Three days of hunting a bug in an application. An application that took the paradigm of loose coupling, combined it with Java’s already incredible (bordering to insane) powerful reflection and introspection mechanisms, and then added a set of generated classes (by using on-the-fly-inline-assembly) on top of it. An application that could have done the very same thing with boring, almost dangerously conservative tailored-to-fit data-structures (the total opposite of the weird over-generalization found there). Whenever I have to use a Java DISASSEMBLER to debug a simple problem, then there is something seriously wrong.

But since yesterday I have hope again. After being in a second hand bookshop in Frankfurt, I found salvation. There it was, buried between old books of dubious origin: A original 1970’s print of John Seymors Guide to Selfsufficiency. John Seymor wrote a whole series of books describing how to create a self-sufficient living style including do-it-yourself farming and house hold crafts. These texts are introductory writings and surely not suitable to grab the book and start being farmer the next day – but they give a good overview for the novice. After the book, you know at least where to start to search for more information.

Sadly, John Seymors book omits the most important and most profitable art of farming: How to plant and harvest peanut-butter. So I have to continue my journey for the secrets of Peanut-Butter-Farming ..