The SquizLogKeith Pitty takes a squiz at the world. |
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The SquizLogKeith Pitty takes a squiz at the world. |
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Hello! Any readers still there? I haven't found time to post much lately so I understand if you've removed me from your list of feeds.
But if you're reading this, here is a pre-Christmas professional update.
In late November I had the privilege of attending the Open Source Developers' Conference in Brisbane.
I learnt plenty, realised how much I still have to learn, caught up with former colleagues and people I'd met at the previous year's conference in Melbourne, and met more geeks with interesting stories to tell. I was reasonably satisfied with my talk (slides here) although I have to admit to being somewhat overawed by following Dr Nic Williams and Dr Paul King. But I think it made for an interesting overall discussion about Ruby on Rails, Groovy and JRuby.
The Brisbane open source geeks were very hospitable and it is probably fair to say that I consumed perhaps a little too much amber fluid. Maybe that is related to the fact that I volunteered to be part of the organising committee for next year's conference in Sydney (if we get our act together).
I continue to be inspired by the vibrant Australian Ruby on Rails community. So much talent and a wonderful willingness to share. Unfortunately I wasn't able to make it to RailsCamp 2.0 but I have been a regular at the Sydney Rails Group meetings.
As far as improving my working knowledge of Rails goes, I give a big thumbs up to The Rails Way by Obie Fernandez. Although just recently published I've enjoyed following the book's progress through the beta period and thoroughly recommend it. Every time I dip into this extensive tome I discover something else to add to my Rails knowledge-base. It is not exactly bedtime reading but is an excellent resource for the professional Rails developer. Now that Rails 2.0 is out, I've found Ryan Bates' recent Railscasts very useful. So far he has four short episodes, each of which shows an improvement delivered with Rails 2.0.
Rails continues to be my web application tool of choice and I look forward to using it more intensively in 2008.
Speaking of 2008, it will mark a change in direction for me. After nearly eight years at Cirrus Technologies in Sydney, I have decided to start my own business. Initially I will be freelancing, based from my home office, but who knows where it will lead?
I owe a big vote of thanks to the directors of Cirrus Technologies and the colleagues that I have worked with at Cirrus over the years. When I joined in early 2000, Enterprise Java was still very new. Java was still young. For any Java developers reading this, do you remember programming with Java before the Collections Framework was introduced in JDK 1.2? Or perhaps you remember when CMP Entity Beans were still a novelty and the Spring Framework was unheard of, still gestating in Rod Johnson's brain?
Cirrus has provided me with many professional opportunities for which I am truly grateful.
But the time has come to move on. Twelve years of commuting between the Central Coast and Sydney has taken its toll and I am very much looking forward to an improved lifestyle. As my endocrinologist said yesterday, "You only go around once."
With the wonders of mathematics I just have to choose base 38 arithmetic this year to celebrate turning 19 again. Happy birthday to me!