September 1998
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Life at 40
As you read this, I have joined the exalted ranks of Those Who Have At Least Forty Years On This Planet (THALFYOPs). My birthday is September 23, 1958. I am now 40 years old. My wife is quite pleased. She is a little older than me and has been feeling like it has taken me a long time to be in my forties.
I have been told that once you are a THALFYOP, your outlook on life starts to change. Maybe. I began a few years ago to have flashes of mortality; on a train from Amsterdam to Rotterdam, for example, I can recall feasting my eyes on gorgeous fields of yellow, blue, red tulips and getting a sudden chill/flash realizing that there will be a time when those flowers are blooming and I will not be around to see them. Total absence of Steven. And the world goes on. How could that be?
So I didn't need to get to 40 to experience the thought of being dead, but hey! Let's not get morbid here!
And I want everyone to know that while I have read parts of the Starr Report on William Jefferson Clinton's indiscretions, I have not acessed the on-line versions so that I could easily search for certain, well, key words. And I have not watched the video.
I've got better things to do with my life. In fact, we all do, including Kenneth Starr. Not that I am not concerned about Bill's behavior of late - like all of the last two decades. There are probably a whole lot of people who consider me a liberal, and therefore I must be a great supporter of President Clinton. Wrongo - on both counts. I am not a liberal and I think that many of Clinton's actions have been downright nasty (increasing inequity and injustice in our country and world) and will reveal themselves as even nastier years from now.
Wait a minute! This is my life at 40 I'm talking about. I don't need to join the international obsession. How about if I simply join my own personal obsession! And what might that be? Writing code. For the last week or so, I have working hard (7 AM to midnight, sometimes later) at extending the engine of PL/Generator to read/parse PL/SQL program headers and generate such things as JDBC wrappers for PL/SQL packages, stand-alone procedures and functions for packaged programs, and so on.
Got to admit: it's been several months, maybe over half a year, since I have been coding quite this intensely. It's such an addiction, at least for me. I just love the intellectual puzzles I have given myself with PL/Generator, and at the same time ask myself at 2 AM: is this really the best way to be using my time? But back I dive into the code.
Hey, but my life at 40 is not only about coding, not even close. I have just started up my third season as a football (soccer in USA-talk) referee. I get to dress up in this really snazzy black disguise, I mean uniform. With a whistle and my yellow and red cards at the ready, I am prepared to act as a supreme authority figure for twenty or so children for an hour at a time. It is an awful lot of fun - not being the authority figure, but in watching the kids play, and helping them play within the rules, so that they can truly have the most fun (and the safest fun) possible in the game.
I believe football (soccer in USA-talk) is an excellent sport, because it is so fundamentally accessible, you might even say: democratic. With American-rules football, you need a ton of equipment plus a weird-shaped ball. With futbol (using the Spanish spelling to make it easier to distinguish), all you need is a ball and a chunk of Earth. And the ball? It could be a real soccer ball, or some wadded-up bunch of anything that moves when you kick it. Anyone can play; all you have to do is step into the game and get moving.
Four decades, though, offers a fine time for evaluation. What have I accomplished with my life? Of what am I most proud? Here is what I come up with:
- My family…I am not sure that "pride" is the right word (sounds a bit arrogant to me, as if I am responsible for everything about them), but "happiness" sure is. I consider myself most fortunate to be married to Veva Silva Feuerstein, a smart, strong-willed, beautiful woman who complements me very well (that is, she tells me when I do something stupid, and she knows all sorts of stuff about which I am ignorant). My two sons, Chris and Eli, are an ongoing source of pleasure and appreciation (even if Eli is about to turn 12 and starting very early on his path to stormy adolescence). Chris is a talented artist, with spray paint, brush and turntable. Eli will someday create the most amazing computer games.
- El Salvador solidarity organizing: I spent a good part of my life in the 80s as an activist in CISPES (Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador), both protesting the Reagan Administration's murderous policies in Central America, and organizing specifically in support of the FMLN (a.k.a., the "good guys") in El Salvador. It opened my eyes both to the fundamental corruption that is (often) at the core of U.S. foreign policy - and to the amazing lives led by those around the world who struggle for their freedom, and are willing to give up their lives for their ideals.
- Oracle PL/SQL Programming - the book, the language, the life: to say that I have been surprised by the reception to this first book on PL/SQL would be a vast understatement. OPP touched a nerve in the Oracle development community; it brought out into public view the deep need felt by many PL/SQL programmers for guidance, suggestions, examples and sympathy. I have little formal training in programming and OPP was my first book. I have, therefore, been more than a little bewildered and flattered when I am told persistently that OPP is "the best book on programming I have ever read." What is most rewarding for me, though, is the feeling that my books, articles and seminars have helped individuals achieve a higher level of satisfaction and expertise in their programming work.
- My software and RevealNet: It's one thing to have some neat ideas. It's another thing to turn them into real products. And it's quite another thing still to be able to bring those products to market and sell them successfully. I will never be able to forget the many, many, many hours I spent late into the night(s) back in 1991-1993 creating a really neat debugger for SQL Forms 3.0. It was called Xray Vision and some people actually benefited from it. Some. A few, maybe. Now it's 1998 and with the support of my partners at RevealNet, Tom White and Steve Hilker, I have created -- and people are buying -- two products I designed and (largely) built: PL/Vision and PL/Generator. There are more products to come, and lots of room for improvement in the current set. But what a wonderful experience it is to create and have others benefit from the products of my brain!
- The PL/SQL Pipeline: it's not quite on the order of my other "accomplishments", but I've got to admit that I am really pleased with the PL/SQL Pipeline. I have always felt the Oracle world is a bit too mercenary. Knowledge is not just power; knowledge is a higher hourly rate for consulting. As a result, there is very little sharing, very little sense of community among developers. Oracle User Groups have been playing this role, of course, in geographical terms for quite a while and IOUG-A does a great job with IOUW. I guess I mostly saw a lacking as regards to PL/SQL developers, and I saw an opportunity to rectify that with the Internet. The PL/SQL Pipeline (along with its sibling, the DBA Pipeline) has exceeded my expectations in drawing committed, excellent technicians from around the world to a non-commercial, on-line community, where problems, solutions, knowledge and tips are shared freely. Thanks to everyone who has made the Pipeline a part of their professional life.
So the life of this THALFYOP is a good one, and I hope that I have been able to share some of my good fortune with those around me.
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Life at 40
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