Best Development Solution For a Development Apprentice Like Myself
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@scottalanmiller said:
I wouldn't work on C# and Ruby, I would just do one or the other. At least until you are pretty comfortable. Doing both will make things much harder.
Right...should have said C# is next...then Ruby...may take the rest of 2015 considering even getting up at 4:30 for more study time, I still don't have much study time...
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@garak0410 said:
@scottalanmiller said:
I wouldn't work on C# and Ruby, I would just do one or the other. At least until you are pretty comfortable. Doing both will make things much harder.
Right...should have said C# is next...then Ruby...may take the rest of 2015 considering even getting up at 4:30 for more study time, I still don't have much study time...
I meant until you are a professional developer not doing a role in IT, you should stick to just one.
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Start here for Ruby on Rails...
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I recommend using BitBucket and RubyMine too. BitBucket is my favourite hosted GIT repo. RubyMine is widely considered the best IDE for Ruby, although it is super powerful meaning that it takes a bit of work to get everything working properly.
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I should mention that it is $99 for RubyMine out of your own pocket. But a great investment if you are going to be writing a lot of Ruby.
For free, I would use Atom which can be downloaded from Github.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@garak0410 said:
@scottalanmiller said:
I wouldn't work on C# and Ruby, I would just do one or the other. At least until you are pretty comfortable. Doing both will make things much harder.
Right...should have said C# is next...then Ruby...may take the rest of 2015 considering even getting up at 4:30 for more study time, I still don't have much study time...
I meant until you are a professional developer not doing a role in IT, you should stick to just one.
Got it...
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Oh, I wont cram it in during my VBA push, but I'd love to brush up on scripting too...:)
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@garak0410 said:
Oh, I wont cram it in during my VBA push, but I'd love to brush up on scripting too...:)
Ruby is a scripting language.
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Well, here I am a year later and can honestly say, no progress on this at all. Just no time to learn to shift into being a 50/50 admin/developer. Between "day to day" at work and being involved in kids activities, family, church and community, it seems impossible to try to fill this 50/50 role they want of me.
Back to square one...95% of our "stuff" is still Excel and VBA. So, I've got to stay there for the time being. So,, can't look ahead at many of the helpful suggestions.
I document all I do in Spiceworks and provide my open and closed tickets to my manager weekly for our short Monday meeting. They trust me and often say they they like the fact they don't have to follow up on me since I do my job and provide updates.
But I've reached a point where I am going to have to admit my struggles with this. It isn't so much as learning this stuff is hard but the fact this VBA code is so messy and with very little comments and hard to to understand the logic.
On top of that...they now are asking about putting Excel data on web based options, including the cloud.
So this wasn't so much a rant or a call for help than it is sharing struggles we in SOLO IT shops face. I wouldn't trade this job right now for anything, but I also don't want to lose value in their eyes.
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The only thing I can think of is asking management for a dedicated 4 hours a week where you turn off your phone and just work on some study type thing. If the company values you knowing these things, and being able to support them internally, I don't know how else you are to get there.
Of course matching that with 4 of your own outside of work time (tell the wife and kids, sorry, I can't talk to you Tuesdays from 6 to 10 PM - period). This would be no different going back to school and the family knowing they have to give you up while you study.
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Like @Dashrender is referencing, see if your company will give you credit for hours spent studying development. My company does this and allows me to log it as Professional Development time. I usually have 90% of this time logged away from the office, at home, where I can sit and read/practice without interruption.
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@RamblingBiped said in Best Development Solution For a Development Apprentice Like Myself:
Like @Dashrender is referencing, see if your company will give you credit for hours spent studying development. My company does this and allows me to log it as Professional Development time. I usually have 90% of this time logged away from the office, at home, where I can sit and read/practice without interruption.
I'm not sure what this would really gain him?
My point was that hopefully he could get his office to give him some professional growth time, but he really needs to give himself professional growth time as well. It's not only up to the company to provide this, heck it's even more important when they aren't willing to keep you from atrophying, and gaining new skills for the next job.
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@garak0410 said in Best Development Solution For a Development Apprentice Like Myself:
So this wasn't so much a rant or a call for help than it is sharing struggles we in SOLO IT shops face. I wouldn't trade this job right now for anything, but I also don't want to lose value in their eyes.
Basically what they are wanting you to do is to mix an engineering and an admin role together. These two aspects of IT work are not compatible, not really. An Admin is all about being on call, it's an availability based job. Engineering is all about getting work done, it is a productivity based job. Admin work is event driven, Engineering work cannot be interrupted. It's like oil and water. Any given human might be good at either, but never at the same time. Each one precludes the other.
Having you do 50/50 doesn't work. Not with these two types of roles. Studies show that a single interrupt takes a minimum of fifteen minutes for someone to return to engineering work. That means, at best, if you set aside one hour to do engineering work (programming here) and you have to deal with a call, IM, ticket, etc. you will lose that time plus fifteen minutes of "reloading your engineering work" into your brain. This also holds off your ability to "get into the zone" by that set of time which means that any interruptions within, say, a three hour time slot would stop you from ever getting into the zone.
In reality, for this kind of thing, there is no reasonable way for you to do more than the work of say 1-2% of an entry level programmer just because you are not given an opportunity to be productive.
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This is why I often work after my family has gone to bed. Get my kids all tucked in and my wife always goes to bed before the kids do anyway and then I can focus on things.
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@scottalanmiller said in Best Development Solution For a Development Apprentice Like Myself:
This is why I often work after my family has gone to bed. Get my kids all tucked in and my wife always goes to bed before the kids do anyway and then I can focus on things.
I try that but it always ends up with me asleep on the sofa with a bottle of bourbon and some crap drama on Netflix that I don't even like.
I've had more success with changing my hours so that I start work an hour before most staff at 7.30am. It's only an hour, but I get loads done as it's so quiet (and I'm more of a morning person anyway).
But generally, @garak0410's dilmena is extremely common. As John Lennon said, life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.
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@scottalanmiller said in Best Development Solution For a Development Apprentice Like Myself:
@garak0410 said in Best Development Solution For a Development Apprentice Like Myself:
So this wasn't so much a rant or a call for help than it is sharing struggles we in SOLO IT shops face. I wouldn't trade this job right now for anything, but I also don't want to lose value in their eyes.
Basically what they are wanting you to do is to mix an engineering and an admin role together. These two aspects of IT work are not compatible, not really. An Admin is all about being on call, it's an availability based job. Engineering is all about getting work done, it is a productivity based job. Admin work is event driven, Engineering work cannot be interrupted. It's like oil and water. Any given human might be good at either, but never at the same time. Each one precludes the other.
Having you do 50/50 doesn't work. Not with these two types of roles. Studies show that a single interrupt takes a minimum of fifteen minutes for someone to return to engineering work. That means, at best, if you set aside one hour to do engineering work (programming here) and you have to deal with a call, IM, ticket, etc. you will lose that time plus fifteen minutes of "reloading your engineering work" into your brain. This also holds off your ability to "get into the zone" by that set of time which means that any interruptions within, say, a three hour time slot would stop you from ever getting into the zone.
In reality, for this kind of thing, there is no reasonable way for you to do more than the work of say 1-2% of an entry level programmer just because you are not given an opportunity to be productive.
Agreed but for now, my job "is what it is" and it is the best salary I've had with regular bonuses and geek benefits (just got a high end SurfaceBook).
I may try the closing door 2-3 hours a day to just focus on VBA projects. It isn't like some days I am all Admin...I can often be caught up on Admin issues where I have ample time for this...but interruptions, when working on these projects, are brutal. I just love how our non-techie plant managers just storm into my office, thinking I can drop what I'm doing to meet their need. But, I always have a good attitude about it and help them.
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@Dashrender said in Best Development Solution For a Development Apprentice Like Myself:
The only thing I can think of is asking management for a dedicated 4 hours a week where you turn off your phone and just work on some study type thing. If the company values you knowing these things, and being able to support them internally, I don't know how else you are to get there.
Of course matching that with 4 of your own outside of work time (tell the wife and kids, sorry, I can't talk to you Tuesdays from 6 to 10 PM - period). This would be no different going back to school and the family knowing they have to give you up while you study.
Good advice...my daughter plays Flag Football time time of year (yes, daughter and she LOVES it...) and I try to study during the 90 minute practices but blasted sun glare off all my devices makes it hard to focus on the screen for serious study. So I waste it reading Feedly or Mango posts. LOL
I may try the study nights...may take some self discipline to not get distracted by things.
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When it comes to being a good software engineer, programmer, whatever... something I've noticed is that if you did not want to start making programs when you first began using a computer, you are not only not going to be that good at it, but you'll probably actually hate it. I didn't even have access to a computer until I was 14 or 15, and the first thing I wanted to know was "how can I make my own programs?" well it took a bit to actually even get an answer back then, but eventually I got started and never really stopped.
I'm not saying that people who are late in life programmers can't program, but rather they're not good at it. In the same way people who never have an urge to draw or paint, tend to not be good artists much later on. It happens, but there are very few exceptions.
Additionally, if you are an artist, you're a terrible programmer, I don't even have to have any proof of this ahead of time. Find me one web designer, graphic artist, etc who is even modestly good at programming and I'll change my mind on this, but I've been saying it for about 20 years now and so far I only see more proof as I meet more people.
There's a connection here though, it's that to be good at something you have to dedicate time and effort to it, a lot, and you have to have interest in doing it. If your drive to program is no more than "well, I'll dedicate 50/50 time to it when I can" then you'll never, ever, ever been remotely good at it. This is true with anything, and that's fine.
Since a year has passed and nothing has changed, maybe don't worry about learning to program beyond what sort of scripting is useful for your job or other interests. I say this because it'll make you happier and because the world needs less programmers who end up hating their jobs because they realise it's repetitive, boring, and often lacks creativity.
Or... keep going and triumph, what the hell do I know? I most definitely could just be wrong.
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@tonyshowoff said in Best Development Solution For a Development Apprentice Like Myself:
When it comes to being a good software engineer, programmer, whatever... something I've noticed is that if you did not want to start making programs when you first began using a computer, you are not only not going to be that good at it, but you'll probably actually hate it.
I've been saying this for over a decade. Only with the rarest exception have I ever seen anyone happily become a programmer who didn't start doing it on their own before age twelve and often before age ten. It's like foreign language or playing an instrument, if you don't learn it early, you likely will never learn it. Or at least you will struggle and be unhappy.
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@tonyshowoff said in Best Development Solution For a Development Apprentice Like Myself:
Additionally, if you are an artist, you're a terrible programmer, I don't even have to have any proof of this ahead of time. Find me one web designer, graphic artist, etc who is even modestly good at programming and I'll change my mind on this, but I've been saying it for about 20 years now and so far I only see more proof as I meet more people.
Oh really? I'd describe myself as an artistic programmer. I wouldn't say I'm particularly good at either, but I definitely wouldn't say I'm terrible.
