AKMA’s Random Thoughts

FIX IT NOW. Go to a doctor if you can.

It sounds joint-related rather than nerve- or tendon-related at this point; I don't know whether that's a good or a bad thing, though I would incline toward thinking joints might heal a bit better.

But for Pete's sake don't trust *me*! Go get it looked at. And good move on the trackball.

Acquisition of a tracking ball is a key first step. Also, I rarely type on my notebook when I'm away from my I-Mac: I have a full-size ergonomic keyboard which I attach to my [office-supplied] notebook and use 99% of the time (looks strange in cafes, but who cares?). This has completely eliminated the early carpal-tunnel symptoms I'd been experiencing.

If you like, AKMA, I can look into ergo keyboards again, though it sounds like you'll be okay if you can just retrain your left thumb.

You certainly *don't* want my Kinesis, as it relies heavily on both thumbs. Great for me, because my pinkies have always been the problem -- not so good for you.

I’l look into keyboards and physicians both. It feels like a stress fracture more than anything else; but I’m not that kind of doctor. I’ll try to persuade my primary care physician to look at the thumb.

Let's see an example by converting our favoriteNumber variable from a stack variable to a heap variable. The first thing we'll do is find the project we've been working on and open it up in Project Builder. In the file, we'll start right at the top and work our way down. Under the line:

To address this issue, we turn to the second place to put variables, which is called the Heap. If you think of the Stack as a high-rise apartment building somewhere, variables as tenets and each level building atop the one before it, then the Heap is the suburban sprawl, every citizen finding a space for herself, each lot a different size and locations that can't be readily predictable. For all the simplicity offered by the Stack, the Heap seems positively chaotic, but the reality is that each just obeys its own rules.

But variables get one benefit people do not

Inside each stack frame is a slew of useful information. It tells the computer what code is currently executing, where to go next, where to go in the case a return statement is found, and a whole lot of other things that are incredible useful to the computer, but not very useful to you most of the time. One of the things that is useful to you is the part of the frame that keeps track of all the variables you're using. So the first place for a variable to live is on the Stack. This is a very nice place to live, in that all the creation and destruction of space is handled for you as Stack Frames are created and destroyed. You seldom have to worry about making space for the variables on the stack. The only problem is that the variables here only live as long as the stack frame does, which is to say the length of the function those variables are declared in. This is often a fine situation, but when you need to store information for longer than a single function, you are instantly out of luck.