The proliferation of Web technologies has been much on my mind lately. Last week, I talked about the continuum of Web development tools, ranging from traditional browser-based technologies all the way to applications deployed as binary executables. The interesting thing is that all of these tools are designed to achieve similar goals. So which do you use?
If there is one thing you learned along the way that you would tell new developers, what would it be?
One thing that has helped me maintain satisfaction and success in this profession is quite simple. Always make sure you are having fun. Don't get caught up in meaningless chases to be better than person X. If you can acknowledge that you will never know it all, and that there is always someone who knows more than you do, you open yourself up to chart your own course for how you navigate your career path. Making decisions that are actually right for you, not because you "think" you need to do it. When I look back to when I first started to right now, there is not a single point along the way where I can say that I was not having an absolute blast doing what I was doing. Even when I was not using agile methodologies, or big into unit testing, I put a high priority on having fun and exercising the creative nature of the work that we do!! Keep it fun, and the rest will follow. For the Christian developers out there you may also appreciate these words from the bible, that I read a looooong time ago and have always kept close to my heart:
Source: How Did I Get Started In Software Development? By Jean-Paul S. Boodhoo
This essentially contains all 9 Foundation parts including a conclusion
and some typical book fluff (table of content, acknowledgement and so
on). A number of spelling errors were corrected, along with some small
technical changes and clarifications - largely based on feedback, so
thanks for everyone who provided it! Otherwise it's exactly the same as
what's been posted here over the past several months.
Download
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Is this the best I can do?
I've paid for the rent and the furnishings and the menus and the staff and the insurance... is this plate of food worthy of what went before it?
I've flown across the country to visit this museum--a building that cost more than a billion dollars to create and fill and maintain. Is my attention focused enough?
By Seth Godin Read More
When creating a primary key for a table, we have a few options:
- Composite key
- Natural key
- Surrogate key
Each has their own advantages and disadvantages, but by and large I always wind up going with the last option.
It seems that in my line of work, there is always some sort of "reorganization" going on. One week we hear one rumor, the next another. Things are always in flux. Over the last eight years at my J.O.B., our department has been officially reorganized three times. We've gone from 30 staff members to 17, and our workload of active computers on the network has doubled. When things get hairy during roll-outs or upgrades and we start whining, the boss always brings up the fact that our jobs could be outsourced.
sIFR (or Scalable Inman Flash Replacement) is a technology that allows you to replace text elements on screen with Flash equivalents. sIFR is the result of many hundreds of hours of designing, scripting, testing, and debugging by Mike Davidson and Mark Wubben. Mike, Mark and an invaluable stable of beta testers, supporters, and educators like Stephanie Sullivan and Danilo Celic of Community MX completely rebuilt a DOM replacement method originally conceived by Shaun Inman into a high quality cross-browser, cross-platform typography solution for the masses.
The current sIFR release is version 2.0.5. sIFR is released to the world as open source, under the GNU Lesser General Public License (see human-readable summary at Creative Commons), so anyone can use it free of charge.
Put simply, sIFR allows website headings, pull-quotes and other elements to be styled in whatever font the designer chooses - be that Foundry Monoline, Gill Sans, Impact, Frutiger or any other font - without the user having it installed on their machine.
sIFR requires JavaScript to be enabled and the Flash plugin installed in the reading browser. If either condition is not met, the reader's browser will automatically display traditional CSS based styling - the user won't know the difference.
Take a look at the examples page to see some examples of sIFR in action.
See also Mike's original article on sIFR: Introducing sIFR: The Healthy Alternative to Browser Text.
On LinkIn, recently there was a question about what a client had to do to hire a consultant who wouldn't rip them off, just taking money for no measurable result. In my response to the question, I wrote:
I make this easy for my clients by two principles of my consulting business:
1. At the end of every consulting visit, I ask them to evaluate the worth of my contribution. If it's not worth more than they paid me, we either adjust what I'm doing or we terminate the relationship.
2. If they don't feel what I've done is worth what they've paid, they can have their money back, no questions asked. I make sure they know this up front--though I've never had to give back their money.
If a consultant doesn't give you both these things, don't hire them.
I make this easy for my clients by two principles of my consulting business:
1. At the end of every consulting visit, I ask them to evaluate the worth of my contribution. If it's not worth more than they paid me, we either adjust what I'm doing or we terminate the relationship.
2. If they don't feel what I've done is worth what they've paid, they can have their money back, no questions asked. I make sure they know this up front--though I've never had to give back their money.
If a consultant doesn't give you both these things, don't hire them.
