To be honest, I can do with an excuse to get away from the computer. As regular readers will no doubt know, the past year has been a hectic one for me due to the fact that I’ve been working on an insanely ambitious Ruby / Ruby On Rails IDE for Visual Studio (I won’t go over the history of this as I’ve explained the origins of this project elsewhere).

We are now within days of releasing the commercial edition of Ruby In Steel Developer, and it feels as though our software ‘ship’, which has been sailing ahead at great speed for so many months, has suddenly become becalmed. Development on the program itself is now frozen – no more new features are going in – and only the last minute bits and pieces such as readme files and the details of the eCommerce systems have yet to be finalized.

At least now, I can start to think again, of life beyond the keyboard. Taking the dog for longer walks is high on the agenda. According to the BBC, dog owners lead healthier lives.

"It is possible that dogs can directly promote our well-being by buffering us from stress, one of the major risk factors associated with ill-health.

"The ownership of a dog can also lead to increases in physical activity and facilitate the development of social contacts, which may enhance both physiological and psychological human health in a more indirect manner."

I wonder how many programmers have dogs? Developing software can, at times, be extraordinarily stressful. There have, I confess, been moments when I’ve come close to throwing the PC monitor against the wall. But, of course, I would never do that with the dog around. I’d be afraid that she might cut her paws on the glass.

Anyone else around her have a dog (or cat, ferret or gerbil?) that has a similar advantageous effect on the software development process, I wonder…?