Honestly. And no, it isn’t what you think. I didn’t make a vain attempt to read the three part Art of Computer Programming. That would be impossible even with an unlimited supply of my favorite espresso. No, I got hung up on Donald’s other masterpiece, that bastion of intuitive programming known as LaTeX. I have a great deal of respect for Mr. Knuth and do believe that TeX is still the best typesetting system in existence, but easy to use? It is NOT.

Being the picky (read: anal) person I am, I decided to update my resume using that fine tool. Multiple days and several bursts of uncontrolled profanity later, I finally arrived at a resume format that looked beautiful. The only problem was that I had NOT yet written the content. Oops. In my quest for the perfect layout, I totally neglected the entire point of the process, which is to actually transmit information about one’s skill set onto a piece of paper. (err, tex/pdf file)

The act of writing a LaTeX document is so similar to writing actual source code that I spent brain cycles wondering about proper markup idioms and best practices. Sure enough, after the first successful iteration, I realize I had violated the sacred DRY principle. Not to worry, though, because LaTeX allows you to define our own fancy macros.

Tasty.

Ultimately, I wasted too much time on what should have been a simple task, but who can resist the lure of running their prose through a compiler!? Anyway, it looks great now and I can go back to a more normal existence.

(PS: Did you know that the seminal work has a volume 4 on the way?)