Taking the emacs plunge
October 23rd, 2007
Last night I attended the emacs hack fest. I went simply out of curiosity, and because I have heard such a buzz surrounding it lately. Oh yeah, and because Jim Weirich was making the trip up from Cinci to show off some new stuff. Now I don't claim to know anything about emacs, but after seeing some of the stuff everyone was doing with it last night, I am sold. I know it's going to be a learning curve, (I think Jim's been using emacs longer than I have been alive) but from the looks of it that time is time well spent. Let's see where I end up in a few months.
37.times {puts "developers"}
October 19th, 2007
I have been writing code almost round the clock for the past two weeks now. It's been quite a sprint and with just two people doing the Rails part of the application it's been very pressing. We are in the middle of doing some really cool stuff and have the velocity of about six developers, and that scares the hell out of me. Speed kills most development projects, and so far we have managed to keep the project relatively cruft free. I have to say that I am actually surprised by this but don't think that we can sustain with only two developers for much longer. If any of you out there in radioland are looking for a cool Rails job and have a good set of Rails skills that you can run with, please get a hold of me. We are looking for one more full time Rails developer as well as a full time front end wizard. If you think you can help us just let me know. This project promises to have some really cool challenges and some very rewarding output!
Why contract work sucks
October 10th, 2007
I love doing contract work. I have been doing it since I was in college and it will always be something I love to do. I recently took a position that requires my full attention, so won't be doing contract work while I am working for GoNowDo. This really is a nice break from the contract world, especially since one of my last engagements left me with a bad taste in my mouth.
This particular engagement was a small one. Just help get a couple of concepts completed that the original developer couldn't get done in a timely fashion. This seemed like an open and shut deal, but I was surprised when it came time to settle up. After sending the bill I was told I would be paid quickly and things were just fine. I received an email a couple of days later stating that there was something that wasn't working. I responded in kind stating I would fix whatever was wrong, just to let me know what was up. I heard nothing back from the client for almost two weeks and thought I would follow up. The first follow up was simply a concern for the fact that the last communication stated something had to be done. After that I received an email stating that things were not working properly and I never contacted them back to fix. It was funny because it was a reply to the original mail i sent, but alas, I digress. After requesting payment for the invoice I got accused of hacking the clients network. I figured at that point I was now going to deal with the lament of all contractors, clients that don't pay. Anyone who knows me knows that I do a lot of security research but would never in my wildest dreams just attack a network without permission. I then received a rather lengthy diatribe about how the application was going to get nixed by the company, and I had received a lot of free code so that was compensation enough for my work. The client also went on to explain how they never received what they paid for and there was no way I was going to get any money out of it. Now I can appreciate the spirit of business and the way agreements work. If someone doesn't do the work you ask them to, then you don't have to pay for it. That part is simple. The funny thing is that there was something stated about timeframes, etc that no one ever agreed to. Oh well, I guess I learned my lesson about dealing with certain types of clients. I am sure though that like a person suffering from Alzheimer's I will go rushing back into contracting the first chance I get and probably get burned again. Won't be the first time, won't be the last.
This is why i dislike contract work. I love going into something unknown and figuring it out, coming up with a solution and making people happy. The only problem is that after you deliver a solution they sometimes forget what you did for them and decide that they don't have to pay you. I for one will not be working on contracts without receiving some kind of upfront retainer from now on.
