Being Open Minded Future Paths

I just decided to write this as it somewhat pertains to what I is going on this week with me, as well as just life in general.

I have found that you will have a much easier life if you more or less just go with the flow. Now, not to be contradictory to some of my other posts and sayings, I do believe that you get out of life and careers what you put in.
The person working 60 hours a week versus the person working 40 hours a week gets an extra 2 weeks worth of experience in each month compared to the person working 40 hours a week. Working hard at a goal is great and needed to progress, if that is in your long term goals.

However, consider this for a moment...lets pretend that you want to be a Software Developer. In this scenario you currently are not in a technology role at all. You spend as much personal time as you can afford without angering your spouse, neglecting your "adult" duties, etc, working towards become a Software Developer.

You'd almost give your right thumb just to even get into a technology role, to #1 Get out of your current job/industry and #2 Take a step in the right direction towards becoming a Software Developer even if you do not get that title.

What if it meant temporarily trying to learn a new skill set for the interview? Maybe not a totally new skill set, but rather in a different fashion compared to what you have done in the past. Would you do it? I would. I am.

I've applied for many jobs over the last 3-4 years, technology specific over the last 1-2 years. The end of last week I got an email saying with an offer for a DBA (Database Administrator) position interview.

I never lie on my resume or in the application when I am asked about experience, skill set, etc. I want the employer to know what they are getting, and that I will be set up for an amount of success that I can achieve. If the people hiring you don't believe in you, it makes your work life a lot harder.

Of course I graciously accepted the offer for the interview. The position revolved around Oracle/SQL.

I love all types of programming. I am one of those developers that I'd learn any language and love learning it for a job. I don't care what language its in, I enjoy the problem solving, the logic, etc.

After accepting the job interview, I did two things. The first thing I did was pull back up the job posting to get an idea of what I should start prepping for, and the second was researching a day in the life of a DBA. I wanted to make sure it really was something I was going to be ok with doing for an extending period of time. No one can really say "I'd love doing that forever", because eventually when the honeymoon stage wears off it becomes work. When it becomes work, the love sometimes dies with it. However, it is more than fair to say "I'd love to do that for quite awhile." Or something similar.

Now back to my original point. I am open to the idea of being an Oracle Developer. Was it my original intention? No it was not, but that is okay! Its something I would enjoy doing for quite some time.

By switching gears, which is a needed skill for the tech field anyways, and focusing on Oracle for the last week I could view it two ways. I could say I lost a week of working on a website for a client, or that I gained a week of focused SQL Query writing, and gained a little bit of experience with Oracle.

I'm generally not overly optimistic, I prefer realism. In this situation, it is real that I gained a week experience in SQL. It is also real that I lost a week working on a client's website. I guess I should point out that the "client" I am working on is not being ignored or anything, the client doesn't even know yet that I am redesigning his website for him, so cheap it will feel like it was free, in fact it may end up being free.

Anyways, the refresher/experience I gained from the week of Oracle will out weigh my lost week of web development, unless I end up working full time as a freelance web developer, which I do not have plans for...but then again...I always try to stay opened minded for future paths.....

Although I did not use an oracle book to study, I did look online and read some reviews. This author/series seems to have good reviews from most all of the sources I saw...good enough that if I would have had more time this is what I would have chosen to purchase. If you do buy this please leave a rating in the comments on how you liked it!
Oracle Database 11g & MySQL 5.6 Developer Handbook (Oracle Press)

Modern JavaScript Larry Ullman

I wanted to do a quick review on Larry Ullmans book "Modern JavaScript - Develop and Design".

I came by Larry Ullman purely on chance. I watch Eli The Computer Guy on YouTube pretty regularly. Eli's advice is pretty solid, as a business professional, I can tell what he is saying is from years of experience working in a variety of fields/companies/places. So a lot of his advice I don't mind listening too, even actioning on.
Eli has talked about what he calls "The Bunny Books" several times.

When I was ready to start a new language on my own after college, it just happened to work out that it was going to be PHP. Naturally I went after a bunny book. By chance, the bunny book happened to by Larry Ullman.

I like Larry's reasoning, flow, and overall examples in how he writes his books. I looked at other books when I had finished his PHP book, and there was always something that turned me away from it, either the book was boring, examples poorly explained, something was always off. I went back to Ullman and bought his Advanced PHP book, and his JavaScript book.

So to the good part...

Modern JavaScript - Develop and Design by Larry Ullman.

Overall I would give the book an 8/10. However with that being said, I would also only recommend it for someone who understands programming/setup a little. He gives how tos for setup but they feel lack luster in my opinion.

However, once your going and rolling the book focuses heavily on vanilla...or plain javascript. You don't get introduced to other libraries such as Ajax and JQUERY until 10-12 chapters into the book. I wanted to know the gooey core of the language, not the language after it had been rolled around in the dirt and no longer looked quite like the same. Ok maybe a harsh analogy, nothing against Ajax or JQuery...quite the opposite in fact, I genuinely enjoy both libraries. I could write an Ajax post all on its on....updating stuff on pages asynchronously....what! Awesome!
Anyways in the respect of going after the gooey center, this book was perfect for that and I enjoyed learning vanilla immensely.

He also starts out giving you all of the html you need to pair with the javascript. He very quickly fades this out, and goes to the absolutely needed things such as <div> blocks containing links or forms, as needed for the javascript to work. At times I found this frustrating, and other times refreshing. It forced me to practice thinking about what the programing is doing or trying to accomplish.

If I had any suggestion for the book, it would be inlaid pictures of what the program should look like and accomplish. There were some good parts, and other parts that I could of used even a picture or outline to help me work through it.

Overall I definitely recommend this to someone who is in an early level of skill interested in JavaScript, but also has basic concept of understanding how/what Object Oriented Programming is.

I also highly recommend Larry Ullman as a technical book writer.

Being a Software Developer is Unhealthy

I wanted to talk about physical health this week. For those of you who are already developers this is most likely preaching to the choir.

Think for a moment about the stereotypical gaming nerd in his or or 30s or 40s. Do you imagine them fit and healthy? Or do you imagine them locked in a basement staring at their computer screen with empty Mt. Dew bottles around them as they brush off dorito crumbs?

Now ask yourself this, in terms of physical health, what makes that over-weight nerdy gamer different from a software developer? Do we both not sit at a computer for hours on end? Does your body care if your writing JavaScript or playing WoW?

Its true to some extent that complex thinking does take more physical energy and thus burns more calories, but not to a noticeable amount over gaming.

We as software developers need to stay at least somewhat healthy, and there are a couple legitimate reasons.

First off, think of your physical energy. When you just finished pushing code into production and that widget you were so proud of breaks 20 minutes after you leave for the day, will you have the physical energy to walk back in, or log on at home to fix it? Do you physically have another 2-4 hours of work left in you?
Some people barely manage making through an 8 hour shift, let alone 10 or more.
When we exercise and build up our muscles and cardiovascular systems our body is retraining itself, getting stronger, and increasing stamina. It knows that your going to work it out another hour or more after work, and your physiology will allow it if you do it regularly enough. So when that widget breaks, you know that extra 2-4 hours will be a cake walk....at least as far as physical energy goes.

So another reason we need to stay healthy is mental alertness. You can physically put in another 2-4 hours, but is your brain tired and mushy? I'll write another blog sometime on exercising your brain, but for the sake of physical energy, know that your brain can take up to 20 percent of your total energy. While reaching 20% might be hard, I would venture to guess that software development, a field that problem solves, researches, and learns most of the day probably comes closer to that 20% regularly over other fields.
If you've already used up 15-20 percent of your energy from thinking all day, how do you think your next few hours will go? Problem solving that widget that broke just became a little more taxing.

There are many reasons to be healthy, those are just a couple. There are also many ways to be healthy. Everyone thinks running, walking, or going to the gym is the only way to stay healthy. Would you like to know my cardio routine? I bought my fiance an elliptical a couple of years ago. I put my elliptical in front of my TV, and play Rocket League with friends on PS4. When I need to do strength training, I put my total gym in front of the TV and watch something (most recently it's been a lot of Game of Thrones). My fiance and I are getting married next month and have been taking dance lessons. In the last 2 days we have probably danced a total of 4-5 hours together.....I can't remember the last time my abs were this sore!

Exercising doesn't have to be the horrible grind many people make it. I'm motivated to do it regardless of if I have TV or video games, but having those tools actually makes me look forward to it. Even as I finish this post I am just thinking about how I want to split up my exercise time tonight, and how fun video games sound while I exercise.

Reward yourself with better health. No one can do it for you, it has to be your choice. As a software developer, it's a pretty important one.

Just in case you need to catch up on your Game of Thrones......