Personal

Feeling $blue

Personal

Dec 11, 2011 - no comments

The other day I was talking about coding in a chat room. After a while of pleasant conversation I was surprised by the demeanor of some of my fellow programming enthusiasts. I posted a single line of code including the variable $blue.

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Writing for the future

Personal #Craftsmanship #Professionalism #Idealism #Clean code

Oct 22, 2011 - no comments

I’m a big fan of folks like Robert C. Martin and Martin Fowler. I think they have very interesting things to say and I stand by all of what I’ve read from them. Even if you disagree with their particular ideas, the concepts they put forward should make you, as a professional programmer, think.

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Career move

Personal #Career #Move

Sep 20, 2011 - 2 comments

After almost three years of Crowd Surfing, the time has come for me to move on.

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Online personal history

Personal #Social media #Google #Facebook #Consequences

Jul 03, 2011 - no comments

I love the way the internet brings people together. I’ve often heard that the internet and computers divide us and make us lonelier, but this has not been my personal experience and it’s a topic that deserves its own article (or, PhD study). It is true, however, that the internet has changed the way our interactions are recorded; instead of hearsay, we now have Google and Facebook to record every step we take and every rule we break.
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Necessary

Personal #Economics #Necessary #Documentation

Jun 17, 2011 - no comments

When we introduce interns to the wonderful world of documentation, they tend to respond with a ‘Is that really necessary?’ and a deep sigh. And we sympathize with them, because documentation tends to be not a whole lot of fun, especially when you just want to type code. It gets me thinking though. What is ‘necessary’?

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Dear ideas, please let me sleep

Personal #Sleep #Idea

May 28, 2011 - no comments

Sincerely, Pim. It is 4:43am as I start writing this. I just finished designing the first draft data model for the new Webstruct version, which has been murky and foggy inside of my head for weeks and decided to reveal itself more clearly.

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The amateur and the professional

Personal #Professional #Amateur #Communication #Knowledge #Experience #Skills

May 20, 2011 - no comments

What makes you a professional? Or an amateur? I don’t think it’s a black and white thing, but it’s not an analog scale either. To me there are several key elements that discern between being an amateur and being a pro - and I’m not talking about getting paid.

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Why blog?

Personal #Writing

May 14, 2011 - no comments

Well, why not?

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The meritocracy

Personal

May 07, 2011 - no comments

Office politics – who hasn’t been exposed to them? Wouldn’t it be nice if all technical choices were based upon, oh I don’t know, whether they’re any good rather than who puts them forward?

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Getting your info

Personal #Skills #Knowledge

Apr 30, 2011 - no comments

I thought there was no one to go to. There was no solution I could see to this specific problem. And there it was: the internet!

The cool thing about the internet is that there is very little you can think of that isn’t already on there. Sometimes that’s funny, sometimes that’s quite disturbing but mostly it’s very handy indeed.

Because no matter how difficult this problem of yours is, or how technically inclined or how rare it is, there is a significant chance that someone, somewhere has had the same problem – and has solved it in some way. The trick is getting there.

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