I have zero idea how often I’ll update this site and/or blog and/or rant-factory.

But, here’s the thing. I’ve been writing code for a good long time. Admittedly, much of that time has been on personal, semi-private projects. I started in grade school with QBasic. And as luck would have it, I learned a lot and made a lot of discoveries on my own — and more importantly, I made a lot of mistakes and did a lot of just generally dumb stuff. (Not that I’ve stopped doing dumb stuff.) But, “writing code” was simply the thing I was interested in. (I mean, that and the girls I never had the courage to ask out, of course.)

I now have something like 12 years of professional experience, depending greatly on when I start calling my work “professional.” I’ve been paid to write code for around 14 years. And, I’d like to think my “professional” career began … uhh … well — any day now. (In any case, I’ve been reading and writing code in some form or fashion for a good 25 years.)

So here’s the thing: Writing code, or “software engineering”, or whatever you want to call it with however many little distinctions you want to make, is an opinionated and relatively un-straightforward endeavor to begin with. Writing code for people is even less straightfoward.

The whole thing is littered with dogmas so strong we don’t recognize them as dogmas. And dealing with people, especially people on a budget, is nothing short of dogs and cats living together. And, “the development community” has come up with a lot of ways to deal with the mass hysteria that has ensued.

There are both “technical” and “human” dogmas that have surfaced to treat the chaos. And for each, there are both disciples and critics. And, I am no stranger to many of these dogmas.

But, I’ve worked for employers ranging from the smallest to the just about the largest. I have experience writing code on the most limited of budgets (seriously, I was the first developer on their payroll). And, I have experience writing the tinyiest slivers of software for the biggest software ecosystem I’m not allowed to tell you about, with just about the most unlimited budget I can’t even talk about for a software company so big that you probably can’t imagine living without it.

… I’d really like to think I have a range of experience and some valuable insights (and complaints) that tend to fall between the dogmatic extremes, which can serve as valuable guidance — and maybe also provide a tiny bit of entertainment for all you developers and software engineers and technical managers and whatnot out there.

But, I suppose I’ll let you be the judge. In either case, herein lies the dumping ground for my thoughts, ideas, and rants on everything from “SOLID” code to “Scrum” and rubber ducks and leadership.

Pushing these buttons is a lot of work though. Not to mention the actual thinking I do before pushing these buttons. So, if you like anything I’ve written, please find a way to encourage me to continue pushing the buttons. I’ll try to get some sponsorship channels up-and-running soon. But, at the very least, please leave your comments on anything and everything you like and hate herein.

Thanks.