//TODO: #1

So, I used to post my reflections after my iterations are complete and I haven't been. Not because I haven't been doing any reflection,  but because my iterations have been different and more on the fly now that things are wrapping up. So, now I will be posting my fogbugz queue and going over the big things I will tackle the following weeks. Maybe I can get some advice, or just a thumbs up, or maybe a cheerleading squad? Anyway, I think it will help me to stay motivated and reflect. Here goes #1:

Ok, so tomorrow I am working with the consultant and I will be making the "Add New Business" page(#50). It's just a data entry form, hopefully wont take too long. I hope to tackle "Troubleshoot add/edit classifieds issue" as well (#36).

During the week I need to finish the import I started, (#39). I have discussed this and I am using a program called FMPro Migrator. I will let you know how this goes, so far so good.

That should take me most of the way through this week, with time for one more thing. I will keep updating.

OK, some unrelated things.

In response to my question about "Hextrupling" my knowledge base: Thank you to reader Alex De Gaston for letting me know that the correct terms are: Sextuple/Hextuple. (Shoutout to SlackMasterK as well)

The coolest thing I have seen on the internet in at least a month(this means a lot because I see a lot of kickin things on the internet): A Flowchart of "Today Was a Good Day" by Ice Cube

NYC Code Camp is Jan 10th!  Looking forward to presentations from Bill Robertson (Garbage Collection), Stephen Bohlen (TDD), and David Penton (Caching). If you are coming and see me please make sure to say hi. Really like networking at these events.

Big Time Full Year Reflection

I can't even comment on how much I have learned in the past year. As far as how my project is going, it's going well... there are still a handful of things to be done. Partially because of scope creep and partially because "90% of the work is done with 10% to go" (I forget who said that to me, may have been a commenter let me know if it was you.)

I started this blog in April of this year, between this thing and Project 007 my knowledge and confidence in my ability have hextrupled (yeah, I made that up, ten points to the nerd that knows the real word for that). The best part, is, that I've met a whole bunch of people in the process.

If I were to start this project all over again what would I do different? Well, I mean, I wouldn't have gone halfway up a few paths. Like wasting time checking out MVC, LINQ, and other directions I decided not to go in... but that is a necessary for any project, I suppose. I maybe would have spent the first few weeks writing admin screens for people gathering data, but back then I didn't have the confidence in my data structure that I have now, so my fear was that it would change over time. It is a pain doing this data import now, even though it was made MUCH easier by the locating of a SW tool to import images from FMP to SQL. I would have started the consultant earlier, and asked more questions about layers to people that knew more than I do. I would have been cleaner in the structuring of my folders. I would have been more realistic on my time estimates, but that is something I'm getting much better at, so I'm proud of my growth.

What did I do right? Well, I think that the best thing I did was keep up the iterative process in the form of sprints. I think that my data structure was strong, and though the consultant disagrees, NHibernate is awesome. I like how most of my content is database driven, and I took the extra time to set things up that way. I like that I took a stand on some things that I thought were important. All in all, I like that I took a big risk, and I really thing things are coming to a great fruition. 

Later this week I'm going to post everything I have to go and how I am breaking it down. Hopefully some people can give me some wisdom when they were in just this situation. 

Good night and happy new year!!!

(PS like the new GD tee? I can thank Lloyd Humpereys for the design. They are available at all the high end Girl Developer stores near you. )  

Reflection - Iteration 8 of 9

 

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Honestly, I kid. I know I've been doing a lot of complaining lately ... and in my defense I have been pretty stressed. This is a huge responsibility, and I take it very seriously. I'm enamored by the idea behind the site. I'm in love with the design. I seriously can't wait to forward the link around to everyone and get their reaction. I have been given many resources and freedoms as far as the development process, and that means so much to me. All in all I can't wait to step back and say "F-yeah, I did that." That being said, and I'm sure that many of you have been at this point in your development careers.

As I've discussed I'm a n00b. I started out with a SQL focus about 6 years ago. Dabbled a bit in VB. I have been doing ASP.NET/C# for about 2.5 years now. So, developing an application of this magnitude has been a rocky, rocky road. I've had a lot of support, but even now during crunch time, I'm exhausted. In a good way? I imagine this is how you feel when giving birth (if even one guy emails me that giving birth "is not that hard" I'm flipping the heck out. Men always say this and should never EVER no matter what your wife tells  you.) I imagine this is like that part where it is most painful and almost over. I have one page left to develop. It's a doozy. I have some loose ends to tie up on 3 others. November 1st is my Alpha deadline. Then December 1st for Beta.

Tonight I am getting a decent night's sleep. I left earlier than usual. However, lately not so much. Again, I'm not complaining! This will all be worth it in the end, such an accomplishment for myself. I'm so excited.

Any words of support or advice from people who have been here are much appreciated. Any words of "HOLY CRAP YOU STILL HAVE A WHOLE PAGE" will be greated with sobs.

What am I struggling with? Well, how to load my images and store them related to certain records (using LINQ for objects thus far). Allowing users to upload video. I'm using s3, but I have to build an interface (along with consultant) for uploads. I have found a consultant to do the import from File Maker Pro who is versed in SQL Server 2005 and FMP which is hard to find, however, I worry about how he will do and his speed. I'm worried that I wont get the last page done in time. I worry that I'll never end this post and get some sleep...lol... so, if you want to know what I will be dreaming of you got it.

Anyway, good night, all.

Sara

 

Reflection - Iteration 7

My poster now says "Iteration 7 of 9" with is a added comment in big black marker of "OMFG" underneath it. Ok, it's not that bad yet, however, I'm almost there. What's stressing me out right now is not the code, that part I can do, it's all the other stuff. The making sure 2430978 things that need to be done GET done and meanwhile get all the coding done. When do you know that you need someone to do this stuff for you? I think I may talk to someone about this.

Complete pieces are coming together, everything is really good looking. The site in general is going to rock all over the place, knock your AJAX off and all that. I should have a fully testable page up this week, and this page is the crux of the app so when it is done I will be pleased. Having some headaches adding the HTML right now. I made some changes and didn't test them, then added the HTML and now I am getting bugs and don't know if it's the HTML or my changes and it's too early in the morning to Inspector Gadget this mess so it's going to wait.

Besides that things are going great. I think I am going to Philly Code Camp on Oct 11th? That's exciting, it will be my first... . I was tempted to take the ALT.NET track, but I think I'm leaning toward Architecture. That's one of my weaknesses and I would like to focus more of my development around services. I wonder if you can mix and match?

I'm starting to really look forward to these education opportunities. I am missing the SQL 2008 talk at Microsoft this Thurs... so if anyone has info on another please let me know. I have heard about intellisense and multi row inserts, but would like to hear about the rest. Has everyone heard that JQuery is going to be packaged with the next Visual Studio?

SPEAKING OF SQL, if anyone out there is an expert (or even a novice at automated ETL for SQL 2005 I could really use some help. I have to admit not touching the new SSIS and am starting to miss DTS packages. The documentation is really lacking.

Thanks to everyone who has spread good will about my web absence last week. I assure you I am well and no one was hurt.  Below are some pictures from the closing ceremonies at Shea stadium this weekend, I was able to score some nosebleeds over the weekend for my brother and I (we were sans one brother, who was busy being a dad, and who is now developing pharm data acceptance apps in command line (DOS) as part of his job which is AWESOME). It a great opportunity and I'm glad we went. I was raised a Met fan along with the generation before me, and seeing the closing pitch btw Mike Piazza and Tom Seaver and all the 1807120947234 camera flashes going at once was very cool. Also being in the same place as Willie Mays? Indescribable. Someone said something about there being a baseball game between the first and second picture? I don't really remember anything of the sort.

J-E-T-S JETS JETS JETS

Reflection - Iteration 5

     Did you know that developers don't ONLY develop at work? Well, apparently this is true, and the other stuff is tenfold when you are managing a project. That is the biggest thing I struggled with this iteration. It's hard for me to get in the face of consultants and make sure they are performing. I'm looking at them like a developer, and not like a manager. It's also hard to do all this stuff and still get my work done at the same time, however, I think I've come up with a system. I'm worth very little in the morning, I am 0% a morning person, so that's not a good time for me to be productive in development. However, that's a great time for me to get all the administrative stuff done... so starting this week that's what I'm doing.

    Things are taking me longer to do then I want them to. Part of this is because I'm green, another part is because I expect too much of myself and those expectations aren't realistic. I did get some cool stuff done this iteration, though. Like I published the first websiervice and did a bunch of AJAX-y crap. That was pretty sweet, I'm pretty proud of that.

    Web 2.0 conference tomorrow in NYC, let me know if you'll be there def taking advantage of the workshops. Also, if you have any experience with a DB product called Filemaker Pro I need a custom export written, or if you know any consultants that would be awesome.

   Here is a question I posted on Stack Overflow...would love to get some feedback here: 

I have two repeaters and an image inside an update panel along with some AJAX dropdowns with link buttons to the left. I want to update the data inside the update panel as fast as possible as values are selected from the dropdowns.

What do you think would be the best way to update the data? The repeaters are populated by objects, so if I could just filter the objects by some properties I could end up with the correct data. No new data from the server is needed.

Anyone have some ideas?

    Six weeks left until Alpha release. OMG. Thanks for all your support and feedback, my first "technical" post was daunting... and my initial reaction to the response was not too grown up (I got super defensive)... but over all it went well. For those who have been asking I feel much better, thanks. 

 EDIT: Also, looking for a good flash developer, looking for either a part time gig, or full time if in the NY metro area.

    Happy developing! 

Reflection - Iteration 4

Hey folks, how are things? Things are awesome over here. Development is in full swing, a lot of things are done and in the woodworks. I'm really excited about this. I have found some great consultants to do work for us, I'm really looking forward to seeing what they can do. If they can't self document it's the gallows!

So, last week I had off, we got back yesterday. It was a good week off, relaxing, I got a lot done, both project related and not. Some of you may wonder why I didn't do my reflection yesterday like I normally would. Well, I have invented a new term for Agile Developers, it's really brilliant. It's going to revolutionize the industry I think, it's called "The Mulligan" Definition: when there is a day between two iterations that you just want to do some stuff and not account for it and not tell people why. I think you should get one Mulligan a year, or one Mulligan for ten iterations. Yesterday was my Mulligan. GET OVER IT. 

I'm pushing myself a little this iteration. I do well in chaos mode so I am going to try to apply that to my iterative cycle. We will see how that goes.

Unrelated notes: The new 90210 is AWESOME, (UPDATE(typo)): Nonoba.com is a great UX, and I have 71 points and 4 badges on CrackOverflow and none of you can take that away from me (well, unless you get 100 points yourself and are also hella mean)

Here are some pictures of my "web wall" as it goes, and my messy desk. "A messy desk means a warm heart" I always say.

Reflection - Iteration 3

Iteration 3 has come and gone. (First of all, I'm hella sick today, in the office but not 100% here if you get my drift, so if I seem distant that's why. )

How do I think things went? Well, I had to stop mid-iteration and replace some thigs because some pre-reqs weren't completed. That has

less to do with time management and more to do with me not being familiar with the process of sending things out to be done.

This iteration is a short one, my employer likes to give employees lots of random time off. He thinks this makes them happy and work harder.

I have to admit this to be true, however, I will be working next week even though I technically have off. This project really can't afford to

lose a week. I haven't factored that time into my iteration planning though because I want to see where I am at the end of this week then decide

what needs to be done.

I am still working on the controls as literals because I haven't gotten the comps back yet. This adds a little extra work. Today I am revisiting the session issue, I got some feedback from the guy doing the "Summer of NHibernate" series. I highly reccomend those videos if you're working with NHibernate. I appreciate his fresh approach, the videos are funny and interesting.... I have learned a lot. Anyway he said something about session-per-http-request so I'm going to look into that.

Right now I'm wrestling with where to get some of this extra stuff done that wont be feasible for just me in this time period. The questions are things like "Should I hire someone?" "Should I outsource?" "To whom?" "Should I start now or wait until it's a little closer to deadline so I know what needs to be done exactly?"

If there is anyone reading that has been in my shoes I'd appreciate any words of wisdom that you could pass my way. There is a lot of work on my plate and exactly 10 weeks left. I'm not afraid it wont get done, because it will and it will be a great product... I just want to limit my stress and not give myself extra work while watching budget.

Happy Coding!

Reflection - Iteration 2

   Ok, so this iteration was a little more stressful. I have learned one valuble lesson (a lesson I have learned many times before) nothing is completed until it is TESTED TESTED TESTED. I ran into some issues with the nHibernate when I went to implement it with my controls I had scheduled. So when it came time to test those controls they didn't populate. I ended up spending a lot of time debugging my nHibernate implementation which actually has carried over to a half day task in this iteration.

   I also experienced some scope creep, so today I had to introduce a "parking lot" of back log items that I can take from when I have extra time in my iterations. I had to ask around about what to do when a three day task falls in your lap, and that was my feed back.

   With that three day task I was bitten by a monster I have met before, "That? That's easy. I can do that, it will only take me..." Some of you are laughing right now, I suppose everyone has been there, but "That is easy" without knowing exactly what goes into "that" is out of my vocabulary. FOREVER (this is different then the last time it was gone forever because hopefully it will stick.) 

   It sounds like this iteration was horrible, and it really wasn't as bad as it sounds. I did get a lot completed and learned a lot. I will also be taking time this week to clean up my solution because there are extra files and code that were generated when I was trying to fix things.

  Ok, so I have all my task cards done for this iteration, and they are up, so I'm going to get started. Happy developing!

Reflection - Iteration 1

Well, here it is, my first post-iteration reflection. (I definitely rested over the weekend, so that's already taken care of). Looking back I'm generally happy about how things went. I got a lot done, the database is completed, Subversion installed (I want to keep my work as transparent as possible, so even though I'm the only developer I want my boss and people working on the site to have access to my code. Also, I plan on versioning related documents and comps that they are supplying), business base completed, about ¼ of the business objects done, staging server set up, login control completed, login status control created, user security framework done, nHibernate implemented. All in all I'm pleased with my progress and am optimistic about the coming weeks.



Some of the things I can work on are better time estimates. I was done with the task cards for the first two weeks last Monday. I do need to get a better grasp on how long things are going to take me, but I'm sure that will come with time.



I also didn't get together with my boss to show him my deliverables. I plan on doing that in the morning and setting a regular meeting every two weeks.



I had a good weekend, a lot of beach and little league. I'm becoming a big fan of my friend Kellie's step children's teams. Fun to watch.



For the cool kids asking for a blue hair pic here it is in all its glory. It's a blurry iPhone pic but it will do for now. I like the photo album idea, going to implement it soon.





Hope you are having a happy Monday!