We are multiple
But first: Hi, I am Jonathan, 31, software developer — among other things.
I decided to create this « publication » to share bits of my experience as a developer. I am French, born near Bordeaux but I decided to write in English in case non-Fench would be interested in those lines (ok, is it pretentious?). Like with painting, writing or music composing, I find really great to be able to create something from nothing, and it’s what code is, right? No need of raw material, barely some tools and a bit of will (an Internet connection might help as well).
Originally, I am a software developer specialized in image processing. Even though my studies were more about signal processing in the context of medical imaging, I ended up working in satellite imaging in a big corp. Like everywhere, there was ups and down. On lowest of them stood the constant hassle to introduce new tech and ideas to the team due to antique legacy and fearful management/clients. Projects after projects, the recurring task consisted in correcting code from the 90s’ and adding new bricks that must look old enough to match the whole crap. The technical debt was huge and we were asked to make it bigger every day.
What’s the point of being an engineer if you cannot fix properly or design anything? At certain point I was telling myself:
« Seriously man, give back your diploma, you don’t use it anyway. »
When I got tired to bring ideas for people who wouldn’t even hear them, I quit. With no regret, because I tried my best and knew I was not made for this environment. You can’t distort such thing. I was sick of pyramidal corporations, where no one dares to take a decision — I am not even talking about risk.
I quit for doing something totally different: photography. I wanted to pursue it for years, it was kind of a dream job. At the same time, my wife got a position for a year or two as a researcher in a small city of French Canada. With no further hesitation, we packed and changed the continent. The dream job didn’t really come true, making a living out of photography is not that easy, especially when you know no one, in a new part of the world. It’s not really a big deal because I’ve seen how most photographers promote their work (and themselves), and I am simply not ready for that. Too much time on social networks desperately crying « look at my photos, please share, RT, talk about me… ». It seems to be 70% of the job and I am not interested in that. During this time, I continue to code for myself and experimenting some tech I didn’t have the chance to try at my former job. And now, I think I am back to it, but not coding for coding, I want to code apps I like and I would use. The kind of app I would care if people tell me it’s a crap. The idea is quite simple actually. I don’t really like the word “entrepreneur” and its corporate connotation, I’d rather say I am turning into an “indie developer” (makes me think about this article by John Saddington).
For some years, I enjoy to create command line apps, web stuff, play with OpenStreetMap data or tinker Arduino boards. On my spare time, I even go back to where it all started: C++ and image processing. I wouldn’t say I am a jack-of-all-trade, but I like to try things to stay up to date (as much as a regular human beeing can). Some of them I keep doing, the other I say « nope, not for me ».
If you are familiar with this kind hobby, you will see a big thing is missing from the list. You have it? Desktop app, of course, with a shiny user interface (UI), buttons, scrollers and all the package! I’ll tell more about it in another article, but let’s say I always thought it was a real pain in the ass to create a UI (maybe because my first tries were with Java Swing…). This was before I discovered Electron — a smooth way to start from scratch.
At the origin, I wanted to create a geotagging app for my photos because I dislike the map module of Adobe Lightroom. In this kind of situation, my point of view is:
“ It’s missing, I can do it, let’s do it.”
I had a clear idea of what it must look like and what features I would bring in. The only doubt was about the technology. I decided to go with something I never used before: Electron (I will talk more about this choice later).
Starting from zero, the learning curve could only be climbing up. I am now in the middle of the seventh week of development, full time, the app is done, and I am now finishing the website to sell it.
The app is named Locate, under the brand name of Duskr. More info here.
Simultaneously, I developed another project, less code oriented (but still), and more graphic, I named it TheMapCrafter. it consists of designing map posters of famous cities, using geographic data from OpenStreetMap. Since all the styling is made with code (cartoCSS) and the purpose is to have a beautiful result pinned against the wall, it’s halfway between art and code.
I’ve created a shop with all those posters, more info here. There is also a Twitter and a Facebook page.
Other software ideas that will be part of Duskr, and other print/map ideas will totally fit into TheMapCrafter. Not sure full-time is appropriate.
Finally, this introduction was pretty long.
Originally published at bytesandpieces.jonathanlurie.fr on March 9, 2016.
