New Year's Resolution #1: Join the Conversation

01-02-2009 8:18 AM  permalink

I'm knocking out my first New Year's Resolution early.  After 4+ years as a web developer, I'm finally launching my own site.  Here's why.

For the past several years weve seen tremendous growth in the area of web development.  As we started to regroup after the bubble burst (which I just missed), there has been a pretty dramatic shift in the way web programming is done as well as what is possible.  We've seen a paradigm shift from table layouts to semantic markup with css.  Newer and better browsers have given us a more stable environment to work in as well as new and exciting capabilties.  Someone figured out what AJAX was good for and blew everybody's mind.

It's an exciting time to work with the web.  For the reasons stated above and for one other.  It seems to me that it's been pretty easy to follow the tide of innovation.  With this new renaissance has come an exponential increase in online media as well as professional and personal blogs dedicated to our field.  These days the flood of information comes right to your door.  We work in an industry where it's possible to stay on the cutting edge of knowledge simply by putting in a few hours of online reading a week.  Okay maybe several hours of reading a week, but you get my point.

It's become apparent that the ongoing conversation about web development has become pretty essential to me being good at my job.  I followed AJAX through it's stages: from a curiosity, to a fad, to an established technique, to a mandatory resume headline.  And like many, I worked at a contracting/consulting company where being a step ahead of everyone else was critical.

So shortly after I had this realization, I had the thought that eventually became my resolution for 2009.  To put it simply, it's important to join the conversation.  I think if you're a professional web developer and you're involved with anything remotely interesting, you should share it.  Throw up your own website and fill in the gaps in our collective knowledge.  There's almost certainly something you know that others can benefit from.  And who knows, you might even become so popular that you can quit your day job.  And isn't that what we're all striving for?

So I put up this blog to share my thoughts and ideas, and I noticed a few things right off the bat.

• I don't know why it took so long to get around to it.  The hardest part was picking a name for the blog (thanks Walter).  If you've been procrastinating... stop it.
• If you're purely a developer like me, then forget what I just said.  The design will be the biggest pain in the ass.  I'm not using an established blogging platform that has free design templates available, so I cobbled this together myself.
• When you're working on something of your own, you're more motivated to improve it.  This one was pretty big for me so I'll elaborate.

I mentioned that I used to work as a consultant.  Well now I'm part of an in-house IT shop, and there is a marked difference.  I'm not sure if others who work in-house have seen this.  I found that the things I do at work are so far removed from my current personal interests in the field, that I wasn't finding the motivation to work on my own projects as much.  Perhaps it was too much of a context switch.  Now it makes more sense to stay abreast of new developments in php and postgres than javascript and REST.  So not only did I have less time for side projects but less ideas and less inclination to pursue them.

But putting together this website has rejuvenated my enthusiasm (and evidently my vocabulary as well).  Not only do I have a platform to implement my own things, but I have the impetus to do so.  In my mind, joining the conversation doesn't just mean talking about what you already know.  It means talking about what you're doing.  It means letting us in on the things you're learning as you continue to gain experience.  For instance, the wysiwyg I'm using to write this post doesn't have a tool for hyperlinking text.  Can you imagine!  What is this 1999?  Well this will be remedied in the near future.  And you'll be able to feel my sense of satisfaction.  You'll hear about other things too.  Like what it's like to work with a real server-side javascript platform.

Anyway, if you're interested, stick around.  Otherwise, go get your own site started and join the conversation.

Oh, and let me know if anything is broken on the site.  It's still pretty raw.