Looking back, I have generally been the type of person who lets people dictate to me what it is that I am going to do. I make my desires known, but don’t do anything to make it a point that my desires will be the outcome. Today I took a big step and stood up for myself. After a couple of years of being led to believe that I would finally move into a full time development position, and then being stuck in a designer/analyst position, I laid it all out on the table. I let my boss know that either we start making the move, or I would need to look at other opportunities.
I’m very happy to report that it actually went over well. As I understand, we will be developing a plan to train someone to start stepping into my position as I start stepping into a much more development focused role. It was the perfect time to make the move as I am currently needed and we are about to be in a position that we will be short on developers. I’ll continue to post and update on how things go over the next few weeks. I’m tired of getting stepped on and ready to take my destiny in my own hands.
Only two more weeks left until PyCon! I’m excited to get out and see the greater Python community.
Lesson learned: You don’t get anywhere without taking risk. It was really scary to make a play like I did today, but the outcome may be worth it.
This past Thursday was the first official meeting of the Birmingham Area Python Users Group (PyHam). I volunteered to do the first presentation, which was an overview of unit testing frameworks in Python. I thought the presentation went very well. I’m very interested in testing, and know that I should be, but getting started can be the hardest part. It was very interesting to hear the take others have on the subject and to hear most everyone else admit that they feel the same way I do. The biggest lesson I took away from the meeting is to always make sure you right your code to be tested, or you will never write the test.
I spent much of the start of my holiday weekend learning to deploy Django. I didn’t have much luck deploying to my web host, even though I have a VPS. To avoid messing up any of my other hosted domains, I had decided using FastCGI was the best option. After several hours of trying, it just wasn’t working for me. I’m sure it is something little that I had set wrong, but the frustration led me to setting up an Ubuntu Server virtual machine on one of my computers I don’t use much. I got everything installed and had no trouble setting up Apache to run Django. I’m really glad I did this. I hope to learn a lot more about Apache and Linux security of the new few months, then buy a dedicated box to serve as a web server. For now, the VM is working fine and surprisingly fast. The site is going to be for my local Middle Eastern Percussion ensemble, Out of the Darj.
DjangoCon starts today. I have a local acquaintance who went. Hopefully I can pick his brain when he gets back. Thankfully, they tend to post all of the sessions online, so you can watch them later.
Lesson learned: Sometimes it is better to do things yourself. This is especially true when you are trying to learn and want to understand things from every angle.
I just finished reading the book, The Passionate Programmer, by Chad Fowler. If you read one inspiring career book this year, this book should be the one. It has been a while since I’ve read such a motivational book that doesn’t just repeat the same old stuff.
The book talks about the things that make you a remarkable programmer and will help you build a remarkable career. For instance, the book mentions that many people come to IT because they think it will be a lucrative career, not because they love it. I see this in my day job. I can look around and see people who are only there to collect a pay check and could care less about technology past the door of the office. Do they go home and study to stay up on the latest trends and developments…nope. To really make it successfully in this field, you have to be passionate about what you do. To be passionate, you have to really love it.
At the same time, the Author urges you not to be dogmatic about your choice of technologies. This makes since considering how fast the technologies can change. Ten years ago, dynamic languages were virtually unused and today, thanks to many web frameworks like Django and Ruby on Rails, Python and Ruby have really taken off. Back then, you were cutting edge if you used Java and now that same decision is playing it safe. The Author also mentions that while you should plan your career, that planning should be more Agile rather than following a Waterfall approach. You must be willing to bend with the tides and adapt yourself and your skill set.
What is the number one thing I have taken from this book? I learned that no matter what the current safe trend is, if I want to be great, I have to love what I’m doing. While I will be learning the Java web stack, as previously written about, I have to admit that I don’t love Java. I like it, and I will continue to work on it at my day job and learn as much as I can, however don’t be surprised if you see most of my focus on python, Django, and web front end technologies like HTML, CSS, and Javascript.
Lesson learned:
- If you want to be great, you have to be passionate about what you are doing.
- Be willing to change you focus. Don’t get so caught up in a particular technology that you don’t see it all changing around you.