-
Beginner Developer: Where to Start?
I have a friend who’s looking to become a marketable developer fairly quickly, but is essentially trying to go from zero to hero. Despite starting a project in Python to randomize wedding slideshows, he’s never really done development, nor does he understand its core concepts (classes vs. objects, for instance). He kinda just needs a job, plus the ability to make useful tools for himself. Folks are telling him Java and *.NET, and I (mostly) agree for the simple purposes of 1) easy desktop or web development, and 2) using keyword-heavy languages to reinforce programming concepts. Not strong reasons, no. If he just wanted a job, I’d recommend UI development.…
-
Amanda Waller in the House
Happy post-Halloween! I’m increasingly sure that official trick-or-treating got moved to a night other than the 31st, because not one childish soul came to my door last night. Greg heard a rumor that it might have been Saturday, which sucks for them. I was out having a blast. A colleague/friend pleaded for me to come out to Sidelines and partake in the comic superhero costuming. I’m not so much on the comics (or the superheros), so I was kinda at a loss, because I was definitely not rocking a body suit or bikini. Greg suggested several folks including Amanda Waller, and I opted for a Pam Grier-esque version, since I…
-
A Beautiful Birthday Weekend
What could be better than a trip to Crowders Mountain on a perfect Saturday afternoon? Both the weather and our camera this time was good enough–and we’d just finished our second photography class that morning–to get some vague shots of Charlotte. Out zoom lens (55-200 mm) isn’t quite zoomy enough to really compress the distance, but it was fun trying, especially when we needed to manually focus or do a focus lock. Instead of just doing the 0.75 mile trek to the top and back (which includes 300+ damn stairs), we decided to hike some of the back trails. All in all, I think we covered 5-ish miles, but my…
-
Debt Free
$25,691.32 in student loans, paid off as of today. That’s $30,100 (give or take $100) of debt paid off total over the last 3.5 years of financial consciousness. I think I’m supposed to throw a party or something. I’m still kinda in shock.
-
Monotony : Creativity
I’ve learned that I have a minimal (or maximal?) ratio of monotony to creativity to maintain in order to not go absolutely stir-crazy. It’s about 4:1. For every 4 hours I churn on something that’s difficult to make interesting (office work, house cleaning, troubleshooting a tedious problem), I need about an hour of creativity. And not an hour of editing a creative work, but creating: sketching out a site design; penciling out ideas for an app, story, or novel; throwing down code/tests for a new or in-progress project; writing out a scene in my novel; knitting/crocheting; blogging; etc. But 4:1 is pretty much my bare minimum for getting through the…