Can an ‘over 35′ code ?

This is a blog entry I came across the other day, well actually it was a comment. The younger generations that have millions of years ahead of them, can’t understand that someone who is over 35 would even begin to understand what ajax, ruby on rails, web20 would be all about. Some one over 35 is probably

• a manager
• a vc
• buzzword generating drooler
• all of the above

Well I tell you, for my day job I regularly do interviews. I always ask the candidates under 35 if they have heard of web20, ajax and ruby on rails. Although often it is not a requirement, it gives me an idea how on top of things someone is. More than 50% haven’t got a clue.

So you can be sooooo wrong the next time you evaluate someone’s skillset based on his/her age. I someone has a position where you need active knowledge of Project management, PrinceII, VAX/VMS, RDB, VAXC, NT4, Visual basic 3.0, NT4, .NET –and– Ruby on Rails : I’m your man !!

Microsoft is dead, then alive, now dead again

I don’t get this ‘microsoft live’ thing. I admit I haven’t spend 1 sec to understand it, but I did click on the www.live.com, and it still wasn’t clear for me. Another zillion marketing dollars down the drain. When I come to think of it, it’s the name that enoys me. Live, what live, why is it live now? Live for me is like Eric Clapton, live on mtv, but live software?? So and when it is live now, what about all those things we have used before? Was this <dead> as opposed to now <live>. What does that make me when I don’t use Windows Live, a software necrophile?

Ok, let’s consider it is live now. I tell you it will not be for long. The dead smell is all around it. The visual studio and .net towers begin to be so heavy they will be crashing down soon. This is because we have passed a critical boundary. If fools like me with a few hours to spare per day, can build, deploy and maintain applications using open source, and get paid for it, there will be numerous other far brighter than me that are building software by the meter.

Some nurses that work with old people have told me, they can smell when somebody is dying. The moment they enter the room, they ‘know’ someone is near the end. With Microsoft it is a very similar thing. Mind you, it will never actually die. My god, i still work with customers who are migrating software to their good old vaxes. So I’m guessing there will be NT4 systems until 2034. But while Bill is gradually loosening his grip on the company, the ‘ego’s take over. Each department, each C*O, each god damn developer will want to have his/her say. I tell you, the thing will come to a grinding stop.

You don’t have to believe me, just look at what dvorak said…

What rails did and python didn’t do (for me)

Yes, a demo application is up and running. It’s a simple 5table db for a flower shop with search and index function. Nicely integrated with 6 static html pages. As usual when switching environments (this time from my cosy laptop, to the big cruel world of RailsHosting providers) it took more time than hoped (hope is an expensive emotion). My first problem was getting this mySQL database up and running. The thing always bothers me about passwords and users and privileges. There is something there i still not understand. But my biggest problem was getting from dispatch.cgi to dispatch.fcgi. Mind you, this was the first time I did some production work on linux systems. But now it is there, the customer has seen it and tonight I visit the customer to discuss new features. I will actually charge some money for it. So my investment (the price of the book I bought) will have paid off.

I have compared this to a similar experience with Python 2 years ago. I had the same adventure style idea of replacing all the bloatware .net development mega stuff by this simple and elegant framework. I programmed about 6 months in python. It is sure a very elegant language and framework, the support & libraries available on the internet fantastic. However, it never passed the ‘can I go live with this thing’ test. For some reason, it lacked that production feel. Now, this is a very personal view, but some may understand what I mean.

The rails thing was different, I only bought one book and about 1/3th of that book deals with scaling, going live, tuning, selecting webservers, migrating to new versions, protecting against injection and so on. It offered the complete shebang, AND IT WORKS.

Back to the old days

Don’t be afraid, this is not some nostalgic rant about how everything was much nicer, friendlier in the old days. There is this one thing that struck me in the past few weeks. Back in the old days (this was 1983-1990) it was possible that you ‘knew it all’. This didn’t mean that you could be some smart ass showing off. There is no real good or bad period for that. No, I mean that all the technology you needed from building to deploying an application could be grapsed by one person. I am talking about the VAX/VMS days here. There was this one project where I delivered a production line monitoring and control system (MES, if you know what that is) all by myself.

This means, writing specs, design, coding in c, rdb database, installing os, connecting various hw devices (even rfid, in those days, can you imagine) and getting the invoices paid.

Things got worse after that, you needed busloads of people to get systems out the door that were hardly any more difficult: webdesigners, dba’s, system engineers, network specialists, architects, …

Now that I have read this book, I can see that I can control it all over again. What to do for webservers, how to scale, sql injection, .. It’s all there in a neat 500 pages or so. You can read 500 pages on one or two airtrips.

So this is my setup

• laptop (4 years old, so not that powerfull)
• mySql
• radrails
• rails
• Msword for my doc, and
• a datamodel tool from my dayjob

and that’s it. I happy typing away this application. I think I can even get something live after 3 months. And that is only after/before hours work.

A pattern is developing

No not some fancy new MVC, Factory, Singleton or what have you. No a way of developing. It has been since my days on vms and pascal and c compiler that I haven’t used physical books, things with paper. In my .net days, you could find everything you needed in the confined 1400×1050 size of your screen. With Rails that’s no more. You need books. There is not one website that tells it all. I still haven’t found a decent Rails manual online. I am sure there are tons of books that explain it, but no online directory. I guess I should look a bit better.

There is just no way you can develop any meaningfull page, let alone an application, without some decent manual. Now, like in the old vms days, it’s with books. It takes some organizing. As I fill most of my time with my (non rails) day job, I leave the physical book at home. That means I cannot get any work done, unless within 1 meter from that book. Argh… Maybe this David Hansson person is just setting this whole rails thing up like a complex plot to sell his books.

I am even considering to not upgrade my rails, because my book will be out of date. Or is this David guy thinking I am buying a new book everytime he brings out a new version?? I scribbled the first one full of handwritten notes, how am I going to upgrade that to the new version?

Father of 4!

Seems almost like the guildford four (or was it the guildford six). Well it’s not that. It is that i’am first and foremost a father. I could start 4 blogs for each of them but I will not bother you with that. There is nothing more boring than talking ’bout kids if you don’t have any yourself.

This blog is about my experiences in developing a rails application from scratch, good and bad experiences that is. Mostly they are good, the bad ones will probably be due to myself, me not understanding web2.0 and spending to much time on digg.com. If you haven’t a clue about what is rails, get out, go away..

Being father is the first on my list, where as developing and deploying a rails application is way down. In between the parental duties and rails is (in alphabetical order)

• analyst
• db designer
• husband
• product manager
• project leader
• self employed

So what can you learn here. It’s simple: if such a busy person, like me, succeeds in learning ruby/rails from scratch, in designing and building an online community website, either I’m extremely smart or -the more likely alternative- this rails thing is realy realy productive.

Let me tell you some of the things I do, as they are happening, who knows you might find it helpful. I even think that somebody someday might read this. Would I even get a comment or 2?

And Yes, in case you’re wondering, my wife loves me, my children love me, the people from my team will love me some day when they grow up…