Congratulations!

Fantastic news. Good luck with process control!

Great news !!!

Congratulations Jeff.

Now we have 2 coding horrors.....

Congratulations Jeff!

While I am not a father myself, I still know what a blessing those little souls are, as there has recently been a little baby boom in my family, too (I have a young sister and a niece now). It is really amazing how your viewpoint changes and your priorities shift once you are exposed to children. I can only guess how much more that must be true, if those children are your own.

Oh and I think what most parents like to hear: Your child looks just like you ;)

Congrats Jeff,
Delighted for you!

Des

Congrats, Jeff!

I hope your child opens Coding Horror for Kids in 3 to 5 years so I can get my kids to read it then ;)

"Toutes mes félicitations" [Fr] !

I'm a young father of a 1 month old baby and I deeply hope the best for you 3 !

Grégory

Congrats, Jeff! As a father of 2, my advice to you is to sleep now, as much as you can.

Congratulations, Jeff.

Hearty congratulations Jeff!
I wish that this CreateProcess() executes without exceptions. All the best to you n your wife. GOD bless.

Congratulations Jeff! :)

Soon enough, you will join our league of evil-fathers-teaching-their-children-to-be-True-Geeks.

Learn to sleep well now that you have the chance. You won't be getting any in 8 months' time!

Congrats with the little fella :)

Congragulations.

Ditto for the sleeping advice.

Congratulations!

Welcome to parenthood and have a good one :)

There’s no way to be a perfect parent, but there’s a million ways to be a good one!

Cheers - Prakash

Congratulations!

By the way, I'm one of those who manage to get pregnant so awkwardly and accidentally ;)

Congratulations Jeff and also to your wife Betsy!

Cheerio!

Congrats!

Stock away.. at some point, however, they turn into teenagers and your stocking is finished (or at least it appears to be). Not sure what happens after that.

But you will have 12 great years or so before that time comes!

Congratulations! :-)

Our daughter just born two weeks ago. Now I feel I didn't take the sleeping advice seriously enough :-)

Congratulations, and welcome to a whole new world!

Congratulations. You're entering a world of pain, but it's still worth it! :)

No one has mentioned that when you "fork" you quite often "spawn a new process".

Congratulations, it is a blast but hard work in a completly differnt way to what I have known.

I am teaching our little nearly 3 year old the alphabet via the keyboard... it is working quite well.

Paul.

Congratulations Jeff!

Let's hope you and your wife find the next fork a little easier. We need more Jeff like creatures in the world.

Simon.

Congratulations and best wishes!

Congratulations!

You're in for a wild ride. I am new to this as well, with a 1 year old girl who became the center of my life - you are going to learn what worrying really means.

Tsahi

Congratulations, Jeff and Betsy. Good luck!

Hey Now Jeff,
Congrats! Get ready to install baby smash. Wish you the best.

Coding Horror Fan,
Catto

Hey Jeff, I've had the privilege of reading your blog for the past few months (enjoying every minute of it), but somehow I've never managed to write a comment.

With this in mind, I find it fitting that the first comment I make will be to say:

"Congratulations on a job well done" - and I mean that for every literal, figurative and any other pleasant connotation of the phrase!

Congratulations and best of luck

Kievia

Best wishes

Many congratulations! Being a new father-of-the-most-beautiful-baby-girl-in-the-world myself, there are no words to describe the delight of seeing your own child grow and develop day after day.

And that's in spite of getting pooped on, puked on, yelled at and sleep-deprived. Those things become trivialities when the perpetrator is capable of showing absolute, unconditional, infinite DELIGHT at seeing you.

Anyway, good luck to you and your wife :).

Great title Jeff - made me LOL when I saw the title and the scan in my feed reader.

Congratulations - and all the best to you and family. As on commenter already said, get some sleep in now.

Congratulations Jeff, that's awesome news! May your shared memory be forever free from deadlock.

"Good luck with process control!"

Yeah that's right. This is obviously a high-priority process that will chew up a big chunk of your dual core (parents). Hopefully, your scheduling algorithm is well tuned so that codinghorror and stackoverflow don't become zombie tasks.

Welcome to the wonderful world of time-management.

Eric (also part of a dual core managing our two processes)
=)

Congrats Jeff! My wife and I also had difficulties, but we now have two wonderful sons, one of whom turned nine last Saturday. Holy crap, I'm old.

Anyway, as others have said, catch up on your sleep now while you can...

Congratulations!

Why do people insist on having IVF when there are so many orphans who need a loving family?
I'm sure you are very happy, but why force something that doesn't want to happen when there is a chance to change a life that was never given the love it needed.
IVF is the selfish option

Many congratulations Jeff!

Congratulations!

Me and my wife are also going to the first ultrasound examination in two weeks. I can't wait.

Sasha

Congratulations!

I was going to add a crude joke about memory leaks, bugs, processes and other programmers, but let's only think of wonderful futures for a while!

All the best to all of you!!!

Just do not be surprised if it turns out to be him/her stocking ideas in your mind and not a vice versa :)
Sometimes it is hard to say who is really raising whom :)

"Life Changing" - the things that seemed important before no longer are.

Gina Ford, Contented Little Baby book. Get it. Follow it.

When I first read it I thought "Military operation, there is now way I'm following that rubbish", but after two months we have a baby that is regular like clock work. And does sleep from 10:30 until 6:45. We didn't follow it for the first month and he (and we) were all over the place, two months later no complaints.

It also means I can say "Sorry, got to go have to bath the baby at 5:45"

Congratulations!

Congratulation!
We also needed the miracle of science and have never regretted it.
My daughters are now 12 and 14 - they are both a delight - I don't believe the teenagers are hell rubbish.
You are certainly going to find out how little sleep you can manage with - unfortunately it doesn't help to stock up in advance.

Congrats!

Congratulations!

Congratulations, and good luck surviving the period between thread spawning and .sleep() finally working right :p

Everyone's saying congratulations, so I'll be the first to say it.

Dude, bad luck. Kids suck.

</obligatory>

Congrats btw.

Looks like a very early alpha release to me ;-)

Congratulations, and all the best.

Hearty congratulations Jeff!!
And yeah.. your baby sure looks likes you ;-)

And there I was thinking this was going to be an article on the architecture of Google's Chrome...

Congrats.

Congratulations, Jeff. As you probably know by now, you are not alone amongst the people who try and try for years in the "natural way" before turning to IVF.

Oh, and remember never to expose his fragile mind to BASIC (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/e/edsgerdijk201164.html). Instead, read aloud from K&R every night :-)

Congratulations :)

Just you wait. Speaking from experience i will predict that even with your "dual processor setup" you will see "100% loads" on poth processors for some time. And the" I/O issues" you will be facing, my god, don't get me started.

Congratulations!

And don't forget to start the download of Hanselman's "BabySmash"! Immediately! ;-)

s/poth/both :)

@stEvil:

Following your logic, why reproduce at all, when you could just go pick up an orphan?

Congrats!

My wife and I had the same problem about "spawning a new process" during five very loooong years. That's why I feel very very happy for you both.

Do you feel that this is a kind of IT professionals problem?

Congratulations!

I hope you'll find my blog (troubleshooting david.exe) useful :)

Goran

Congratulations Jeff. The world needs more Atwood-type-people. I won't make any corny process puns (I tried but the good ones are already taken) but best of luck!

Congratulations!

Congrats Jeff! Say my hello to the new-atwood.exe :)

Wow!! Very excited. My wife says congrats too.
Replicating/Serializing to flesh/Creating a backup copy is a wonderful transaction.
Best of luck
lb

Jeff,

congrats. I figured you might be going through some kind of challenges not having children in our age (IIRC, you and I are the same age).

My wife and I have been going through the similar medical process, no luck yet, but we're not giving up.

One more thing to the commenter who said
>> Why do people insist on having IVF when there are so many orphans who need a loving family?

In short, because the laws in many countries make this process insanely complicated and time consuming. I know of two persons in two different countries (USA and France) that ended up adopting children from China as the procedure is drastically simpler.

Hi Jeff,

Congratulations! Becoming a father is a joy that nothing else can parallel in this world. It's be a life changing and eye opening experience for you. Welcome to the parenting club :)

Jeff -

Congratulations. A time of wonder, so easy to forget amongst the sleep deprivation (which you were used to at one time or other, of course), the growing pains, the adolescent rebellion. Then one day your child will come home boasting of a higher math SAT score than you got, and you're just so proud. (Yes, true story, my daughter scored 790, and she was pretty jazzed too!)

Good luck too.

Congrats Jeff! I'm reminded of this xkcd:

<a href="http://xkcd.com/387/">http://xkcd.com/387/</a>;

@stEvil

This is a personal decision. If you think its the right thing, go ahead and adopt 10 children and teach them your values. But let other people live how they want to.

Excellent news; as a relative newcomer via a colleague/friend who is a Stack Overflower, may I wish you all the best.

Ditto all the sleep comments - although you get used to it; you've done pre-rollout all-nighters haven't you? It's like that, every day for the first year.

Enjoy.

Congratulations! Welcome to the wonderful world of parenthood and experience the joys and emotions you never have. There never is a dull moment!

congratulations...welcome to less sleep, loads of hair pulling, weird smells, and quite possibly an angelic smile (no, the baby can't possibly get that from you - it's from your wife :D)

Forget about transferring all your ideas and knowledge.
If you raise them while staying mentally sane, you have done one hell of job.
Congrats and all the best to mom.

Congrats! I've got a 10 month old. Its a blast! We got lucky, I guess. He's slept through the night from a few weeks old.

I can't resist offering one piece of advice, though I'm sure you're sick of reading it by now. Its only a single word, though. SCHEDULE.

Jeff - congratulations, and it's a great title. Good luck with everything.

Jeff, congratulations to you and your wife! Being a father is a wonderful experience, although sometimes much like a rollercoaster ride...

Congratulations Jeff! Hope he grows up with a minimum of bugs :)
(and is born with a minimum of syntax errors)

Congrats Jeff! My oldest just moved out on his own and I can't believe it went by so fast. Enjoy!

Congratulations!

Congratulations, Jeff. As a three time parent who also went through some "challenges" getting pregnant, I understand how you feel. While you can now officially say good-bye to "free time", being a dad is really great.

Congratulations Jeff! Prepare for your life to be turned upside down - in a good way.....mostly :)

We struggled having our second child and like you had to turn to the miracle of science. Once born the doctors said that's it, we'd have to have the miracle of science x 2 to have any hope of another. Lo and behold 3 years later BANG, number 3 arrived without any science just some teenage jiggery pokery :) Nice surprise !

No doubt we'll see lots of late night posts to the blog while you're up feeding/changing baby !!

Congratulation and good luck.

I would never try to change such an announcement like "We will have a baby" to such a technical an non-human one "Spawning a New Process".

Jeff, I would suggest to keep personal things personal ... not technical. Otherwise you would never have birthday, but getting a new version :)

... oops. And sorry that I forgot :)

Congratulation and the very best to you and your growing family!

Congratulations Jeff. As someone who's currently waiting for the miracle of science, this post gives me hope. And I totally understand your comment about teenagers having babies.

BTW, you might want to remove some of the more personal information in that picture.

congrats!!!

I bet he will want to be a actor when he grows up. And he will really like oranges.

Anyway, Congratulations Jeff.

my best wishes and big congratulations

Hmm, 83 identical comments. Boring and predicatble.

Congratulations. May your child bring you delight and wonder.

Congratulations! I've been a father for just over 11 months now, and I have to say that our daughter is the absolute best thing that ever happened to me. You're going to love being a father! Best of luck!

Congratulations!

I'm not Stallman but I tell you: Being a father is much much more than contributing to emacs.

wow jeff. congrats! have 2 more then we'll be tied!

Congratulations!

I'm guessing you are already signing him/her up with openid, a blog account somewhere, and a facebook profile ;)

Congratulations!

Congratulations Jeff and Mrs Atwood. After forking off a few carbon-based processes myself I can say it is entirely worth it. I learned a lot about myself, and nothing else (short of my own birth originally) has been so profoundly life-changing.

Regarding being scarred for life....well - can you imagine having your own character flaws (or those of your loving partner) magnified and reflected back at you? How about sleep deprivation for the next year of your life? How about being scratched, bitten, vomited on, urinated on, defacated on and hit in the groin by someone so small and beautiful you couldn't possibly be angry with them? How about reading "the cat in the hat" or "the very hungry catipiller" 20 or 30 times a day for months on end? Good luck.

You do realize he/she is going to be a complete jock and care nothing about computers.

Don't laugh, it happened to me.

Congrats!

Congratulations Jeff!

Congratulations. I've also just found out that I'm going to be a Dad.

I to have a stock of crazy offbeat ideas I've been working on to populate my child's mind. Perhaps, I should start him/her off on Python first...

Congrats Jeff,

since I am interested in coding I nerver thought something could be more
overwhelming than to have a piece of code running after a long hart time of work. But there truly is. My son is now about 8 months and nothing
compares to that he is with us.

Be a lucky guy, as I am !!

Congratulations!!

Congratulations!

Say goodbye to Rock Band and gadgets and custom-built PCs. :)

I disagree with all those that say your life is over, but it will change. Of course, I say this having no kids myself, but we're expecting too, so I've at least thought about it.

Congrats!
The pregnancy can be hard on both you and your wife, and the the first six months after delivery will be full of rough nights, but it gets SOOO GOOD after that! We liked it so much, we did it 5 times! My youngest is 1, and we already have the itch for another. Regardless, we cannot have another. But honestly, that's just greed talking.

Congratulations!
Beware, however, that if your kid is anything like mine, by the time he or she is 3 your computer will no longer be used for making bug fixes to stackoverflow.com. It will, however, be used for watching train videos on YouTube, watching Super Mario videos on YouTube, and painting pictures on the Little Einsteins website.
Another word of advice - NEVER invite Richard Stallman to any playdates or birthday parties. He sounds like a real charmer.

I want to congratulate you. I agree with everyone on the sleep thing. It would be ideal if you kept your sleep up before the babies arrival. I'm curious about a couple of things. That's one baby up there. I was thinking I saw 2. I was wondering about that. What ever you do don't name the kid Version 2.0. My nephew tried it and they wouldn't allow him to use the numbers. I think her name is cute enough. Oh and make sure you check and see if it is a foul word in another language, it's a very important process!

Congrats Jeff!

That's awesome news Jeff. The title made me laugh at any rate. :)

Congratulations! The threading and synchronization issues with the new process can be a bit tricky at first, good luck ;)

Nothing is as hard as, or as rewarding as, raising a child properly.

Try to put as much work into it as you do being a geek.

Congratulations and best wishes. Fatherhood is the most trying job in all of life but it's also the most rewarding.

Congratulations!

And suddenly Stack Overflow became a site for parents...

Just kidding, congratulations!

> We liked it so much, we did it 5 times!
lol.

Congrats!

Congratulations!

Your world is about to be turned upside down.
I used to watch commercials about the peace corps: "The toughest job you'll ever love" - it actuality it is parenting.
I am glad all your 'hard work' paid off!
Congrats!

Congrats. You'll have to start watching those ctrl+alt+del strokes more carefully.

Congratulations, Jeff!

Best Wishes!

Congratulations and many wishes for every happiness!!

Damn, and here I was hoping for another well researched post.
But congrats none the less, a few days ago I was thinking you were gonna' have a baby soon, only makes sense, you have been home more ;)

Congrats Jeff - parenthood is a wonderful thing

Just make sure it learns C so Joel can be happy.

Congratulations!

Congrats and best of luck to the three of you! As a proud father of two, I'm confident in saying that your priorities are about to be severely rearranged...

Massive congratulations, your life has just changed for the better :-)
As far as your entry is concerned, here's mine a couple of years ago when our boy was born

http://wespeakdigital.blogspot.com/2006/12/q.html

Congrats, and may you not have spawned a Daily WTF! I have a 6.5 month old daughter, and she's awesome.

I don't know why I just read 113 of your comments before saying Congrats!

Just take solace in the fact that your child will likely rebel by becoming a jock or joining the military.

Best of luck.

Congratumatations!

Congratulations! Your life will change utterly and completely. It is a wonderful thing.

You will get all sorts of unsought advice. Perversely here is one, listen selectively to any advice. Filter it through your unique child. Though from reading your blog, you should not have that problem.

Oh and you will know the joy of having your actions instant replayed by the little one with appalling accuracy.

The first ten years you will be physically exhausting. The next ten years will be emotionally exhausting.

More unsought advice, treat the "terrible twos" as a trial run for the teenage years. These little ones like to confirm where the boundaries are at so don't take it personally. They need to know you care to make the effort. It will pay off, mostly when they have kids of their own.

Last bit of unsought advice, most importantly, the mistake you make in raising them is not as important as what you do afterwords. The best thing you can do is to show them how to recover from mistakes, missteps, and misunderstandings by letting them see you are human and learning.

Signed,
Father of 3 teenagers.

Time to start a "parenting" tag on stackoverflow, with questions like "How to get your toddler to sleep through the night" and "Best ways to get kids to eat vegetables"

Congrats!

Another note on the computer: might want to find a case that will lock the optical drives away from curious hands for a few years. My daughter broke the tray in half on the desktop, and she inserted a number of assorted coins into the slot-load CD player in my wife's car, so neither version of loader is safe if they have access to it (and by the time you find out they can reach it, it's too late).

The process of raising a child is mostly iterative in nature, and there will be many times you feel like you're stuck in a loop with no break in sight. Just remember that humans, whether 3 or 103, are constantly testing the boundaries, and while you want to encourage curiosity, you also want firm limits. Of course, that won't really be important until they can walk.

Something else: read to your child before they are born. I thought it was pretty silly at first, but the day my daughter was born she would turn her head towards my voice every time I was talking to someone else in the room (it's impossible to use your normal voice when talking to a new-born). It also means that when s/he's fussy at night there's a chance that once you've exhausted the options with the diaper change/bottle/burp routine, a book and a rocking chair could be all you need to calm her/him down. I'd recommend getting a nice book that you can both stand reading for a couple months (maybe even something your child might enjoy at an older age) and putting his/her name and the date you bought it on the inside cover, something they'll treasure when they're older, and keep it away from them for the next 10-20 years ;)

Best wishes to the new family. Get ready for some early a.m.,one-handed keyboarding.

Congrats Jeff! My daughter is now 5 months old and I can assure you, it is the most wonderful thing. You won't regret it. Everyone says the first three months are the worst, and they are rough, but let me tell you, when your child is a few months old, and she grasps your fingers and pulls herself up, the look of wonder on her face makes it all worthwhile.

Congratulations! I guess that makes this a Genetic Coding Horror?

The worst (or best, depending on your point of view) "geeky announcement" I ever experienced was when an acquaintance sent out a D&D-style character sheet when his first was born... *shudder*

Congratulations! We did IVF too a few years ago. I'm now a happy father of 3 children. 2 were boy/girl twins from the IVF process, the 3rd, a 5 month old boy now, was a surprise. Be careful! I've since talked to many people (friends and strangers) that went through the IVF process and later ended up pregnant naturally.

Also, make sure those ultrasounds are done carefully, there could be another one hiding in there!

Congrats! I'll attest that not just the first 3 months are rough (though being awaking at 2 am and then again at 3 am and then at 4am... is rough), but the first year or so are... but as they start to learn new things and become more independent, it gets to be a lot of fun. My daughter is 3 1/2 now and it's amazing the things she does or the stories she tells. She's quite good on the computer too, having mastered the art of dragging my icons every which way (thankfully deleting them is a skill she has not yet learned). She's baffled still by the duel monitors though, as she loses track of where the mouse goes when it leaves the main screen. Your kid will be expecially confused with three monitors.

Congratulations Jeff.

Congratulations Jeff. It is an amazing experience. You will definitely look at lots of things from a different perspective.

Congratulations!

That's fantastic news Jeff - Congratulations!

Congratulations!

My 2nd was just born on 8/8/8, weighed 8lbs 8oz.

Congratulations!

Better watch out. They tend to leak memory.

With all my heart, congratulations my good man. Take it easy, and one day at a time.

sounds to me like
DIAPER HORROR

Congratulations Jeff!

Reproducing may not take any extra skill, but all the stuff that comes after?

Good luck! (from a father of two)

Congrats, Jeff! As a new dad of just over 6 months, Kris is right - the first 3 months are hard, and they get slightly easier after (at least youre sleeping consistently), but overall this time has been as challenging as anything has ever been.

The biggest change is in your priorities. Suddenly all those geeky side projects arent so important anymore, or you decide to save them for when s/he's older and can enjoy them with you (I cannot WAIT for my son to experience Legos, Halo, the Matrix, Star Wars, junkbot building, playing chess, football, fishing, etc etc). And suddenly there's more downtime.

Every decision you make is colored by thoughts of your child. I stopped buying gadgets, computer components, and video games because I thought the money would be better spent on my son. Its shocking at first, let me tell you. In the end its so incredibly rewarding.

I guess in hindsight a child makes you realize your priorities weren't really as important as you thought they were.

Enjoy every single moment. It will be the hardest thing you ever do.

I'm the praying type, and we will pray for you all!

OG

You fork(2)ed!!!!

Congratulations!

Congrats Jeff have you come up with any names?

I don't usually comment but just want to say CONGRATULATIONS! ^_^

I'm really happy for you Jeff. A bit worried too though. You seem so happy, and miscarriages *do* happen. We had 1 (out of 3 properly born). My mom had 2 (out of 2). That's why we don't usually announce until we have to. Nothing wrong with it; it's nature's way.

For the adoption fascists out there, please go adopt your own children and leave Jeff the heck alone. My dad arranges adoptions a lot, and I can tell you they have their own issues, and are not for everyone. Even couples who do adopt as a moral choice tend to like to have *one* child of their own if they can.

Jeff,

Congratulations--I couldn't be happier for you.

Is it only I who is seeing the outline of a skull in an empty void in the head :-)
You are going to have a geek for a kid, Congratulations...!

Congratulations Jeff!

How soon into the sono-gram where you thinking you could do better with the video feed, and started checking the cables to improve the UI?

Congrats, dude! Enjoy him/her before the teenage years.

Congratz, man!

I can imagine a year from now reading a post on here about building your own voice-activated remote-controlled baby feeder/air purifier with rocking and music capabilities for under $200.

Congratulations!!!

Don't you just abhor those punk kids accidentally getting pregnant. It took us a solid year. My wife is in her ninth month now, it gets super fun in the 28th week, and super miserable in the 36-40.

Some unsolicited advise from a father with a six-month-old baby:

A newborn baby is a real shock to your life. I was told this by many, many people, and I believed them, but you have no idea until you go through it.

My advice is that you save nothing -- NOTHING! -- to do "after the baby is born". If you have to prepare a nursery, do landscaping work, fix a running toilet, or whatever, do it BEFORE the baby arrives. Get the house absolutely spotless beforehand, too, so you have some room in which a mess can grow the first few weeks when you don't have time to keep up on things like that. Line up as many friends and family as you can to help with food, cleaning, laundry, etc.

Since you work from home, I'd strongly suggest discussing with your wife how that is going to be handled. You're going to need very strong boundaries between working and family life if you want to succeed at both.

Finally, I'd suggest reading a few parenting books and picking a parenting philosophy before the baby is born. Even if it's not exactly what you end up doing, it's a starting point. You also know some of the basic facts. A friend of ours, for example, actually thought she was "helping" her five-day-old baby by "not spoiling her" by not feeding her every time she asked to be fed. She actually thought she was helping her baby become independent by leaving her to cry for food at that age. Any research on her part would prevented such stupid notions from being formed. (Note that I'm not getting into the contentious issue of whether it's OK to let babies "cry it out", as nobody believes that would apply to a five-day-old baby crying to be fed.)

Congrats! As a father of a 2 year old girl I can tell you that there is much joy ahead for you and your wife.

Our geeky line was 'And the baby makes 11' (get it?)

Congratulations!

Congratulations!!!

Thanks God for a bit o' science...

Congratulations Jeff!

First of all congratulations! We are expecting our first in March, so we share in your excitement.

As for the geeky reference for "we're having a baby"...
I started a baby blog to document our experience and keep the distant family and friends in-touch. The default post for WordPress is titled "Hello World". I thought it was very fitting for the introduction of a new life and tied into my own geeky personality.

Congratulations!

I always tell people that being a programmer was great preparation for being a parent: little to no sleep, changing requirements, demanding unspecific users, everybody thinks they can tell you how to do it better, and after the fact you can always find something you could have done better.

In re: scarring, you won't truly know how you've affected your kid(s) until you have grandkids and find out what terrifyingly embarrassing things your kids are teaching them. (My daughters still remember dancing on my feet in the local Waffle House while my wife tried to pretend she wasn't related and whispered sotto voce that we should stop because people were looking at us. True enough, but all of the women staring were either lost, remembering times with their own fathers or sadly remembering times that could have been while the men were grinning and enjoying our impromptu ballet.)

Enjoy your kid while they're young and never let yourself feel too big to get down and play with them. Those memories form a quiet conspiracy between the two of you that lasts a lifetime.

Oh, and, you're not prepared. No matter what you've read, no matter who you've talked to, no matter how many you've had before, you're never prepared. Each one is a unique miracle that comes missing some of the policy and procedure manual that you'll have to fill in yourself. Make a lot of mistakes and get over 'em. Kids have survived generations of worse parenting than you can inflict and flourished (even before air conditioning and indoor plumbing, if you can imagine).

It's a wild and wonderful adventure. Lose yourself in it and you may find a little bit of the kid inside you that had been lost.

A proud father of four (two step and two biological) and grandfather of two.

Congratulations Jeff! :) Programming with human factors...

Congratulations! Nice to see that after forking failed a few times, that you got the return result you wanted. I expect you'll have an evil genius on your hands.

Congratulations!
With all due respect to Richard Stallman, no, it doesn't take talent to reproduce, but it takes a lot to manage it and your efforts do affect a lot more people than Emacs. I'm a father of three, with the oldest a teenage daughter. THAT takes far more effort, learning, and patience than any programming I've done.

Tim

Just one word, Jeff: Congratulations!!
I hope this child fill your lives (yours and your partner's) with a new happiness.

Am about one month away from launching our own little science project onto the world. Congrats and happy development!

Always happy to hear that a nerd got a little play. Congrats Jeff!

Congratulations!

Congradulations and may a wonderful life be ahead for your family!

~1209600 seconds till our first child is due.

Definitely something in the water this year, seems like everybody's having a baby!

Congrats and good luck. Right must get some sleep, night!

Congrats dude!

Adoption is great, but in the United States we are having kids below the replacement rate (immigration is the only reason the population is increasing), and there are really not that many kids up for adoption. I run into people all the time that think that there are still orphanages crammed with kids in the U.S. Quite the contrary. Orphanages have essentially ceased to exist here, and people that want to adopt often end up waiting a long, long time before a child is available for them. Many ultimately give up and go to other countries to find a child to adopt.

Yes, it is a different situation globally, but I just thought I'd point out that from a U.S. point of view we are having a low number of kids and also absorbing immigrants and adoptees from other countries, so people here choosing to go the IVF route is not part of a larger problem.

I also don't know why people who go with IVF get picked on more than people who have a child without special measures. A couple choosing to have a child is having the same impact whether they do it with IVF or without, so I don't understand this notion that it's somehow just a little bad if you have a kid normally but is extra bad if you have one through IVF. If anything, I'd think a significant proportion of kids conceived "normally" are unwanted, will have a rough time of it, and society may also have a rough time with them. Children born with IVF are clearly very much wanted by their parents. Go pick on drunken teenagers if you want to pick on someone for having irresponsible births.

Congrats!

I'll pass on the wisdom my father passed to me:

"This is the easy part!"

Congratulations Jeff. I rarely comment on blogs, but this insight into your life, does really help make a connection with me. I'm on the same boat, still not ready for IVF; but thinking about it. Congratulations, best of wishes.

So does this mean that several years worth of prolonged programming binges can make it difficult to impregnant a woman?

Say no. Please.

Congratulations! We have a ten-month old, and the only full-nights of sleep I've had since were while at Software Development. Though the first night, I still woke up at the normal feeding times.

You will be amazed at how fast they develop personality and preferences. And then how quickly they change. Somedays I think that he changes his preferences because he knows my wife and I have adapted to his current prefs.

Still I wouldn't trade it for anything.

congratulations and best wishes

Congratulations man & good luck on an amazing journey. ;)

Congrats! Great geeky title.. I actually got quite a kick out of it.. it's much better than Jeff 2.0.

For some baby name help check out this site...

http://babynamey.com

i stumbled across it back when we were looking for names for our baby.

Congratulations! I hope you are all healthy and well, and wish you and your family all the best. A new child is a great present (and commitment). Becoming a father is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me...

Enhorabuena!!
Congratulations!!

Congratulations!

There is all kinds of advice to give new parents, but the best advice I ever received was to sleep when your newborn sleeps.

Congratulations! :-)

Congratulations Jeff, as a father my heart goes out to you. Be prepared for a atleast one year of odd sleep schedules (infants can sleep as much as 12 hours, just not 12 hours straight), lots of dirty clothes, and some pretty nasty stuff. RMS only had part of that statement correct. While it doesn't take much to create a child you'll be perfecting him or her for the rest of your life.

It's only after having a son of my own did I understand the work my mom had to put in to get us where we are today. And she had to raise 4 of us!

Please be as curious as your kid is about the world. As adults we take for granted that we have seen a lot and tend to gloss over things easily. I never paid attention to buskers until recently, when my son liked the music one day. Then I noticed all the other parents who were also stopping.

Congratulations J & B, sleep is for wusseys!

Mine is nearly 30 and they have been the best 30 years of my life (so far).

Invest in being human now and reap massive returns in the future as well as a journey that unfolds magic in every moment of every day.

All of the best, Mike

Congrats, Jeff. Fatherhood is a wonderful thing. All my best to you and your wife.

Mazal tov!!!

Nice fork()! Congratulations!!

Congratulations, Jeff!
Don't be afraid to keep us informed. We want to know if the baby is Jeff 2.0 or wife 2.0 :-)

Congratulations!

Congratulations from Santiago, Chile!

I hope all go well.... and welcome to a new life

Congratulations. My Agile partner and I also used "The Miracle of Science" development methodology to spawn a new process. There was an unintentional fork, and we are now blessed with two two year old boys.

Congratulations!

Congrats from Tunisia!

Congratulations, Jeff. Very exciting! Way better than emacs.

Just wait for its first core dump.

Congratulations!

I'd been suspecting for some time that "Jeff Atwood" was a fictional character. Now I'm nearly certain. Any blog with this much positive reaction has to be duping someone.

Congrats Jeff! Good luck with your new addition to the family.

On a side note, what the heck is Stallman talking about? If you were to dismiss Steve Job's or Bill Gate's conception as useless and it doesn't help out other people you would be contradicting yourself. What if your parents thought how you did and didn't want to have you? I guess maybe the world would THEN be better off. Sometimes this man makes the most stupid comments, just go and ask Steve or Bill's parents if they aren't proud of there kids and if they think if they didn't have their kids that it would of helped out more people.

Sometimes I think Richard sounds like Michael Moore with his outrageous comments and claims. Richard, I've just lost more respect for you again. Life is a gift, I've seen some amazing people come from some families that you would think shouldn't be reproducing (Idiocracy anyone) but everything worked out and that's the miracles of life.

Scott

Never commented here before but been a reader for some time now.

Just wanted to say congratulations and thanks for all the great reads!

Congratulations sir. Here's to the many late nights and early mornings and funny looks that lie ahead :)

I wonder what happened at the constructor, since the process is not spawned that easy, you say. Maybe add some more non-premature optimization? Or was the thread pool deadlocked?

Re: The laboratory of the young mind.

The stochastics predominate. The only hope of attaining meaningful results is to seek patterns in the chaos.

Good luck, congratulations and may God be with you all.

It must have been stressful working on SO and dealing with all of this.

Congratulations!

As a fellow father and crazy geek, I wanted to say congratulations. You are about to embark on the most rewarding experience there is in life. I wish you and your wife an awesome, healthy pregnancy, and hope you have a happy, healthy baby in a few months.

Congratulations!!

Congratulations!

That picture may only be at 13 weeks and 1 day, but there is definately some Coding Horror potential in that head. Well, it looks like a head, do they have heads at 13 weeks?

Congratulations, Jeff! You've managed to scare the entirety of your readers with the news that you are reproducing! :)

Grats Jeff!

Congrats. I too needed the miracle of science to aid in reproduction. It took a long damn while, but eventually we were able to complete the development project ahead of deadline by 9 weeks, unfortunately quite a bit over budget.

Watching your kids develop is one of the greatest and freakiest things you'll ever witness. Freaky because they really reflect you back to yourself. And the great moments just pile up one after another. I'm proud to say that my almost 9 year old daughter has almost completely memorized the dialog of the original Star Wars trilogy as well as LOTR. I'm sure she'll impress some geeky boy with that ability at some point. And so the future of geekdom will be ensured.

have fun, you deserve it. And you aren't the only one to get ticked off at people accidentally becoming pregnant... I had to avoid them in order to keep myself from murderous rage.

Congrats!

Congratulations! Remember, only you know how to raise your own child. Don't listen to anyone about anything. You'll get conflicting advice from the nurses in the same hospital about EVERYTHING!

My son turned 2 months on the 5th. It's amazing to watch him learn. I seriously think of him as programmable. Amazing.

Congrats, Jeff. Do you know who the father is?

Congrats!, to both of you. Be warned: I've heard that new processes take up heaps of memory and generate lots of I/O errors; I hope you have automatic garbage collection. Good luck debugging :)

Congratulations and good luck!

I wish your future child the best. Additionally, I'm a developer FOR Philips Healthcare, and wanted to let you all know that we're releasing a new version of our TERRIBLE website on 9/27. There are all kinds of awesome clinical images to come, as well as much better UI examples. Thanks for letting me do my shameless plug. www.healthcare.philips.com :)

Congratulations!

Congratulations

Congratulations! I had a second kid two months ago and they take turns keeping us awake, but it's soooooooo worth it! =)))))

Jeff, wonderful news! Welcome to the fold of fatherhood, one of the most rewarding experiences you will have. As the father of 2 girls, I have to find anything that can beat watching your children grow, develop, explore, and learn each day. Whether your child is laughing as she jumps down the stairs, or cooing as she grasps your fingers, you'll store those memories forever!

Stallman has some issues he's never worked out, and the more I listen to his beliefs and read his comments, the more I realize that while he has some decent ideas, he's not someone I would seek to emulate or seek respect from.

Wow, congratulations. We also had our first child later in our 30s, after getting medical help with the logistics of pregnancy. Raising kids changes everything.

Congrats Jeff!

Can't wait to read his/her blog. :)

Congratulations! And, yes, Stallman is an idiot ;-)

Congratulations! Having children changed the way I viewed life and priorities for the better. And when they hit 3 or 4 they are great usability testers and you can pay them with fruit snacks!

Yoo hoo!
Congratulations! Especially that it must have been a long, long road to reach this goal. Congrats again!

Congratulations Jeff!, Let's hope the 2.0 version of you is even better =D

Congratulations, Jeff! Incidentally, that process' priority will be realtime for the next couple of years, and, you will find you don't have the correct permissions to change it.

Godspeed.

Congratulations Jeff.

And to think, for the last few days I was worried that you had become deathly ill.

Congratulations Jeff.

Congratulations Jeff! Hope you have a beautiful healthy baby! Good Luck with everything!

Congratulations,

And good luck for the coming years :)

Our first is due in 2 months.

Congratulations!

Scary. Somehow programmers are spreading.

At least your baby will be a teenager at the right time, when geeks are cool, and quarterbacks are the laughing stock of high schools.

That'll show 'em.

Congratulations Jeff.

Oh god. A little baby Atwood. Be afraid.

Seriously, enjoy every second!

Congratulations,

And good luck in your new project :)

Congratulations on this extreamly fun programing project :-)

Way to go. You knocked her up good.

Congrats Jeff. Off to buy RockBand Baby Gear...

Congratulations!

Recent conversation between my 2yr old son and his grandmother:

gm: "You know to listen to your daddy, right?"
son: shaking his head and smiling, "Noooo"

Yeah, good luck in having control beyond 1 year old. :)

Heartiest Congratulations Jeff,
May GOD bless your kid, and may your kid live a purposeful life.

... continued.

But I've enjoyed every bit of it so far. It wouldn't be any fun if your kids always listened... just easier.

Congratulation Jeff!

Proud dad of a 4-month old. Enjoy your new addition!

Congrats, Jeff!

Honestly when I saw the title I was expecting a follow-up to your previous post (on blog.stackoverflow.com) on Cache-based background "tasks" in ASP.NET.

Congrats, Jeff!

Be sure your new solution is strongly typed, unit tested, and accepts valid parameters without returning too many arguments, or it may throw a TemperTantrumException or a HissyFitException when you least expect it.

Before I had kids my friends with kids tried to explain to me how much your life changes when you have them. Its one of those things like the Matrix that you can't be told about you have to experience it.

As a father of twins I had no comprehension of the scope and extent that my life would change until they arrived. I used to juggle many projects at one time now I have time for at most one.

Cherish your free time because it will only be a memory in a few what will feel like short months. Don't get me wrong, my kids are the best things that have happened to me. Just be prepared. Congrats by the way...

Congrats, Jeff!

Congratulations!

I always wonder where you find the time and energy to research all of these subjects that you write about. As a father of two small children who works from home regularly, I can tell you that it's VERY difficult just to focus on the work at hand, let alone find time to research new subjects. I wish you lots of luck.

"Félicitations" Jeff ! (Congratulations)

congrats! my nephews (3) were all conceived via IVF.

best of luck to you and your SVN repository (aka, wife)

Congratulations Jeff!! As a new dad myself, I can assure you that you are in for a wild ride. Resist the urge to buy neat gadgets. My son has an OLPC before he left the womb. I hope it's still relevant when he's old enough to actually use it...

Congratulations Jeff!

Congrats!

But I don't think you will be successful in your geek teachings to the kid. As most children rebel against their parents, your kid will probably become a lawyer. :)

Congratulations Jeff!

... so will you make him learn C? =)
Anyway, Congratulations !

Just a quick word to say congrats, if the quality of this blog is any indication to go by, you'll make a fine pops!

Cheers!

Congrats.

Kids = best.thing.ever

Congrats!

Now you need to get some shirts like this:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/interests/giftsforkids/6c71/

Congrats, Jeff! I hope s?he's a blogger!

You're the Daddy, man...

Seriously, Congratulations...

How many months more???

"Having kids is great, you can teach them to hate the things you hate, and they practically raise themselves what with the internet and all."

Our 3 year old daughter said at dinner last night as the adults were conversing:

"Am I talking to myself?"

LMAO... Wow 3 years of surviving my sarcasm and look what has happened!

Best of everything Jeff!
(i.e. no sleep, the pee/poop, the pukes, pediatrician visits, and more love than a heart can handle)

Congratulations, and for the record, being a part of the creation and shaping of a human being who has the potential to do anything is far more helpful and profound than programming Emacs.

natural inheritance huh? :)

Many congratulations to you all, Jeff!

And Stallman's wrong: if reproduction required no special talents, absoltely everyone could do it. You managed it only with a whole lot of effort and technological assistance, and there are those who simply cannot no matter what they do.

Whereas just about anyone can contribute code to Emacs, and has.

I thought this was going to be about Google's Chrome browser and how it spawns a new process for each tab.

Oh, but congrats on the kid :)

Congratulations Jeff!

I hope an even more advanced miracle of science, called ICSI works for me...
I'm getting the return value from CreateProcess this Thursday! :-)

Congratulations, what a great way to announce!

Having recently spawned one myself, I can say that don't believe what they say, babies are not finite-state automata, you cannot program them in any way, they'll just be who they are!

Congratulations - great news!

Congrats!

I highly recommend you read "The Happiest Baby on the Block". Worked wonders for us.

Congratulations!

Congratulations! The world needs more good nerds :D

'Grats!

I like your announcement. Wish I had thought of something that witty for announcing my girls. :-)

Jeff,

You can clearly tell, from the sonogram, it's a boy!

Scott

Congratulations!

Amazing news, best wishes to all three of you. :)

Congratulations!

Congrats Jeff. My wife and I are not far behind you (12 weeks).

Cool dude :)

My kids are teenagers now - want to trade? I think it would be a valuable experience for you. Might keep you from trying this again :)

Seriously, you're in for the ride of your life, but it's worth it! And a test-tube baby too... that's just geekalicious :)

Wow, congratulations. It sounds like it was a frustrating road, but "better living through chemistry" paid off in the end.
No amount of reading or listening to advice or playing with other peoples kids can prepare you for parenthood. But you will be amazed at how fast you adapt to having your heart and soul outside of your body and you will be astounded by your own capacity for love.

Congrats!

I hope you made sure to have your work peer reviewed!

Congrats. As a father of three, I can say parenting is the greatest challenge and joy of my life. Words escape me trying to describe it.

On a somber note, I was trying to introduce my eldest to the joys of computer science, but sadly, she is clearly not interested. I was hoping it would be something we could share and strengthen our relationship with, but evidently she is what my wife has termed "boy crazy". Go figure. Make sure you stock baby's bookshelf with lots of Shel Silverstein, including The Giving Tree and the Missing Piece.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shel_Silverstein

Too many underlings.

SPAWN MORE OVERLORDS!

I'd say you'll be the depository for children's songs but you won't mind at all. I love to sing children's music now. You'll find your wisdom is not in your knowledge.

Congrats Jeff ... btw does Aeron also make baby chairs ???.

So, that's just super news. I'm super excited to hear about that.

Congrats!!!!

Congratulations.
I believe the correct term for creating a new process is 'forking'.

Enjoy your growing family!

Hey! Congratulations Jeff. Best wishes to all of you. Incredible title. But beware: the new process tends to be quite greedy before optimised and other proccess like "sleep", "sex" etc. don't get much to lease until T-birth + 6.31138519 × 10^10 ms or so...

Ian, that's even better. Somehow this has to be incorporated into a nerd pickup line - wanna go back to my place and fork.

Congratulations, Jeff!

Best example of 1+1=3 :-) .
All the best to your wife.

Congrats :)
Make sure he'll have good environment, don't let him talk to the PHP, ruby, and python kids :P
Send him to a .NET School :P

Congratulations, Jeff! I think your title was just geeky enough, but not too much. :)

Felicitaciones!

Stallman is a self-worshipper.

Every conception is a miracle. If you can write a program that can impregnate someone with a child, and that child is apart of the code that you wrote, I would be impressed....

Congratulations!

When I try to tell my friends with no kids what it's like I tell them that it's like going from black-and-white to color, although perhaps of a slightly boring movie. Lots of mundane headed your way, but there is a richness to it that can't be described.

Congrats Jeff (and family)!

OMFGWTFBBQ!!! Nice work, Jeff!

Congratulations on the new edition to the home. Life will change, for the better.

Sleep. Now. Please. Lots.

Your first few months with the baby may be easy, in which case you'll be happy you're well-rested and able to process it all effectively and enjoy it; they may be difficult, in which case the sleep you bank now will work to cushion you against the crushing effects of sleep deprivation.

Congratulations on your baby. =)

Congratulations!!

I have long subscribed to the idea that children learn not by our good direction but by our good example. Despite my best efforts to exploit this theory to their advantage, my children have made a point of being as different from me in their intellectual pursuits as could be humanly possible. Neither of them is a computer scientist or a physician. Truly, they have become themselves. In retrospect, my not having god-like influence over them was not a bad idea at all. Welcome, Jeff, to the humbling, shocking, enthralling and enduring world of parenthood from which death is the only escape and the observer is constantly affected by the observation. Good luck!

Congratulations...

Hearty congrats Jeff.

Gotta add my congratulations!

Congratulations!

You've taken the first step toward becoming a father!

Remember, Scott H has been extolling the virtues of his two upon us and how technology has played in his experiences with them. You need to do the same to give a differing view of these experiences.

Good luck, and I hope all goes well up to and after the delivery of you first! It will be the most enjoyable experience you will ever have!

Just think... you'll have your very own Mini Me!

Ah, I think I beat you on the geekiness: I used "1UP" for my second child's faire-part. Congratulations!

Congratulations Elizabeth and Jeff.

All the best on the journey of unconditional love; the best and least measurable return on investment of any project; and discovering you can do more with fewer hours of sleep than you ever imagined possible.

Congrats!

But shouldn't the title have been "Spawning a Child Process"?

Congrats - Jeff.

The wife and I hit the Miracle of Science lottery roughly three years ago and ended up with boy/girl twins who are about to turn two.

Get ready for quite a change...

:)

Congrats Jeff.

But remember "With great power comes great responsibility." - Stan Lee

First time I've ever posted on your blog, but wanted to drop a congratulations! We're expecting our third in January. While we didn't have to resort to science, it did take several years. Again, congrats!

Yay for IVF! It sounds awful, but it makes you feel that they're much more precious than those who seemed to have kids without even trying!

Congratulations!

Congratulations Jeff, best of luck. My wife and I are going through IVF at present after a number of years of trying naturally, it's a tough road and I'm pleased it worked out for you.

@stEvil.

What do you base your comments on?

In New Zealand there is a pool of couples waiting on a list to adopt a child. Many of these couples will never get a child through adoption. In my region there where only 2 children placed with adoptive parents last year. Needless to say the waiting pool is significantly larger than 2 couples.

I don't see IVF as a selfish option.

Having a child is like sex.. no wait. It is like software, like Stallman said. First time I agree with him since 1990.

Congratulations!

I thought it was very funny when I opened it up and saw the ultrasound.

Congratulations! With a new kid and your stackoverflow.com, does this mean that you will start updating your blog annually?

Hey, congrats dude!

Mucho Congrats Jeff.

Well done making it thru IVF with your sanity intact (I hope)...

Looks like Atwood 2.0 has been released to manufacturing :)

Congrats and best wishes.

Oh god, congratulations man. =D You gotta be so proud and happy.

It also scares me a bit what will this child have to go through with the father it'll have. Think we have a Coding Horror Redux in the making? =p

Wow Jeff. Congratulations.

Now you get to answer every question on God's green earth... whether you want to or not.

ha ha...

"Are we there yet?"

Really though, good for you.

Hey great news Jeff !

enjoy !

For those of you just tuning in, this blog is just at the point where Fonzie's skis have left the ramp but he hasn't hit the water yet.

Congrats on your baby, but more so congrats on joining the 3% of computer nerd population that have actually had sex. LOL!

Ha, and I thought your post was going to be about how Google's Chrome spawns a new process for every new tab opened. I need to get out more...

Nevertheless, congratulations!

Soon you'll have to decide on a PID for the new process. (couldn't resist)

Congratulations, Jeff.

Hi Jeff,

Congratulations! I'm about to have a baby too, and exactly today I knew it's a little `she` who we're waiting for hehe.

Thanks so much for all the great comments, everyone.

Yes, I do read them all, and I'm sure Betsy will too! It's only fair since she's doing all the real work here.

I particularly appreciate any hard-won bits of geek dad advice anyone has -- if it's wasn't clear by now, I have no idea what I'm doing!

congrats

Well done Betsy. Jeff, face it, you did the easy bit.

As a two time father, my only advice is... watch out for the smell.

Am I right dad's, or am I right?

"I particularly appreciate any hard-won bits of geek dad advice anyone has -- if it's wasn't clear by now, I have no idea what I'm doing"

1) Take some Vicks with you to the hospital and rub some on your top lip when you go into the delivery ward. You'll thank me.
2) Don't wear squeeky shoes into the delivery ward. You REALLY don't want to draw attention to yourself.
3) Enrol in a remedial comedy course. It's a well known fact that your ability to tell a joke decays exponentially with the number of children you have.
4) Having children means never being allowed to play World Of Warcraft... ever... again.
5) Get ready for the best roller coaster ride of your life. Watch "Parenthood" for some good being a Dad tips.

Congrats

Congratulations Jeff =)

"As an aside, this is something my wife and I have worked at for a number of years"

Oh poor poor Jeff. MORE work?!