{Things: [Learning, Making], Feeling: [Satisfied, Happy]}
Over the past few months I’ve been digging into programming and development - specifically the technologies and codebases I think will help me create on the web and provide me with a half decent foundation for development moving forward.
My learning is split across days, weeks, and months, but tonight things are starting to come together. Tonight I sat down for six hours and just ate through code lessons. Mostly CodeSchool, RubyGuides, and Vagrant. It’s not my job, I have hundreds of distractions that are easy to open, and it’s Friday night. No shortage of parties, movies, TV, and drinking to do. What keeps me coming back to code?
There is nothing quite like working hard on a new skill, and building something with it. Creating something that runs, breathes, and performs where earlier in the day was only grey matter, and knowing that with each lesson it’s sinking in, and you’ve begun to think differently and understand at a deeper level.
It is a huge rush - satisfying in a very deep way - to be able to do that. The most relaxed I’ve been lately is when I crack open a good Spotify playlist and sit down for a few hours to learn code, stand up servers, build things, and know that your ideas can now be made reality. Still a frail, rickety programmatic reality in my case, but I’ll get there. (feel free to debug my post title)
Education on the web has perhaps only just started to really engage its users but the amount of information and training available combined with new and engaging formats being developed (see CodeSchool, Codecademy, TreeHouse, Bloc, and Coursera) provides us all with an unprecedented opportunity (and I would argue, an imperative) to grow ourselves and be able to make our ideas.
It’s exciting as hell, and I can’t wait to see what we create.
Kinda shocked that a guy from Microsoft is doing this jQuery demo (haven’t seen them participate too much in the community before), but nonetheless Damian Edwards provides an awesome intro to jQuery and JavaScript in general for users looking to really extend the language past your typical DOM manipulation and move into awesomeness. Definitely recommended viewing.
Javascript Dev Model Differences / Advantages?
I’ve been digging in to some things to take my #JS chops to the next level, and have recently run into a number of frameworks that seem very powerful - Knockout, JavascriptMVC, and Backbone. I’ll need to invest time in them, but I’m curious about the differences between the MVC / MVVM models and which you think are better. Any thoughts?
All I know is that EVERY codebase should have a tutorial set as easy as Knockout - seen here in awesome browser glory.
Briefly, On Agile (via Seldo)
“Agile is a process for managing software development. If you have a great team of smart people who communicate well and trust each other, they can use agile techniques to release lots of small iterations on a software project very quickly. This pattern of software release is often useful for startups. None of this is in dispute.
The problem is that with its rise in popularity, it has been both misunderstood and over-applied. If you have a good software team you can use agile, but if you use agile you will not automatically get a great team. If your team members communicate well and trust each other they can use agile, but if they communicate well and trust each other they could use any other methodology up to and including no fixed process whatsoever, and be equally successful. Agile changes your release pattern, not your people.
Bottom line: great teams produce great software. Great teams using agile release software every two weeks. Bad teams will produce shitty software. Bad teams using agile will release shitty software every two weeks.”
Well said. Tough to overstate how much I agree with this.
What’s Your Favorite Web CMS?
In addition to learning more about Ruby and implementing some web-service based client-side coolness in jQuery (Read: SharePoint list data feeding slick-looking HTML dynamically) I’m also jumping into the Web CMS pool. First install: my second crack at Drupal, this time via DreamHost instead of via command line and focusing more on the ins and outs of configuration. I’ve also got Joomla and others available to work with.
What’s your favorite web CMS? Open Source? Proprietary? Link to some examples of what you’ve done with it?
As a hosting / ease of use side note, for those that haven’t seen DreamHost’s list of one click installs, it’s gotten even more awesome. 12 CMS installs and a bunch of plugins could deliver huge for even the most basic of company webmasters. Tough to beat for 10 bucks a month.
A favorite group of mine to follow for open source development, Development Seed out of Washington DC has moved their MapBox product to the iPad, enabling users to do off-line custom mapping overlays. In my mind this takes the iPad to a new level and makes it a true visualization tool for business and government. Their future-slated TileMill product also looks extremely exciting. Keep up the good work!
Whitehouse.gov Goes Open Source
The Whitehouse.gov folks release some of their Drupal modules to the open source community. Nifty.
Came for the Disturbing Dev Trend, Stayed for the Hilarious argument about how best to pass a value
Don’t get me wrong, geeks are awesome, and (dare I way “we”?) rule the world. They’re very passionate, powerful people, but sometimes this persistence borders on hilarity. The link above is an example of that. The article itself is useful if not disturbing, but the discussion following devolves into how best to switch two variables in multiple languages. Any incorrect statement gone unchallenged feels so wrong, doesn’t it? hehe
About Me
A strategy consultant with a passion for IT, geopolitics, economics, and the open ocean. Awed by simple, innovative solutions to difficult problems. This represents my favorite slices of the web and serves as networked storage for my brain which is now entirely pointer-based. Opinions expressed here are my own and do not represent those of any organization with which I may or may not be allegedly associated.
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