Can I move?

I love this video snippet from the movie:  Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.   It is an iconic movie for baby boomers but I don’t mean to digress.   In this scene, there is a test of a gunfighter and I show this because it reminds me of today’s job market for tech geeks.   I suspect that the job requirements often focus on job skills of technologies.  While skills are important, it is the soft skills that will make or break for success.    Mastery of SDLC methodology and “agility” are just as important if not more then technology.    I might tend to suggest that there’s no such thing as a simple coder.

Link to video on YouTube

Geeks

Steve McConnel wrote about tech people in his book entitled “After the Gold Rush”.   In the book, McConnel outlined many of the ways that tech people are different from the average human.     I do have this saying I love…     “I always feel stupid but I know I’m above average.”     Noodle on that.. laughs.    Watch the video to the end.

The Perfect Engineer

Developer Activities

Outstanding developers wear many hats.    Most would agree that it’s important for technologists to understand the technology.  That idea may sound like, well duh…   But I read one time that the average physician is about 800 years behind on reading so I think it speaks to the pace of new technology innovation and change.   There’s a lot to understand and it is always changing.  Correctly understanding the requirements is probably as important as anything and now, that being said,  I would also make the point that a seasoned technologist also knows how to speak the language…   Coupling, Cohesion, Marshalling, Cardinality and many concepts are fundamental to the profession and transcend specific technologies and trends.     When I entered the profession, some time ago, I worried, even back then, that computers might become smart enough to not require humans.     But now I would suggest that we’re a long way from computers designing business processes and my core argument for that has to do with the fickle nature of attaining customer satisfaction.   

Tech Topics 2018

When I was recently taking a Java Certification exam, it occurred to me that there must be 10,000 things to remember about Java.   There really are, more then a few corner cases of special exceptions,   “String Processing” comes to mind, but I don’t want to digress.

Well, ok.     For today,  I came up with 182 topics that comprise skills to master for being a Java/JavaScript solution architect and developer.    This is certainly not an exclusive list and I might also mention that the Apache Software Foundation has about 300 topics all within its boundaries.

See the 2018 Topics List:  TechTopics v3a

What do Clients pay for?

Consultants as Jesus/Superheros?   (psst… It’s a joke, no hate mail please).    I’ve been spending some time today talking to folks about the state of solution developers but also consultants in general.     It’s worth mentioning.    What do clients expect?   There are three ways that consultants spend time…  ( read on please )

I know this might seem sad, but in many cases,  clients won’t call for a consultant until it’s too late.    They call for help right before they die.    Additionally, sometimes clients just call in consultants to get an opinion that is perhaps free from company politics.   A consultant can come in and borrow your watch and tell you the time.    🙂

Now, following are the three activities of consultants…