Tag: ruby on rails

Goals for 2011 (AKA, New Years Resolutions)

In 2010 I made a few goals.

  1. Do more than one speaking engagement and attend a couple conferences.
  2. Look for new opportunities to get back into a truly strong development team as a team member, leader, or director of the
  3. Get involved in user groups and expand my presence in the software industry.
  4. Figure out which way I want to push forward into the year related to occupation, interests, and other facets.

Those were my goals.  I’ve accomplished every one in excess.  So what should I line up for this year?  The grand year of 2011?  Well this is what I’m thinking so far.  As before, I’ll just see how far I can get…

  1. Somehow, in some way, get the tech more closely intertwined with my music.  In other words, I need to get some things recorded ASAP this year.  I’ve spent the better part of a decade completely avoiding this for absolutely ZERO good reasons.
  2. Work to get more conferences, more meetups, and organizations going in the Seattle area that actually have good presence in the social media & community space.
  3. Learn Ruby on Rails to the degree that I could be a fully productive team member, lead, director, or CTO of a company using Ruby on Rails Technology.
  4. Continue to provide whatever type of teaching, mentoring, leadership, or other involvement in the cloud computing space.
  5. Finish my book I’m writing on the Windows Azure Platform.

That’s what I’ve got so far.  I might have to add some to that list.  But for now, that looks solid enough.  🙂   Cheers, and happy new year!

Don’t Give me Rework Refusal!

Over the last few weeks I’ve seen a few comments regarding rework. One of those comments was Julie Booth’s (@uxsuccess) comment on Twitter regarding rework,

“Do not fear rework!!”

That kicked me off with a response of,

“Do not fear rework!! /via @uxsuccess so true, plz plz don’t cower before rework!!! :). Listen to @uxsuccess!“

Then just recently I stumbled onto a book I’ve been meaning to read called Rework.  This book is written by the crew at 37signals.  This company is best known for SaaS Offerings Basecamp, Highrise, Campfire, and Backpack.  All of them created with high quality, solid UX (User eXperience), probably great code quality, maintainability, and the list of goodness goes on.  In addition, the other thing that 37signals is widely known for is their efforts around Ruby on Rails (created by DHH @dhh).

Rework is a fundamental requirement to actually getting an elegant solution.  It might seem chaotic or disconnected at first, but it quickly becomes a vastly superior way of doing things instead of the “Do it once, do it right the first time” nonsense.  Things need to change, doing things right the first time is almost impossible anyway.  That is why you practice playing guitar before becoming a virtuoso, you learn to hammer before becoming a carpenter, you sketch and draw before becoming an architect, and the list goes on.

Don’t expect perfection, expect creation.  That’s what I’d say.  If you can’t tell, I agree with the Ruby on Rails mindset, with a lot of what DHH/@dhh writes, and I especially respect what 37signals has accomplished and the revolutionary business ideas in the book Rework.

These types of ideas – simple rework and the open minded approach to rework – makes a business faster, more agile, and responsive to their customers’ needs.  These ideas, these mentalities are what have created great companies in the past and will build great companies in the future.  The companies that suffer the traditional approaches and mindsets are at significant risk of being eliminated from the market altogether.

There are many others out there also, that push these types of ideas and mentalities around rework, refactoring, and agile practices.  If you haven’t checked out who 37signals is, the book Rework, or Ruby on Rails you should stop whatever you’re doing and find out about this company and its products.  Especially find out how their products were built with business agility in mind, with a strong dose of Agile ideals.  With that I bid adieu for the day.  Happy coding, and don’t fear the rework.