Words On Wednesday

The Carolina Code Conference was the first developer conference I attended as well as my first time speaking at a developer conference. It was new and exciting, if a little scary. Now that I’m on the far side of it, I wanted to look back at the experience and the weeks leading up to it. My first foray into the conference scene was submitting a talk for Carolina Code Conference 2023 . At the time, I was pretty heavy into MuleSoft (for work, definitely not because I wanted to be). A coworker mentioned the conference to me and suggested that I should submit a talk for it. With MuleSoft taking the lion’s share of my current work responsibilities, I figured that low-code/no-code solutions were probably the thing I was most qualified to talk about. Looking into the submission process, I couldn’t figure out exactly what a “good” submission would look like. The only required details were a title and description. I decided to put together what I WOULD present as a talk, record a  video of i...

Work in any industry is often broken down to man-hours, the expected amount of work that an average person can finish in an uninterrupted hour. While that’s great for planning and budgeting purposes, I think it’s a terrible measure that gives inaccurate estimates at best and coerces people to work absurd amounts of unpaid hours at worst. And much like Fred Brooks probably suggested in 1975 (I’ve never actually read the book that I based this title on), there are several reasons why basing expectations on the work capability of some theoretical person in some theoretical hour is unhelpful and often harmful. The first problem with man-hour estimates is the amount of work. Who is this average based on? In the software engineering industry, there are vast differences in experience, specification, and familiarity with different products. If you ask me to build something in a language I’ve never written for an industry that I have no exposure to, it’s going to take a while. A recent code sch...

A lot of people in computer science and software engineering share the opinion that bleeding edge is always the best option for any new project. Newer is better, right? I would argue that this isn’t consistently the case. Occasionally newer is better, but often the reliability and availability of documentation makes older technology the superior option. Some people may not be familiar with the term “bleeding edge,” as it seems to be pretty specific to the information technology industry. “Cutting edge” is pretty universal, but “bleeding edge” suggests a step further. Something that is cutting edge may be appropriately described as “latest and greatest;” bleeding edge is even newer, albeit maybe not greater specifically. The difference in my mind is that cutting edge is very new but already widely adopted, where bleeding edge is so new that most organizations haven’t yet begun using it. Bleeding edge technology creators and supporters often tout the vast improvements over existing optio...

I am finished with my Master of Science degree in Information Technology from Southern New Hampshire University as of December 1, 2023. Thank goodness. This has been a very roundabout journey. I first started seriously entertaining the idea of a master’s degree back in 2017. I was becoming eligible for my employer’s tuition reimbursement policy and I wanted to take advantage of it as quickly as possible. The longer you wait to start, the longer until you’re able to finish. I didn’t want to wait another year, two, or even longer before I got started. My uncle has a philosophy that it never gets easier, so you may as well do it now. Figured I had better get the ball rolling. As of October 2017, I was finishing my first term . I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and much less weathered than I am now. Things looked positive, and I was pretty confident about my ability to finish on schedule and with little difficulty. Things got rocky with that employer and I went on an indefinite...

  Information Technology and the Capstone My experience with the capstone class and Information Technology program as a whole has been enlightening and reflects observable personal and professional growth. When I began working toward this degree in 2017, I was far less confident in my ability to engineer software solutions and I lacked the experience to properly market myself. After pausing my education temporarily and enduring a job layoff with several subsequent career changes, I found a position that I like with an ambitious company and resumed classes to completion. Although it took me six years to finish a program that was intended to take two years, the experiences along the way have helped me grow and develop, and encouraged me to take on challenges that I would never have considered before. I have gained enormous confidence in my skill as an IT professional, and I now know how to market myself with my storied background and natural talent. The Information Technology pro...