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......

What motivates you to be motivated?

So let me start off by saying, I had no idea what to name this post. The redundancy in the name satisfied me in an estrange way. That being said and out of the way, I wanted to talk a little bit about motivation. Something that both blesses and plagues us all at one point or another.

I've talked about motivation before, but I've never written specifically about finding what drives you and gives you motivation. I find that there has to be a driving force to get your wheels turning, and once you get going, you can gain speed from the momentum you already have.

I've got a real world example of using momentum to keep yourself going. Almost two weeks ago a group of us went camping in Fall River, KS. Gorgeous place by the way, I've been going there since I was very young and is my favorite place to be outdoors.
Anyways, on this camping trip I was walking across camp, stepped off a rock wrong and rolled my ankle. Well up until this point I have been exercising 6 times a week for roughly an hour a day, doing mostly cardio. We finished camping for the last day or two before we were going to come home. Upon coming home I rested it the best I could. I could not walk on it, so my normal exercise routine which consisted of using a elliptical, was completely out of the question. I would not/could not risk hurting my ankle further than it already was. So I stayed off it as much as I could, which essentially left me a couch potato.

I was bugged daily by the notion that I should be exercising considering it had become such a large part of my routine. I was still carrying the momentum of that routine day to day. That momentum was still motivating me to do what I had done countless days before. A week passed, and my hope for a speedily healed ankle was depleted. I knew I had to refocus and find a way to do some longer sessions that would not use my ankle. I ended up buying a total gym off Craigslist fairly cheap a few days ago. With no excuses left, I have been back at it since the night I brought it home, literally just 2-3 days ago.
However, my momentum is gaining again. While at work today in my last hour or so I was excited to come home, knock out some applications and/or programming, eat dinner and get to exercising before bed.


Now lets get back to the original topic of the post. What is the driving force for your motivation? Or rather as the title suggests, the motivation for your motivation. None of us start out motivated. You don't just wake up one day wanting to tackle the world. There is always something behind it. You could be doing it for health reasons, a loved one, yourself, a pet, anyone and anything can be a valid reason to become motivated. As long as it truly drives you, and is not a fleeting experience or thing, it is valid.

Take mowing my backyard for example. Sure I highly prefer the way clean cut grass looks over an overgrown yard, but sometimes that is not enough motivation to motivate me to cut it and maintain it at a stricter level. My preference on how long my grass is, is not a valid form of motivation.
Now take the same issue of an overgrown lawn, but add the fact that I have three dogs that I love very much. I feel I have to cut the grass as that is their source of a restroom, exercise, and enjoyment. I feel that I might let them down if I let it get too wild. Therefore, I never let it get overgrown, and keep it within reason. You can tell when something is a true form of motivation when you are willing to do it even when it is literally the last thing you want to do.

Take a look at any problem you have in your personal life. Find motivation for your motivation. When things get hard, you get bored, want to give up, look at that long term goal, find that motivation to keep you going. In times when you feel like you can't keep going, rely on that momentum to keep the wheel moving, even if only a little, every little bit helps.

Trying to learn new technology stacks as a young developer I feel lost and all over the place sometimes. Even with a focus like JavaScript, how many libraries and functionalities can you conform out of JavaScript? The thought is downright daunting at first. I am getting to a point where no new library or functionality worries me. I've got enough momentum build that I know I'll make it work, learn it, apply it, and be successful.

I suppose I should end with what motivates my motivation to be successful. At times it sounds like a dream to give up on being successful. Play video games all day, never worry about exercise, just make enough money to scrape by and pay the bills, never set myself up for a better future. So...why don't I? I have a job where I'm well paid, I work a lot sure, but I am not challenged, its a fairly easy job as far as I'm concerned. What I have now is success by many others definitions.

I'll never have my dream job, I'm just too old. My dream job would involve racing, of any sort. I believe that would be the ultimate job, knowing I have to wake up and go race. At my age though that either takes quite a bit of financial backing, that I just do not realistically have.

I don't just stay at my job, come home and play video games, eat too much, drink too much, and be generally slothful because its just not me. I have tried to be genuinely happy at my current job. Though I enjoy the people I work worth, I am limited by the position I am in, and how our corporation is set up. I cannot be expressively free to learn and grow in the areas I want to. I have all but neglected most of my family working for a company that believed promotions came in the wave of hard work, you were judged by how much you got done, and not how efficient, or smart you were. The idea of being with a company that will reward me for the end result and not the path I used to get there motivates me.

In short, I want to build a better future for myself. My conviction is that I want to be successful. I've mention success several times in this post. The term "successful" is loosely said and extremely subjective. I want to be successful by my own definition. No one on this planet can tell me what success is in a way that would make me change my motivation and how I view things.

I hope everyone who reads this finds the motivation to their motivation, and builds up their momentum.

If you like to read, and can gain motivation from it, I have a book that is two fold for you. Not only will it lay out lines for how to ensure that you are successful at what you are trying to attain motivation in, but it will also ensure that you crush your original goal.
So many times we aim for motivation for a goal that we feel is attainable...we attain it...and then what? We become deflated. We have hit our target and now we are feeling left without a purpose.
Check this book out, and take a look at this author. His name is Grant Cardone. I really like the content he puts out.

Professionals like yourself that read my blog will really enjoy this book, and get a lot of value out of it.

A Creature called Motivation

So I wanted to talk a little bit about motivation today. Motivation or lack there of comes in many different forms both positive and negative.

Sometimes when your positively motivated you can crank out work, be productive, and impress others and yourself.
Maybe your motivation comes from a lack of something. For example, my current job doesn't allow me to problem solve enough.
Sometimes my personal want and desire for that lures me into a programming session. This could work much in the same way if your unhappy. I do not always enjoy my current job. This motivates me to move faster, learn more, study harder, whatever is needed to look forward and gain the skills and knowledge I need to reach that light at the end of the tunnel.

Being unmotivated can take hold also. When we ride that high wave of motivation many times we do not look forward to see the shoreline coming up and plan for when that wave crashes. When it crashes, most of us fall into an unmotivated state. Being unmotivated happens to everyone at one point or another. How we handle these periods of demotivation is what separates out the victorious from people who give up.
It is hard to truely fail, but it is easy to give up.

I haven't written a blog post in a few weeks, I haven't failed because I haven't given up. I haven't been as motivated to write, and truely all I have is excuses because I have not made time for it.
I could talk about preparing to go camping, putting more time into exercising, and give all these reasons in which I was productive with my time...but at the end of it all...they are excuses. I did not make time to write out a blog post.

I've found myself in a weird programming spot as well. Similar excuses have engulfed my last 5 days or so, and could easily consume my next 5. So I made a commitment to myself that starting tonight, I would sit down and spend at least 30 minutes give or take working on JavaScript.

Even on the days I want to go program I find life excuses. Having full realization of this will entitle me to go home, and hold myself accountable to hit on my goals.

I spent the last part of my lunch writing this blog just to ensure that I set out with my best foot forward. My goal is to get back to a minimum of one post a week.

Stay motivated! You can do it!

I love this from Michael Jordan, one of the greatest basketball players of all time. If you need something to look at every day to stay motivated, regardless of what you want to be motivated in, pick up this wall sticker.
"Its not about being the best, its about being better than you were yesterday." -Michael Jordan

Every office, of every company could use this somewhere.

Xamarin

First off, I just have not had time to write lately, sorry for that! Other priorities came up....just as life goes....

So I wanted to write something short about C# and Xamarin.

I've been working on Vanilla JavaScript for last few months. I enjoy it tremendously, however, the job market here in the Midwest does not follow the trends of the rest of the United States.

So it looks more and more like C# is where I need to be, or at least the .Net framework in general.

I've wanted to develop android apps for awhile now, but haven't dove into it purely for the investment of time in Java.

Coming across Xamarin changed all of that mentally for me. So the short snippet of Xamarin from me.

Xamarin let's you write native apps in C# cross platform. From the outside in it looks pretty easy to program cross platform for Android, iOS, or Windows.

Most people will benefit from already knowing C#, this is where I'll have to dive back in.

My plan is to continue on JavaScript, as well as work on C# on the side.

Short term I'm looking to get an app into the playstore. I plan on continuing to work on JavaScript while I gain experience in .Net platform.
There is a ton of great books out there, I know at a glance I liked the one below. I have not made a decision yet on which one I intend to work through when I am ready for it.

Parkinson's Law

I've been following John Somnez (sp) on his youtube channel lately (Simple Programmer). I highly recommend it if you like listening to tech, business, or self development as background noise.

He talks in several of his video about the idea of Parkinsons Law, which essentially is that a project might actually take X amount of hours. If you allow it though, it will take all the hours.

Focusing in on a projects is how I have been successful and gotten several of my promotions.

My current Store Manager likes to boast about how fast he was at building a display, or finishing a task list. He may be dead on, but I prefer to work smarter not harder. Many times the task a hand is mundane, and seems like there may not be a "smarter" way to do it.

This to me is where Parkinson's Law can apply dramatically. I can focus on a project to get it to completion. This is not to say I lack multitasking skills, it is simply a different approach to the same mundane problem. Working in retail, I get dozens of things thrown by me constantly. It is really easy to let one of those side step you for 5, 10, or even 45 minutes.

Emergencies are always emergencies. They will come first, but usually you can take those dozens of things and set them off to the side as later "to dos".

So applying all of these theories, traits, and trains of thought to programming, I believe I can become much more accomplished in self studying.

For example, last night I finished writing some JavaScript code that made a form unable to be submitted without being filled out properly.

I have touched this form three times. The first time I actually made it. The second time I added a utility file to it to shorten some parts of the code. Well when I added the utilities file it wasn't working. Almost as if the Submit button wasn't firing.

Dropping in console.log () everywhere allowed me to see where my program was dieing off and hone in on it. I eventually got it working and fixed it.

Knowing that when I added the code so it couldn't be submitted without being filled out had worked, I was tempted to move on. I had looked at the code before to fix it and gave up.

I was approaching that time line of the night where I was really wanting to exercise, shower, eat, and go to bed.

I thought about self progression and how me taking the time to figure it out would be as valuable as writing the original code. I told myself that I could fix this in 30 minutes. I did not allow myself more time, and was determined not to give up again.

Low and behold, I fixed it inside of my 30 minutes. It worked and I got the end result I wanted, being able to move on with my night, and a feeling of self accomplishment. Small win, however reaffirms things you may be too timid to truthfully consider.

My main point here is set goals and deadlines for yourself. Be honest with yourself. You know you only have 30 minutes, so do it in 30 minutes! 30 minutes of work should take 30 minutes of productivity, not an hour.

I cannot end without suggesting something to help you. There are loads of ways to stick to deadlines, and motivation is needed for those. I came across this book and thought it was pretty cool. Some of the quotes are thought provoking that leave you lingering all day in a pool of wonder and excitement. These quotes are fun to share with others, and can keep you going when you are unsure of how to proceed. If you decide to pick it up, I hope you do as I did and pass it on to someone else who could use it in their life as well.