Conversation with a Consultant
This is a chat log in which names have been replaced with titles and timestamps have been removed.
Brian Jaress: Oh, I had a question for you that I
forgot to ask.
Brian Jaress: [Project Manager] said that you would be
helpful because of your experience,
Brian Jaress: and you also mentioned having a lot
of experience,
Brian Jaress: but I don’t actually know what type
of experience it is you have.
[Consultant]: The kind of experience that makes me
grit my teeth when I see a lack of design insight.
[Consultant]: Answer something for me seriously.
[Consultant]: Do you consider yourself to be a
senior level developer, mid level developer, or junior level
developer?
[Consultant]: (hard blows here, I’m trying to be
“on the level”.)
[Consultant]: so far, (to be fair) I am not
engaging in a deep level.
Brian Jaress: I don’t consider myself to have a
level.
Brian Jaress: Do you mean visual design, software
architecture, or code level design?
Brian Jaress: I’m trying to find out what type of
experience it is that you’re offering.
Brian Jaress: Are you an experience coder, and
experienced project manager, or an
[Consultant]: I am letting you carry on through
your existing development practices as you have a general level of
competency and we really need to get the job done.
Brian Jaress: experienced something else?
[Consultant]: Well, if you worked for me directly,
I would mentor you into being an excellent programmer. I think you
could be an excellent programmer, though I think you have just
admitted, you may not be completely familiar with what that
means.
[Consultant]: As it is, such a thing is out side
of our scope
[Consultant]: I honestly don’t say what is on my
mind because A) I don’t believe you are of a mindset to fully
appreciate what I have to offer out side the scope of getting a
specific task done
[Consultant]: B) Adding significant design insight
actually requires a deep philosophical discussion regarding the
nature of code, the nature of a task, and the nature of the
business drive behind the requirements of that task
[Consultant]: its sort of a rabbit hole.
[Consultant]: I think you’re intelligent,
capable
[Consultant]: but not deeply familiar with
programtic theory
Brian Jaress: It’s fine that you make decisions
about how much you want to say.
[Consultant]: or with a wide enough professional
background to make certain things intuitive
[Consultant]: :)
Brian Jaress: But I was looking for some thing
like “My experience is in writing code” or
[Consultant]: ahah
Brian Jaress: “My experince is in project
management.”
[Consultant]: my experience is in writing code,
building teams who write code, architecting complex frameworks in
code
[Consultant]: and driving business interest in
good technology that depends on code
[Consultant]: I work at many levels.
[Consultant]: I love technology
[Consultant]: I love code
[Consultant]: I love programmatic theory
[Consultant]: I love the philosophy of code
[Consultant]: I love the nature of efficient
elegant code to solve complex business requirements
[Consultant]: code to me is like spoken language
[Consultant]: some speak like they are
illiterate
[Consultant]: some speak like they are poets
[Consultant]: some speak with a general effeciency
to be clear and concise
[Consultant]: I think you are a practical coder
(for instance). I appreciate your ability to get things done
[Consultant]: I think you could improve your
design effeciency. I really like engaging on that level. If we had
the time, opportunity, and your interest, I could make suggestions
that would make you excellent in ways that if I described them your
current (acceptable) coding style would make you feel awkward :)
[Consultant]: I’ve been programming since I was
about 9ish
[Consultant]: in highschool I would skip class
just to screw around with languages
[Consultant]: by my twenties I would spend days,
sometimes with little sleep obsessing about what I could do next
with code
[Consultant]: then I moved into automating unix
environments, later writing complex applications for large data
companies (like American Express)
[Consultant]: after that I became an IT Director
for a telecommunications company
[Consultant]: I built a call center in India
[Consultant]: that was fun
[Consultant]: so, I code.
[Consultant]: though these days more design
[Consultant]: and business side stuff
[Consultant]: (happens eventually)
[Consultant]: so that’s my story, in brief.
Brian Jaress: Are you going to be working on our
code?
[Consultant]: I would like to get more involved
with design direction.
[Consultant]: I would rather not be involved in
the day to day side of development
[Consultant]: I like to implement complex features
from time to time
[Consultant]: but there is really something to
having someone who A) is an advanced developer B) not actually
spending all their time hacking out issues or features.
[Consultant]: I tend to use my experience now in a
more architectural perspective.
[Consultant]: I can see things that you will spin
your wheels with for instance way before you actually start any
programming
[Consultant]: I know what will cause problems
before looking at the API (having done so many different kinds of
transactions for instance)
[Consultant]: I know that establishing a “Context”
(programing philosophy concept, I don’t know how familiar you are
with “ideology” that sounds funny but its serious stuff and will
make you a ninja)
[Consultant]: that sounds fun doesn’t it? Not just
being a programmer, but being a programmer ninja?
[Consultant]: (lol, being a little funny, but I’m
sure you’re aware that there are some serious degrees of coder
skills out there in the world)
[Consultant]: …I know that establishing a
Context is a much better way of customizing the embedded experience
than simply passing a movie ID.
[Consultant]: Consider that a context may have one
or move movie ID associated with it (say, when a site wants to lock
down our widget to just their titles)
[Consultant]: and associating a content specific
newsletter, or other provider specific nuances goes better with a
“context” than a specific title (for instance)
[Consultant]: This is something I would have
brought up and thought through in great detail at first mentioning
of the business need.
[Consultant]: (I’m just bringing up something we
referred to today, you handled it in a way acceptable to the
requirement. With a little pre-planning you could have made it work
in a larger way with about the same amount of effort.)
[Consultant]: …from there I would still like to
work with you (or other developers)
[Consultant]: for actually getting the classes,
and the logic, and the records all doing what they’re supposed
to.
[Consultant]: In times like this, I would like to
knock out a few issues
[Consultant]: If I could A) build in my
environment (which I haven’t really spent time correcting, it may
be something small…) and B) check in to the source tree
[Consultant]: I would be taking care of the
simpler items (building my code base familiarity) while you guys
focus on the parts your deeply invested in.
[Consultant]: Without knowing [Senior Advisor] deeply, I would
say I’m his counterpart
Brian Jaress: Are you not able to do check-ins?
[Consultant]: He seems to have a lot of excellent
development and business technology experience. I’m that guy for
the [Client] side.
[Consultant]: no, still not able
Brian Jaress: I don’t know what permissions
[Senior Advisor] gave you, I thought you had that.
[Consultant]: [Senior Advisor] said he gave me access, but it
still doesn’t work.
Brian Jaress: Is it a permission problem.
Brian Jaress: ?
[Consultant]: I’ve emailed him about it, he may
not have gotten back to it
[Consultant]: When I check in it makes me
authenticate
[Consultant]: I use the same username/password as
when I configured the client
[Consultant]: which allows me to check out
[Consultant]: but it doesn’t like that
[Consultant]: it just presents the login box again
and again until it fails
Brian Jaress: Is this through a GUI client,
then?
[Consultant]: TortoiseSVN is my client
[Consultant]: (Windows)
[Consultant]: check out works fine
[Consultant]: check in fails
Brian Jaress: You might want to try with the
command-line client.
Brian Jaress: Even if it still doesn’t work, the
error might be more informative.
Brian Jaress: You can also email me the
connection info you’re using.
Brian Jaress: [Project Hosting] is a little funny sometimes,
and I would
[Consultant]: okay, I’m getting the grails
development environment set up on a linux virtualbox (to see if I
can resolve this build issue)
Brian Jaress: not be shocked if something about
the URL, for example
[Consultant]: I’ll try that
Brian Jaress: causes it to allow check-outs but
not check-ins.
[Consultant]: all right, that might be helpful.
