Work

I’m coming round to the realization that my hugely enjoyable first contract at Ventura last summer might have been something of an anomaly. That project was decidedly agile, test-driven, and used a bunch of modern technologies including Monorail, ExtJS, Subversion, NUnit and NHibernate. The requirements were well-defined, and the team was highly effective, with a pragmatic project management team who kept the development team free from bureaucratic processes, leaving us able to get on with delivering some cracking software in double-quick time. ...

My current primary client has an annoying habit of closing for random days and half-days, including last Thursday afternoon. I decided to try to make the most of this time off, by taking Microsoft exam 70-553, which has the snappy title “UPGRADE: MCSD Microsoft .NET Skills to MCPD Enterprise Application Developer by Using the Microsoft .NET Framework: Part 1”. I’ve already passed the second part of the upgrade process (70-554), so passing this exam would give me no fewer than four new certifications, including the prestigious MCPD Enterprise Application Developer. ...

I started my career in professional software development a decade or so ago by testing and fixing banking code that had fallen victim to the millennium bug. Could the prospect of zero percent interest rates create a similar boom in demand for software developers? From Contractor UK: Interest rates have plummeted from 5% to 2% since early October and are heading lower. Some analysts say 0% is not out of the question. ...

On my continuing journey through this thrilling world of professional software development, I frequently encounter teams who hold no truck with this crazy new-fangled concept of unit testing. Heck, truth be told, I sometimes come across teams who don’t use source control, but that’s by the bye. In these situations, I try my best to lead by example, continuing to practise TDD on any new code that I cut, and insisting on covering with unit tests any pre-existing code which I have to modify. Sooner or later, this prompts someone to ask why I am doing this (often insinuating that I am wasting my time, and by implication the client’s money). At that point, flustered, I invariably struggle to remember or adequately articulate the many and various ways in which unit testing makes me a better developer. So, consider this blog post a personal aide-mémoire to help me the next time this occurs (as well as being a homage to Jake Shillingford’s second-best song). ...

I’ve never been a fan of those motivational posters that you see on office walls (usually in sales or marketing departments) that attempt to depict a word like “Opportunity” or “Teamwork” with a single image, usual of some nature scene or a lone individual rising above the odds to achieve a difficult goal. To my mind they always look a bit facile, glib and superficial. “Destiny” equates to a holiday villa on the Maldives? “Integrity” is a Lion? “Success” appears to involve hang-gliding off towards the ocean in an action which brings to mind Reginald Perrin?! I demand more thought and more words from my motivational office decorations! ...

I am now a Microsoft Certified Solution Developer in .NET 1.x technologies. This is a qualification that I’ve been working towards on and (more often than not) off for the past four years or so. It’s not really the case that the exams were super-hard, just that it took occasional motivation to get round to taking them! So, was it worth it? Did I learn anything en route? Did the exams boost my employability? Would I be more inclined to employ someone with an MCSD than an applicant without? ...

Woohoo! I just passed MS exam 70-320 with a score of 936, and am now a Microsoft Certified Application Developer!