C#, VB.Net, XML and mass consumption of coffee.

Many many years ago when I landed my first coding job, I was amazed at how different working in a software development shop was different from what I had pictured in my mind.  At that time, I did not even graduated yet, I was in need of money and it seemed like a great opportunity so I took the job.  While driving to my new place of employment for the first time, I was running some scenarios in my head, trying to remember some tested and true algorithms, thinking of whole bunch of technical things that might help me impress my then new boss; what came as a complete surprise to me was the fact that I had no idea what the work was about.

After couple of weeks, I began to realize that many things that were part of my job were not covered in school at all.  I can’t really blame school for that, after all they were trying to give me as much information as they could about technical aspects – languages, algorithms and all that jazz, I myself had failed to learn the truth about real time work of a coder, and I did have opportunities to do so.  Later on when I became a manager and was interviewing people for coding positions, I realized that I was not unique in this lack of knowledge.  Most of the recent graduates were in the same boat that I was in years ago. Read more…

I have been told many many times that changes are supposed to be good for you (or me, since it’s my situation that we are looking into). I have been a coder for quite some time now. I can’t say that I am absolutely ecstatic about programming. It does not influence my life outside of my office hours and time that I spent at home trying desperately to improve myself. For instance, I don’t watch Star Trek or build some kind of crazy contraptions which could loosely be called a robot in my basement, although come to think of it, that sounds like a good idea; the robot one, not the Star Trek. I don’t wear nerdy t-shirts with BSOD on it. I am not participating in heated discussions like “My IDE is bigger then yours!” and “My OS can kick your OS’s butt” and so on. I can’t say that coding is my passion, it is something I am interested in and it pays my bills. Another factor would be my formal training – I have some in development, but as for the other areas I can’t say that I am properly trained. Lately something had changed in my work – I am doing more managerial things then coding. Read more…