Codecademy

Earlier this year I started to get the itch to do some learning of languages other than Java and C#. I randomly came across a blog post about a site that had a developer pledge to do a coding assignment once a week for a year. It was called Code Year and it was pretty fun, but at a certain point I got busy with other things and fell behind by more than a few weeks. Last month I realized I was over 30 weeks behind and wanted to catch up. I made a pledge to do t least one assignment a day until I caught up.

I am proud to say that I have not only caught up on Code Year, but I have now completed every available training assignment on the site. So far I have learned jQuery, CSS, Python, and Ruby to a point where I can actually write meaningful code in each of them.  If you are looking to branch out I suggest you check out the site.

*Codecademy – www.codecademy.com

*Code Year – www.codeyear.com

I'm A New Guy Again

After a long period of thought and reflection, I decided to accept a position at a new company a month ago. It was hard to leave my old job as I had made quite a few friends, but it was time for a new challenge. A month in, I am very happy with my decision.

My new position uses a completely different technology stack. I’ve gone from maintaining older Struts applications with no ORM tools to now working with the following stack:

• EJB
• JSF
• Seam
• JPA/Hibernate

I had conversational knowledge of these, but had never taken the time to actually get my hands dirty and gain some experience. That was a fault of my own, but I am now knee deep in them each day and enjoying it.

So far I have only done some small things with each of these, but I will be starting a new project soon and expect to have this stack mastered by its completion. Wish me luck!

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Moving Inside the JVM

I am becoming more and more interested in JVM languages like Groovy and Scala. I truly believe that these languages created to run on the JVM are going to slowly displace Java. Java is beginning to suffer from neglect as it has not been pushed forward like it should have been.  Closures still not being in Java is the perfect example. Too many developers have been calling for this feature and it is supposedly going to be in Java 8, but I will be surprised if it makes the cut. Groovy and Scala already have support for closures, so I figure if these languages are already pushing forward I am going to jump on the train rather than wait for Java top catch up.

Steve Jobs, R.I.P.

I just heard the news that Steve Jobs has passed away at the age of 56. I knew he had to have been ill for him to let go of reigns to his Apple machine and sadly I was correct.  My fellow nerds should take a small moment and reflect a little in his honor.

Though I often disagreed with the manner in which he made some of his decisions on developing applications for his platforms, no one can argue with the success he brought to Apple and what he has done to innovation. In my opinion, Bill Gates brought some respect to nerds, but Steve Jobs made being a nerd cool. Think about it. When have you ever seen people of all walks of life stop what they are doing to check in on an announcement being made by a man in jeans, a black turtleneck, and white sneakers?

Rest in peace Steve Jobs. If I achieve 10% of the things you did in your short life I will be overly satisfied.