this cold skyline needs to struggle its way toward springtime!

so, knowing it was my cold reality, i had to make it so unrealistic to keep it from clouding my mind. :-)

hard to believe

2010-12-30T15:38:00.001-06:00

but we had to go indoors to iceskate on a december day in minnesota. it's 38f and raining, so even a chilled outdoor rink wouldn't be fun.

hoary morning

2010-12-27T14:36:00.000-06:00

it was foggy here last night and, when we woke up, the sky was falling. i grabbed the camera to see if i could capture the shimmery atmosphere, but it really just looks like it's snowing. this is an attempt at shooting on manual with my fstop and iso pushed around to capture the light.

this, however, is what the camera did on its own when i set it to "intelligent auto." it did a better job of capturing the light, whereas my attempts to play with the manual settings weren't quite quick enough and overemphasized the movement of the sparkles.

here, though, i played a little with depth of field on a light fixture just outside our back door. kind of fun getting a tight focus up close, moving the lens slightly, and taking the shot before it refocuses.

my favorite stretch of st paul road

2010-12-23T17:39:00.001-06:00

where is it? irvine ave just south of summit and western. i like this one going up or down.

riding the bus isn't sooo bad if...

2010-12-21T07:34:00.001-06:00

this is what you're greeted by at your destination. surprising and nice to see rice park lit up in the morning.

the dirty little secret of the winter bicycle commute

2010-12-20T14:17:00.000-06:00

some days, the commute is only made possible through sheer flexibility. that flexibility usually describes the other people in your life: the boss who lets you leave the office early or the family who doesn't mind you staying at the office late, all in the name of keeping your snowy ass out of traffic.

then, there's another kind of flexibility, multiple routes. you can't live in some bottlenecked exurb and always expect your one route to everything to be good enough to ride. you have to be able to change things up when a route isn't safe for whatever reason.

ultimately, you're going to need a backup plan. if you're lucky enough to be able to work from home periodically, your broadband connection will earn its keep. some of us technical folks still need to hit the office in bad weather, which is why my backup is a bus pass and a good pair of boots.

really, though, year-round cyclecommuting is an awesome lifestyle choice, but it requires more than just a bike and some fancy clothes.