August 2007 Entries
Years and years ago, I was searching for a new job. I had some development experience, and some OO exposure, but not too much - I was probably only a few years out of school. I had an interview where I was asked:
"What's a private constructor, and how would you use it?"
Wait, a private constructor you say? Why would anyone want to keep the constructor private? If it's private, then they can't instantiate the class and then.....oh.
I didn't say any of those things. I think I answered with the answer guaranteed to win you a pass to the second round...
One month ago I posted on Becoming a Better Developer. Now it's time to audit the progress and see how things are.
As of right now, I should have completed the following books:
Getting Things Done - David Allen
The 4-Hour Work Week - Tim Ferriss
Refactoring - Martin Fowler
In reality I read:
1/2 of Getting Things Done before the library asked for it back.
N is for Noose
The last Harry Potter (Given the amount of time I...
I've recently met a few of the folks leading the TriNUG group. I'm excited to help out and do what I can to make TriNUG a first-class user group.
I wanted to gather up my thoughts on TriNUG, as well as my vision for where I would like to see it go.
I moved to Raleigh two years ago from Charlotte, home of the Enterprise Developer's Guild. Meetings ran from 6-8 one Wednesday a month. The Guild kept track of planned attendance numbers through the website, and things really ran quite well.
Attending my first few TriNUG meetings left me feeling quite...
BarCampRDU has come to a close. I don't know if I can wait another year for it to come again.
I'll just do a rundown of my personal highlights:
Meeting Rob Zelt and Brian Hitney at the pre-party. I had a great time talking tech, and hopefully will get a chance to put-up or shut-up in regards to my gripes with TriNUG. :)
Got to meet Nick of DisruptorMonkey, and got to say "Thanks!" for his blog posts that I've been enjoying over the past month or two.
Attended my first session, and actually said something - a minor victory. As I learned more...
Startup Weekend is the concept of a group of folks interested in starting a startup coming together for a weekend to create a company with a product, marketing, business plan, etc. While there are some interesting things that can happen in this space in terms of community, I want to focus on the outcome, where there are so many pitfalls along the way that a successful company is an impossible result.
Building the company around the product. With the startup weekend, the group decides on a product to take to market, and is off and running. ...
Sitting here at BarCampRDU, and couldn't be happier I came.
I've been in sessions discussing traffic spikes and hosting providers, "Getting Things Done", and starting a startup in RDU. All of them have been full of folks who know their stuff, and are passionate about what they do. They're also pretty funny and engaging, to boot.
It's been amazing watching how the unconference runs - folks just pulling together, driving it, and getting it done. The caterer goofed the lunch delivery, but everyone just moved the seminars around and kept on trucking.
Looking forward to the rest of the afternoon, but I'm...
Technically, it starts tomorrow, but the pre-party is tonight, so I'm counting that.
BarCampRDU is here, and I cannot wait! When I first signed up, I agonized over what I could present. Nothing ever shook clear as an idea that would lend itself to a good session - most of what I had handy I would certify as rants. But, I've consoled myself by contributing my wireless router for the day, and volunteering.
I can't wait to go. I'm very excited to meet the other attendees, quite a few of whom I've been reading since they linked their blogs to the BarCampRDU...