Tuesday, October 28, 2008 9:46 PM
As I've disappeared off of the map for last...well, probably a month, I thought it would be fun to give a quick update on what's been happening in my life at a personal level.
First of all, and most importantly, I got married!
As of September 20, 2008, my girlfriend of almost three years...well, for about 15 months of that she was my fiance...became my wife. For anyone who is thinking about planning a wedding, here are two pieces of advice we picked up along the way...
- Coordinating all of the different disparate vendors (photographer, baker, caterer, DJ, tuxes, dress, etc, etc, etc...) is one of the greatest challenges of project management you'll ever experience because these people don't talk to one another. Don't try to approach it like a software project...it's a totally different animal. If I'd try to approach it like we approach software development we wouldn't have gotten married for another two years and it would have eventually ended up costing us about 2.4 million dollars.
- Don't get caught up in all of the details of the aforementioned vendors. Everyone wants their wedding day to be special and everything to be perfect. I agree with this completely, but remember that its you and your significant other that make it perfect...not the table linens or the centerpieces or the tuxedos. Just because napkin #194 of the set of 200 is a more of a Dusty Rose then a Summer Merlot doesn't mean you'll be any less married in the morning.
Secondly, we adopted a puppy!
The weekend after my wife and I returned from our honeymoon we adopted our miniature dachshund, Daphne. Don't let those innocent brown eyes fool you, she's all of about 3.2 pounds, between 1.5 and 2 of which at any given time are comprised entirely of tinkle.
If you've ever had a dog then you'll know that they can be the most incredibly affectionate and unconditionally loving friends you'll ever have. You'll also know that they can be an incredible amount of work. I grew up with dogs as a child, however, being a cat owner for the last few years I had forgotten how much work they really are.
I'm happy to report, however, that potty training is progressing right on schedule. We spent the first two weeks on basics such as 'we do not relieve ourselves in the house'. Then we spent the next two weeks building on that with 'tell me when it's bathroom time'. Finally, we'll be spending the last two weeks polishing up all these skills with 'our bed is not your bathroom' and I think we'll be done.
Yes, I am completely training my dog in agile sprints.
So what's next?
Now as the dust settles from several life changing events and 2008 draws to a close, I've been thinking about my skills as a developer and where I want to focus my efforts for improvement in 2009. I'll likely post more thoughts along these lines in coming weeks, but as a preview of what I've been thinking about here's a snippet...
I normally don't pay too much attention to point technologies or specific implementations or platforms. It's always been enough to be vaguely aware of what's happening in the industry so I can make informed decisions when I need to, but not spend a lot of time learning individual technologies as they come out. The reasoning has always been that I can focus my efforts on more portable and fundamental skills (such as TDD or patterns) which would give me the foundation I need to quickly pick up a particular point technology when the time arises. Think of it as 'just-in-time' learning.
I'll likely continue this trend coming into 2009, however, there are a lot of very cool technologies coming out that are definitely catching my eye...mainly in the rich client space. As I consider my goals for next year, I'm starting to struggle with how to best balance the afore mentioned core fundamentals that always need refining with the shiny new toys that are constantly coming down the pipe. We'll see how it goes.