Weekly "Hello"

   Do, normally this would be an iteration wrap up post. HOWEVER, I stil lhave work to do so I will be woring tomorrow. Then I will write about it.

   Don't know if you guys caught this but this is the story of my life.... I'm sure you can relate. It's from Wellington Grey

  

So, there is ONE thing I am a traditionalist about, and that is books. Like, the whole kindle thing... to me is like the cd/Record debate. Like there is no difference you know in your mind... infact, the quality of CDs is much better. However, there is nothing like the scratchy tinny sound of a record to make you feel like you're really into the music. For me, tat feeling is felt when I crack open the cardboard and paper smelling spine of a new book so I tend to steer clear of online reading.

   When I saw this link on Reddit, I was like "sounds dumb" but then three hours later I was like "um, I will read one page" I haven't been able to stop since. That's why this post will be uber short. Sorry. I'm on page 12 (which a lot farther then it sounds since it is an online book).

Seriously, read A page:

    

    John Dies At The End

Talk to you soon, happy developing!

Watch Out for Nick Burns

 

You remember Nick Burns, no? Who didn't relate to that guy, users can be annoying. I've recently noticed myself snapping at more and more people, though. Last week I found my voice getting testy when I was explaining to someone how to install SQL Server 2005 on their home machine. Just today I caught myself acting like the poor support guy at GoDaddy was completely incompetent because he was trying to tell me that “Default Website” is not something they install in when loading Windows Server 2003. I'm sitting there talking to him like a child, and I had to stop myself. Why was it so bad he didn't know that? How long ago did I not know that? Where is this coming from?

 

Is it because now I'm the one sole-ly responsible for the success of my project? Is it because just now am I getting the confidence that, yes, I may know a few things about programming (though reading this blog you'd think I might know everything, lol)? I can't tell you what it is, however I'm going to try to nip this in the bud.

 

I mean, I've worked with some Nick Burnses in my time. Sometimes my questions have been met with incredulous looks and patronizing answers. I thought that these guys had just always been more negative. You know, those guys who spend their free 8 hours in WoW forums flaming noobs. It's ironic that I find myself acting this way. In fact, it wasn't that incredibly long ago I had to have someone explain to me what a checksum was. Why am I so quick to judge people that may need a little of the same help?

 

I've become that commenter lately too. Where I give feedback on articles and opinions with answers that scream “duh" or "this is such the obvious answer, how could you NOT see it?"

 

It's getting a little funny, I think about someone touching my code.... like if I were to hire a more junior developer to work on this project, and I cringe at the thought of them screwing things up. This is borderline ridiculous due to the fact that not six months ago I was that developer in someone else's code. I'm sure there were many times they were cringing and ready to bite my head off for doing things in a way that they wouldn't, or considered incorrect.

 

Have any of you reached this point in your career? Is it just developer adolescence? The responsibility of my own project?

 

Hopefully this is something I will be able to get under control before I am dealt a heaping serving of humility.

 

Oh, and by the way, YOU'RE WELCOME.

 

newest article

Howdy folks. First things first, Phillies Mets Weds night with my favorite men in the world, my brothers. Can't wait.

Contest: Need something offensive to Philly to paint on a tee shirt. The default will be "I Heart #35", but if someone can think of something that will get Philly fans mad you will win a G-Dev tee shirt. Something like "the Iggles Suck" or "Boyz to Men were off key" something good.

Here is my latest article, and even cooler than that below it is my awesome "Web Wall" where I keep a running schedule of my iteration and schema changes and all kinds of things. I was going to blur my schema but I couldn't make it out when it was magnified 282348723 times, so unless you're in the FBI or on Criminal Minds you're not making it out. (If you are in the FBI or on Criminal Minds just email me I will send it).

Without further ado, Article , Wall (it rulez):

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!



 

Hi Friends

Hi, I have a great new article coming soon. I promise. NOT as contraversial as the last one, LOL.

/* as an aside, I have to tell you, I have been using my "Would another developer be able to look at this sans comments and see exactly what it was doing, quickly?" stance as a rule when developing, and I gotta tell you I'm cranking out some dang beautiful code */ 

So, I was going to focus on writing tonight, however it was the Mt. Carmel fireworks in Berkeley Heights tonight. For those of you not from the area they are really the most amazing fireworks you've ever seen. I actualy usually hate fireworks because I have the internet, and television to entertain me. However, these are magnificent, the team that does them won the best fireworks in the world or something. I don't know, there are lots of rumors.I thought of you guys, so I took some pictures to share.So, for once there is nothing to do with development in a post. I hope it is still entertaining.

Below are the pictures. One last thing, to everyone that reminded me how awesome resharper is, thanks! I had let someone tlak me out of it a while ago and now that I have it back I love it!  Anyway, enjoy!

Making decisions

*sigh* one thing I didn't anticipate about this project is just how much fun designing it would be. From schema choices, to naming conventions, to frameworks, to ORM, to what methods to include in my base business object. It really is a freaking blast, and also very daunting. The amount of research I am doing, is something I expected but really didn't know how to approach. I first assumed that the best way of doing things would be the way I was used to doing things. However, after taking a look around to what is out there while making sure I knew what I was doing, I realized that there are so many more options and much better ways to achieve the goals I have for this application.

I'm dizzy with power right now, I really am. Active record set? DDD? NHibernate? Guids? Ints? Camel Case? SVN? Git? I'm gonna throw up.

By the end of this week I hope to have most of those worked out. I'm sure most of you have been here already, this is my very first time. I mean, it's not like I haven't done my own projects before, but never to this scale and this awesome of a project. Does anyone have any wisdom to pass on?

Things to avoid?

Things to make sure to take account of?

Any help greatly appreciated.

Sup Br0s?

Howdy, ya'll, how's things? Good over here, 007 is coming along great with no big surprises yet, however it's only been a week so. I'm going to go more into detail next week with a big dev diary.

 

Vista RAWKS, dead serious bros. It's intuitive, it's attractive, and it's fast. I have a running theory about people being predisposed to hate anything Microsoft. I'm running it on a MAC which makes it really fast. I also learned this week that they all run MACs over at Microsoft, which I think is very cool, I mean they are picking the best hardware. I almost wonder really what level of competition they are to each other. I mean, it seems that Apple more competes with hardware companies, besides OS's is there a product that is important to MS and Apple alike? Ok, so there is the Zune, but I don't feel like that is the focus of Microsoft's development. I think people just enjoy deciding that there is a rivalry. So the moral of this story is that don't think something is crap because everyone else says it is.

 

Best website sent to me this week: http://isxkcdshittytoday.com.

 

Are any of you watching America's Best Dance Crew? I have loved this show, last year there were some kids on it that were street dancers in Boston that I had run into in Quincy Market. They were really talented so I watched all season to support them, I really got into the show though. I have been watching this year again, and I love this show.I hate reality TV, but this show is a fun watch. Try to catch it if you can.  

 

What is everyone up to this weekend? I'm taking it pretty low key, some family stuff, maybe the beach. Catch up on some laundry.

 

Currently interviewing some teams, I need a fast, very attractive, seamless flash video player made. I'd prefer it if the group I worked with was in the tri state area but if find real talent I woul d be willling to deal with people out of the area. Drop me a line if you feel like your group may qualify.

 

Hope everything is going well out there, I think I'm going to throw on my bathing suit and lay out for a while this afternoon, it's beautiful out!