Browse: Page 52
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 coughing up big wads of… Well, suffice it to say I was feeling awful, and starting to worry a little. My cash-flow plan depended on me being able to bill enough hours for November in order not to starve the first couple weeks of January. So, I went to the emergency room. (And my first executive decision, to opt for COBRA coverage, turned out to be the right one.) And the doctor gave me some really nice drugs. And I slept straight through Saturday and most of Sunday.
Now that I’ve been doing it for a week, here are 10 more things I’ve noticed that are different since I started working for myself.
Continue reading “Ten Things That Are Different Now That I’m Self-Employed”
Posted in Entrepreneurship, Leaving Normal, Stories, Tales of a Wanna-Be Software Entrepreneur, True Stories |
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 more precise. You see, the thing is, I had already prepared a smooth exit even before I gave notice. So everything’s all set for me to go. Except now they’ve got me hacking a new feature into another impossibly low-quality module. I’m somewhere inbetween demoralized and just plain exhausted.
Alistair Cooke said, “A professional is someone who can do his best work when he doesn’t feel like it.” This quote is sometimes used by the more pointy-haired to brow-beat their underlings into a sense of pride. And that’s complete B.S. Each of us, professional or otherwise, does his best work when he’s engaged and happy. A professional is someone who can do a competent job when he’s disengaged or unhappy. But he’s not going to do his best work.
Continue reading “The Mantra That Will Get Me Through My Last 4 Days”
Posted in Leaving Normal, Professionalism, Stories, Tales of a Wanna-Be Software Entrepreneur, True Stories |
By J. Timothy King on November 14, 2006
What is “good” code? Some define it as “beautiful.” Some equate it with experience. Some with cleverness. Some can’t tell you what it is. Others know it when they see it. For me, “good” means maintainable.
Good code, yes, has grace and beauty. But what makes it worthwhile is that it’s easy to work with. It’s easy to add to good code. It’s easy to take away. It’s easy to make changes. It’s easy to fix bugs. And bugs are rare. Good code does what you want it to, usually the first time. Good code is a joy, not a burden.
This should be the normal state of software. How many developers live in the opposite state? They think that adding a feature always takes a long time and many lines of code. They think that getting cozy with your debugger is part of the process. They think that long hours sitting in front of the computer screen means you’re doing your job. It doesn’t. Long hours means you’re doing your job poorly.
Consider these truths of quality code. The best developers know them without thinking. To them, good code is second-nature. They’ve internalized these truths. They’ve reached nirvana. They are one with the code.
Continue reading “Seven Truths of Good Code”
Posted in Software Development |
By J. Timothy King on November 10, 2006
I gave my notice this week, and I’m now officially self-employed (almost).
My first reaction was, “How cool is this? I’m rockin’ now!”
My second reaction was, “Oh s***! What have I just done?!”
Continue reading “Yes, I’ve Left Normal”
Posted in Leaving Normal, Stories, Tales of a Wanna-Be Software Entrepreneur, True Stories | Tagged Escape from Cubicle Nation, Pam Slim, Roswell |
By J. Timothy King on October 19, 2006
Monday, the school nurse called about my daughter. If you’re a parent, I don’t know whether you’ve ever felt what that’s like, the thoughts that race through your mind, the tightness in your chest, the conscious effort to breathe normally.
Both of my daughters needed to come home from school. One of them had an infestation of head lice. Her scalp was red and extremely itchy, even bleeding. And she had numerous nits, the eggs of the vermin, in her hair. Our school has a no-nit policy. Searching on the web, I learned that some schools avoid no-nit policies. Because parents would be embarrassed to learn that their kids have lice. And I became thankful that our school does have a no-nit policy. But that’s just the way I am.
Continue reading “Why Leaders Never Assign Blame”
Posted in Leadership |
By J. Timothy King on October 10, 2006
House M.D. is indeed one of the best shows on TV. Like many others, I enjoy watching it. And to increase my enjoyment of the show even more, I started a House Drinking Game. With the help of others, inlcuding Jim “Suldog” Sullivan and Digg user toxicredm, I now present:
The Dr. House Drinking Game
Continue reading “The Dr. House Drinking Game”
Posted in Entertainment, Television | Tagged drinking game, House M.D., TV |
By J. Timothy King on October 9, 2006
I’ve been meaning for some time to write about how slow “quick and dirty” is, how misnamed the term is, how misguided are the hoards of managers (many of them former and current software developers) who embrace “quick and dirty” as a fast solution to pressing problems, as though it could ever deliver an actual solution.
I’ve been meaning for some time to write this. It took Lidor Wyssocky’s latest blog post to push me into it. And just in case someone out there couldn’t tell you were joking… (You were joking, right?) The sad truth is that “quick and dirty” may be dirty, but it’s never quick, at least not if you actually want to deliver a usable product.
Continue reading “Quick and Dirty May Be Dirty, But Is It Quick?”
Posted in Professionalism, Software Development |
By J. Timothy King on September 29, 2006
Recently, Alexander Kjerulf, the Chief Happiness Officer, asked, “What makes you happy or unhappy at work?” I pulled part of my answer from an old post from my LiveJournal, “Things to Make My Life Perfect.” This list of things I actually wrote in response to a writing prompt for the (now defunct) Alchera Project. At the time, I was in a deep depression, brought about by a demoralizing job.
Continue reading “I Just Realized How Miserable I Am”
Posted in Entrepreneurship, Leaving Normal, Stories, Tales of a Wanna-Be Software Entrepreneur, True Stories |
By J. Timothy King on September 15, 2006
What brought this all on was that one of my computers died. So I updated software on another computer, and discovered I needed a fix. It’s a fix for a recent improvement in a Perl library, URI::file::Base, that coupled with behavior in URI::file::Unix happens to invoke different behavior in URI::URL, which… Basically, w3mir no longer works.
Continue reading “Fix for w3mir With Latest URI.pm”
Posted in Software Development |
By J. Timothy King on August 31, 2006
It occurred to me several weeks ago that consulting could be more stable than employment. So I asked someone who’s had much more first-hand exposure to the subject than me. I asked consultant Pam Slim, author of Escape From Cubicle Nation and the Get a Life eZine, what makes a consultancy stable.
Continue reading “Is Consulting More Stable Than Employment?”
Posted in Entrepreneurship |