True Stories
Too Late, the Code Is Already Written
By J. Timothy King on March 21, 2009
One way to deal with poor communication on a software project is simply to ignore the people around you and do what you wanted to do anyhow. Of course, this strategy can backfire, especially if you don’t know what you’re doing. But in that case, you probably won’t know enough to notice it backfiring, so […]
Posted in Confessions of a Veteran Software Developer, Humor, Software Development, Stories, True Stories | Tagged communication, Damon/IEC, innovation, programming, software engineering
7 Best Things About Being a Consulting Software Developer
By J. Timothy King on February 7, 2009
I ran across the video below at the SDLC blog: “Hug a developer… They’re in terrible pain.” This came at an significant time for me, because I too have been working on a project that is quite painful for me. It’s painful, because I saw the disaster coming, because I warned about it, because I […]
Posted in Leaving Normal, Software Development, Stories, True Stories | Tagged consulting, programming, software engineering
Why I Like Being a One-man Entrepreneur
By J. Timothy King on November 11, 2008
A few weeks ago Seth Godin wrote that a business can be “too small to fail”. That is, while bigger businesses can afford to take risks without going under… A small acting bank would never have invested in tens of thousands of loans that they hadn’t looked at. And a small acting startup wouldn’t hire […]
Posted in Business, Entrepreneurship, Leaving Normal, Stories, True Stories
Why I Never Want to be Published
By J. Timothy King on March 17, 2008
Recently, a fiction author told me that because I was “unpublished”–his word, not mine–I was unqualified to offer advice on writing stories. Of course, that’s silly, because getting published is not about whether you can write. It’s about schmoozing with editors and agents and about receiving enough rejection letters. Getting published is an exercise in […]
Posted in Business, Leaving Normal, Self-publishing, Stories, True Stories | Tagged critics, innovation | 4 Responses
Yesterday I Went Swimming in the Jury Pool
By J. Timothy King on November 15, 2007
I didn’t mean to. I didn’t want to. I got pushed in, as it were. That’s one of the things I hate about swimming in the jury pool; no one ever does so by choice. The other thing I hate is that it’s filled with shark-infested water. In this age of big-brother paranoia, there are […]
Posted in Stories, True Stories, Writing | Tagged jury duty | 4 Responses
Changes: Fading Out of the Software Business
By J. Timothy King on October 7, 2007
I’ve been an idiot. I’ve moved this blog to a new domain, blog.JTimothyKing.com. (That’s not how I’ve been an idiot.) And I’m changing the focus, because the focus of my life has been changing. The fact that it has been changing for the past 2 years but I haven’t acted on it– That’s how I’ve […]
Posted in Entrepreneurship, Leaving Normal, Software Development, Stories, Tales of a Wanna-Be Software Entrepreneur, True Stories, Writing | 8 Responses
Sued for Reading an RSS Feed?
By J. Timothy King on August 1, 2007
The blogosphere is coming of age. And the story of my recent experience with a well-known blog network illustrates a contentious issue in the blogosphere, contentious because blogging technology is just progressing too fast, even for bloggers. And because the law is moving even more slowly than the bloggers themselves. Before the dust settles, no […]
Posted in Intellectual Property, RSS, Stories, Tales of a Wanna-Be Software Entrepreneur, Technology, True Stories | Tagged blogging, innovation | 3 Responses
I’ve Been So Busy…
By J. Timothy King on July 26, 2007
… I have over 30,000 unread posts in my feed reader. … I haven’t read Dilbert for over a month. … I have to schedule appointments with my wife. … Some people have e-mailed me three times, and I still haven’t gotten back to them. … I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like to read a […]
Posted in Humor, Leaving Normal, Stories, Tales of a Wanna-Be Software Entrepreneur, True Stories
Ten Things That Are Different Now That I’m Self-Employed
By J. Timothy King on December 5, 2006
My first day as an entrepreneur, I got sick. Seriously. It was Thanksgiving. And I got a virus, which grew steadily worse through that day and the next. Immediately, I got to experience two differences about working for yourself: No paid holidays, and no paid sick leave. By Friday evening, I was completely incapacitated and […]
Posted in Entrepreneurship, Leaving Normal, Stories, Tales of a Wanna-Be Software Entrepreneur, True Stories | 19 Responses
The Mantra That Will Get Me Through My Last 4 Days
By J. Timothy King on November 17, 2006
Today I discovered a mantra that I hope will get me through my last four days in this place. And I wrote it on my dry-erase board. If you recall, I quit my job and struck out on my own. But I still have a few more days before my last. Four days, to be […]
Posted in Leaving Normal, Professionalism, Stories, Tales of a Wanna-Be Software Entrepreneur, True Stories | 7 Responses