I grew up to the phrase, “Never say never.” I grew up reading fantasy and science fiction books and watching action movies like any other boy. However, perhaps more than the excitement, I loved the story. When I got to school, I did not stop reading or watching movies. I also began getting into role-playing games (RPG’s) on both the console and the pen-and-paper variety, think Dungeons & Dragons. While those are a little beyond the norm, I took it a step further. I paid attention in history class. I heard about Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. I read about Napoleon and General Eisenhower. I watched documentaries on Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee. I grew up believing a person could be great. I believed I could be one of them. Then I got older.
I was expected to find a way in life. I could not continue dreaming of being the next Michael Jordan, Steve Young, or Andy Roddick. I had to grow up. I was never very keen on the idea. By this time, computers had become an avenue to more stories and dreams. I began to pursue basic web development, and then on to programming. I could not decide whether I wanted to make games that future generations could love or websites which would open the eyes of others. I began walking down that path. On the side, I kept myself grounded with history classes. They were a constant reminder of where I wanted to be. I wanted to be in the history books.
I graduated college and got a job. I got told, “Welcome to the Real World.” It turns out it is not much different than whatever world I was in before. People have expectations, and it is my responsibility to meet them. That means even if I do not like it. I am very independent. I do not like someone else telling me what to do. At the same time, I want people to listen to me. I used to yell louder in hopes I could drown out the others until they had to listen to me. Sometimes I still do. With my job, I wanted to write code. I wanted my code to change the world.
My boss recently shifted me into a new sort of role. I coordinate developers literally on the other side of the world as we work on an application used by people in the same city as me. The new role requires getting up before the sun because people on the other side of the world work very different times than we do here. I am told it has something to do with an 11.5 hour timezone difference. I also spend most of my days in meetings. Some days I spend the entire day in meetings. Each meeting has people asking me to get work done. I struggled to understand how I was suppose to get work done while I was constantly in meetings. I wanted to be writing the code rather than sending it off to others. I could do it better. I yelled a little bit.
I still do not know whether I want to continue pursuing the road I am on or return to the fork in the road. However, in traveling down this new road, I learned something. If I want to be great, I do not have to do the things at which I am great. I just need to continue meeting the challenges laid before me. I have to rely on the people around me to help me. I have to rely on others to point me in the right direction when I can no longer see the road. I will have to try new things. I do not know where I am going. I do not know where I will end up. The one thing I know is I can never stop trying.
I recently read this article on the need for non-software companies to recognize the impact of their internal software development. It reminded me a lot of where I work. The general culture at my workplace says, “We are in the x business. We don’t do software.” The idea being we buy software at every opportunity and only resort to developing it when we have no other options. The result is a lot of money thrown at very expensive software packages which hardly do what we want after we fight with for a year. There has been a recent move towards using open source software over in-house software, but it still suffers from the same problem. The result is we do not apply as much emphasis on developing our software development environment as we should. Afterall, why bother modernizing if you only write a handful of apps never intended to see the light of day?
The refusal to address our software problems is only making matters worse. While commercial products often do meet our basic infrastructure needs, they do not and cannot come close to making us a successful business. The result is we implement the software closest to the core of our brand in-house. As time goes on, we continue to build applications on top of past applications. However, many of our past applications are outdated or were quite possibly outdated the day they were created. We continue to incur debt. Quite frankly, we are falling behind. Old applications need renovated. Current applications need modified. New applications need developed. All the while, we use yesterday’s practices because we do not have extra time to learn modern techniques.
Nearly every business today does software. Particularly if a business provides online services or makes transactions, it needs to consider itself in the software industry. Take a look at a company’s income and see how it aligns with spending on development resources. If a large percentage of revenue comes from areas supported by in-house developers, this is a good suggestion the company is in the software business. They need to put effort into improving and supporting their development efforts because otherwise their software debt will consume company expenses.
- Successful people are busy. I am busy. Does that mean I am successful??
- Bad things happen to good people because God is kept up all night answering prayers. Then he gets tired and cranky. That’s why I am known for taking days to sleep 12+ hours.
- Man created fire, and then he became a social creature.
- Then man created dukies, also known as cops, and fires became less fun.
- “In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is.” -Courtesy of Jeremiah Grossman
- No football defense should use the Cover 3 as its base coverage scheme.
- Andy Roddick lost in the 2009 US Open because CBS chose not to show his match on national television.
- The “your computer might be at risk” warning provided by the Windows operating systems may be one of the dumbest warnings known to mankind.
- The word short is longer than the word long. The word skinny is fatter than the word fat.
- When asked in a job interview, “Are you a self starter??” Do not respond, “I set myself on fire once. Does that count??”
While there are a lot of topics I would like to write on, I am trying to keep my head above water at the moment. Here is a list of things I have done in the past week:
- Discussed a job offer from the financial services company I have interned at the past three summers
- Worked on a website for a nearby community trying to rebuild after a tornado followed in the next year by flooding
- Spent time looking into helping another similar community overhaul its website, but as of today it looks like they only want minor HTML skills; so, I will likely skip on the task for something requiring a little more technical know-how
- Began talks about doing some consultant work for another web company
- Created a Windows XP on a virtual machine for some testing purposes
- Created an Ubuntu virtual machine for experimental development purposes
- Played tennis at least every other day
- Gone on two bike rides
- Attended my job for Information Technology Services – Network Services (ITS-NS) as a student programmer
- Gone to my two classes
- Sat in on a class in which I am not officially enrolled
- Met with my computer science undergraduate research advisor
- Done some preliminary research for my research project
- Bought tickets to the UNI vs Iowa football game coming up this Saturday
- Got my car’s ventilation fan motor replaced by my girlfriend’s father
- Other miscellaneous social activities including things such as watching movies, going out to eat, and bonfires
- Laundry…
Remember how I talked about having an easy semester due to a light class load? That was a funny idea! For starters, everyone else has yet to get heavy loads of homework. This seems to be true for everyone except for my girlfriend which is mildly disappointing. Thus, friends are always asking about going and doing things since they know I am the one with very little classwork to tie me down. However, when all of their activities are staggered, it can quickly fill up a day. I am almost getting worn out. I have always found classes to be rather relaxing. All I have to do is sit there, listen, and take notes. That requires very little energy on my part. Especially when it is compared to things like tennis and bike rides. Another habit is to monitor my water consumption by ensuring I drink so much water during each class. The result is I am getting tired and pushing myself to stay properly hydrated.
I would go into more details on all of the various activities, but that would take too long if I touched on each one of them. It is also getting to be 12:30 AM, and I have a busy day ahead of me. Already on the schedule is going into work a bit late so I can scan a Non-Disclosure Agreement as well as make a business call about my job offer. Then it is work and class. I have the afternoon open to work on the community website before meeting with a couple of their representatives to discuss some things. I will return here later at night to do some laundry and get to work on one of the projects on the list. I should probably also slide in another business phone call in the afternoon. My video editing projects have been put on temporary hold as I stay caught up on web development projects. I am beginning to feel like I am already working full-time. In some ways, it is kind of nice even if it means things are a bit busy.