Posted by Chris Shorrock
Tue, 29 Aug 2006 23:05:00 GMT
So work has REALLY been s l o o w i n g down lately. I'm not a salesman and never have been so finding my own work is often difficult. I feel I'm very skilled at what I do yet establishing yourself on the global market is something that isn't easily accomplished. I'm now debating going back to an office job but find the whole prospect of doing so somewhat demoralizing.
My current work arrangement is quite good, I work from home in my nice little office in a nice quiet neighborhood in a nice quiet town. I'm able to focus and get heaps of work done since there's nearly no interruptions and I'm very self motivated. I can wake up at 7, work for 10 hours and still be home by 5. I can BBQ for lunch, and if I need to, workout during my lunch break. All in all, I really have nothing to complain about.
On the flip side, my nice quiet home has a mortgage attached to it, as well as a wife and daughter living inside of it who, for some reason, demand food now and then. So due to the downswing of work it may be time to head back to a real office as baby and mom aren't so happy when the bills don't get paid.
But why is going back to an office job so bad? Well, I suppose I just appreciate a good thing and throwing that behind you can be difficult. My nice little neighborhood is about an hour and a half commute to downtown where I'm sure I would end up working. That means 3 hours each day commuting minimum, and that's if I drive, which I probably wouldn't, so public transit would be getting a new customer.
Also I need to consider what I want to do. Do I go with Java or Ruby? Java is a great language which I enjoy (and even named my dog after... yes I'm that much of a dork) but getting stuck in a web shop that does glorified business card sites gets tedious quick, so I would almost need to find something with a level of complexity to challenge myself in order to remain sane. On the other hand, I've really enjoyed Rails work as of late, the ability to turn stuff out quickly makes even normal web development enjoyable due to the high ratio of work to show; that is, the amount of hours put in results in more done that typical development environments.
This entry has turned into a rant with no real focus or direction but It had been a while since I posted anything so I thought I'd just throw up what was on my mind. I'm still not sure what's going to happen in the near future but hopefully it turns out for the best. I still have some time until I need to make a decision so hopefully I can find the light at the end of the tunnel I've just entered.
Posted in Programming, General | Tags contracting, java, rails, ruby, work | 1 comment | 1 trackback
Posted by Chris Shorrock
Tue, 15 Aug 2006 22:15:00 GMT
So I'm not much of a gambler (unlike my daughter), so putting money towards something that I have no clue as to the value of is something I find difficult.
$6.50, this is all about 6 frickin 50 (with a coupon). I was sitting at my desk attempting to find a good reference for Rails based RJS Templates (AJAX made easy) when I found O'Reilly, the king of technical references, was offering me what seemed to be the definitive guide on the subject. I was having so much trouble justifying spending $6.50 on something I couldn't physically touch, but eventually decided to do so. chris.good_decisions++
The book is written by Cody Fauser who, previous to writing the book, had written a few tutorials on the subject. In fact his tutorials had helped me with RJS pre rails 1.1 when I was working on iCompete so I knew he had a good grasp for technical writing. He also recently updated the book, so if you happened to purchase it recently be sure to go grab an update.
The book is well written and the examples are very clear and do a good job of outlining the point they are trying to make. It's not a huge book, at 58 pages, but it doesn't need to be as it does what it sets out to do; show you how to use RJS templates avoiding some of the common pitfalls while taking advantage of Rails built in functionality as well as points you in the direction of some very handy tools. Additionally the RJS Reference at the end of the book will turn out to be a well used addition as it lists all the commonly used features of the library.
I'm sure this book will be worth it's weight in gold as I recently started out on a new rails project in my personal time. For a technology as useful as RJS Templates, it's shocking that there isn't much more literature out there, but when you can pick up a book like this for $6.50 I suppose it doesn't matter. A great purchase, and maybe in the future I'll learn something from my daughter
Posted in Programming | Tags ajax, code, fauser, rails, rjs, ruby, templates | 2 comments | 1 trackback
Posted by Chris Shorrock
Wed, 09 Aug 2006 13:51:00 GMT
I had said for some time that I would never do THIS. I would never jump on this whole blog thing as my interests don’t often mesh with the rest of the worlds. But here I am, writing about how I never intended to write.
Why did I start? Peer pressure, plain and simple. My wife was harassing me to, friends said I would be good at it - so here I am - giving into peer pressure - like a girl on a prom date.
A brief introduction is in order, I’m a programmer living out of Vancouver Canada, with a wife of 5 years and a screaming little thing that is hurting my head daughter. Currently working as a pseudo-freelance programmer specializing in all things Java while I enjoy dabbling in Ruby and other things in my spare time. I’m also play more video games than I should and enjoy rolling around and trying to submit other men Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and mixed martial arts. People often think I’m grumpy but I’m really just shy, which is good cause I’m not often in the mood to talk…. Maybe I ought to re-evaluate that statement.
As I said, my interest are diverse but if there are any programming fathers who like to play games and get in the occasional fight, I suppose you’re my demographic.
I’m an awful speller, so if you feel the need to point it out, I’ll ignore you take very careful note of it. I also need a better title for this whole blog, so any suggestions are appreciated.
Posted in General | Tags arts, bjj, daughter, java, martial, myspace, programming, rails, ruby, wife | 6 comments | 25 trackbacks
