2013 — Highlights and Shoutouts

Don’t know about you but some exciting things happened to me in 2013 as a developer. A few people in particular helped me not only achieve, but enjoy this year as well. Scroll down to see if you’re one of them on my list of shoutouts.



Would love to hear your highlights and shoutouts… inspire me for next year.

1. Became a Scala Developer

It’s not just a language, but a whole community striving to create better tools to solve the modern day challenges of building distributed systems — just what I was looking for after the lack of Erlang jobs killed that passion.

When I taught myself Scala and Akka, and got offered a few jobs, it was one of the highlights of my year. I’m now loving my new life as a Scala Developer. As I always say…

You can go anywhere you want in Software Development if you have the motivation and put in the effort.

2. Hello Linux

A tidy side-effect of moving from .NET to Scala was my “bye bye Windows, hello Linux” moment. I use Linux at home — I’m fascinated by the ability to understand so deeply how the OS works, and even more so for the variety and million ways you can customise your OS. Now I get to use it at work, too.

I’m loving Linux Everywhere.

Mac Book Pro? … where the sun don’t shine, pal.

3. Worked Even more Closely with the Business

I took all the good things I learned in my last role at 7digital — things like Continuous delivery, improving communication with the business, applying lean principles, business metrics — and utilised them in my new role as a Tech Lead to good effect.

Me and my team-mates worked iteratively to help the business identify what functionality they needed using rapid prototyping and short feedback cycles. Now we’re building a production-quality system using continuous delivery with supporting efforts like TDD.

Most importantly I really wanted the opportunity to deliver and to make a difference for the business. I think I did pretty well and hopefully can continue to learn from smart people and do even better next year.

4. Got a Nexus 7

I love my Nexus 7. But, be aware, if you see me on the London Underground during my commute I am not too be disturbed — too busy watching conference or other tech vids on my stylish little tablet.

This device is great because it has significantly increased my potential to learn. In terms of software and hardware, it’s not a bad piece of kit either.

I can even watch vids on my slim nexus 7 when the tube is this crammed… unless I have arm pits in my face

5. Contributing to a Book

An old pal asked me if I’d like to contribute a few chapters to a book he’s working on. Although it’s not a done deal yet I’ve made a start anyway.

One of the main reasons I write blog posts is to improve my ability to explain concepts. Writing a few chapters in a book is a pretty good test of my progress. It’s really exciting, too, just as a personal challenge to see how well I can do.

Shoutouts

Here are a few of the people that helped me in some way this year.

Rob Bowley / 7digital

It is scary how much I learned at 7digital. I became business-oriented, I became infrastructure-curious, I got to try out loads of cool technologies and I got lots of experience at delivering high-quality software on an hourly-basis.

Cheers Rob. Love the robot jumper.

@ahjohannessen

His innocent little tweet about how trying Scala was something I should do turned out be a major influence on my year. At first I thought Scala was a weird back-to-front language. As I now sit in my Scala palace, that’s exactly what I think of those weird .NET developer people :P

Michael Okarimia

Loved working with this dude whilst I was at 7digital. We need more people in Software Development like Michael — easy to get along with, improve not destroy team harmony, and genuinely motivated to do a good job.

Still not convinced about the socks, Michael. Maybe fashion will catch up with you in 2014.

Wendy and the Skillsmatter crew

I popped down to Goswel Road after work a few times this year for the free tech talks and networking with other developers. It’s brilliant to even have these opportunities, let alone the fact that Wendy and her team are always cheerful and chirpy.

The scala eXchange they organised was excellent, too.

Next year is the one….

A few things held me back this year, but hopefully health will be on my side in 2014 and I can really achieve something. Hope to see you on my list of shoutouts….