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

Have you ever looked at a code that you wrote several years ago? I have to do this all the time, after all I am working on the same application. Not only do I do it to fix bugs, but I do it to optimize the production code. And at times I see my old code and think what was I thinking when I wrote this. You see, with every release our main product grows, new features, core changes, you name it. One can say that we are optimizing the software by adding things our clients ask for and this leads to optimization of code. Optimizing your code is extremely important, normally there are few ways in which a particular problem could be solved, but if you are serious about your work, you do want to pick the most efficient way of doing things. Many books have been written on the subject, simple Google search will produce lots of articles concerning code optimization. Today I am not going to talk about that, instead I will talk about optimizing a developer.

If you are like me – doing coding full time and at times after hours, you want to achieve something which falls beyond simple financial compensation for you work. I want to grow as a developer. I have read somewhere that it takes roughly 10000 hours to master a task – be it musical instrument, a sport or any other activity. I think similar thing is applied to programming. I have been thinking of a way to apply optimization to myself, after all if my code can be optimized, why can’t the writer of the code. Here are some principles that I have came up with. This works for me, might not work for everyone. Once again, just my own opinion. Read more…

My name is Paul Zubkov, I was born in 1976 which makes me 32 years old (as of 2008). I live in a small town called Richmond Hill, which is just north of Toronto, Canada with my wife Marina and my two kids – Alex and Anya. I run several businesses on line and work 9-5 for a software development company as a Development Team leader. I have always wanted to work for myself, to be in charge of my own life and I have found what I consider to be a pretty good way of achieving this – do business on line.

At this point you might say, Paul you are contradicting yourself, you still work 9-5 and you do have a boss from 9-5, and you will be right. My 9-5 boss is a great businessman whom I admire as a leader and a human being. I have learned a great deal from him and received enormous amount of support and encouragement. Dave, if you are reading this, thank you for all you have done for me so far. I also enjoy writing code and working on the projects that I am involved in. However, by the end of this summer (2008) I am planning on handing in my resignation letter thanking everyone who worked with me and work only for myself.

You might be wondering how can one person combine regular 9-5 job and couple of businesses at the same time – the answer is help and support from my family, 6 hours of sleep on weekdays and lots and lots of coffee.

In this blog I will focus mostly on business side of things, but I probably will publish a thing or two on my personal life development as well.