What do you do, Dick?
Will
It's fairly easy to imagine what Carl, Tor and Joe do at work all day,
but could you explain what it is you do? I went to your company's
website - sounds like interesting stuff, but didn't really help me
visualise your job.
Along the same lines, I'm curious as to how you manage your time. You
obviously put a lot of time and effort into the podcast (thank you so
much for that by the way). And you seem to have tried out just about
every new thing you talk about on the show. Do you actually do any
work??? ;-) Assuming you do, how do you organise yourself?
Also related, Joe - you took that manager-who-codes discussion offline,
but I want to hear it! I (and many others, I'm sure) struggle with this
daily. If I stop coding, I will surely die. But at the same time I'm
managing a growing team. What's your secret?
Cheers,
Will.
Dick Wall
I have an interesting job to describe. About half my time would be
considered architecture work - typical corporate architecture -
persistence, transactions, distribution, supporting applications and
projects that need these kind of services. Each time we have to do
something new we try and go with the standards, get smart on them, and
then incorporate those skills and the actual work where possible into
the next project.
The rest of my time is split up between all sorts of different things.
I actually get time to track the Java world (which fits in nicely with
the podcast), looking for new technologies that can be of benefit to
NewEnergy. I am also a handyman - put on jobs where something special
is needed - by way of an example, just recently we needed a way to
export data from one of our apps in an open format, and I was put onto
the problem of doing so. In the end I spent a couple of weeks getting
proficient enough in XSLTs to be able to take a more proprietary
internal XML representation, and transform it into a much more readable
and open form. This is one example - these kind of one offs can be just
about anything.
I tend to talk about the technologies that I have bumped in to, and
keep quiet on the others - so if you don't hear me talking about
something, it's because I have not used it yet. I would categorize
myself as having a pretty broad overall view of the java world, and the
occasional deep root somewhere. As you guys all know, there is far too
much out there in the Java world to know it all well. I tend to favor
the standards, so you will hear me talk about the new JPA and EJB 3
stuff (which we are using now), but are unlikely to get much out of me
about Spring for example - it's not that I think it is bad, it's just
that I don't know it and it is not on my list of technologies that must
be learned.
As far as getting organized - that was a problem for a while (and I
still fall behind sometimes), but I subscribe to the Dave Allen GTD
approach - in fact my whole life is in gmail and google calendar now
(todo lists are in gmail too - I wish google would come up with a
kick-ass integrated todo system with this suite, but in the meantime
gmail does OK). I write about this some on my blog -
http://dickwallsblog.blogspot.com - when I get time to blog anyway (it
has been over a week since the last one right now) :-)
One other thing is that, and I know this probably sounds trite, but I
use ubuntu linux everywhere. Once you get clicking with it you save a
lot of time. I don't have time to do things over, wait for reboots,
etc. etc. (and they really destroy my train of thought too) so
basically running ubuntu everywhere is a big part of the productivity
side. I know a lot of mac guys feel the same way, and good on them - I
just grew up with unix so linux is a natural fit for me.
Thanks for asking - I will let Joe field the questions about being a
coding manager :-).
Dick
Will
Dan Shaya
I too enjoyed reading your reply.
Silly point but I can't see a todo list in gmail - where is it? Or did
you just mean you have an email message you update in a todo list sort
of way.
Dan
p.s. As Will is the biggest contributor to this group you should offer
him a guest spot on the podcast (if he's up for it of course) - maybe
some sort of listener profile you could do once in a while...
Dick Wall
There is no todo list in Gmail as you note, but there are ways of
fudging it. My own system is a little custom but is based on this
description:
http://saw.themurdaughs.com/gtd-with-gmail-whitepaper/
There is also a firefox plugin (which I don't use, since I don't think
it is compatible with my own custom approach and I am afraid it will
screw things up and I will not be able to find my own ass with both
hands if that happens, but if you are just getting into this it might
be useful)
It's a flawed system, but it integrates with my cell phone, keeps todo
items and email together in one place, and combined with gmail
basically organizes my life. I can also add a todo item just by sending
myself an email with the +todo after the name at any time I think of it
(cell phone included)
Cheers
Dick
Will
> p.s. As Will is the biggest contributor to this group you should offer
> him a guest spot on the podcast (if he's up for it of course) - maybe
> some sort of listener profile you could do once in a while...
Hehe. It's my life's ambition to have done something interesting enough
in the Java world to deserve an interview on Java Posse! ;-)
With dischucker's advice and a little luck I might be launching a
couple of open source projects soon so we'll see..... (extremely faint
drum roll)
Top poster, huh? Wow that's either a sign that we need to encourage
more contributors, or that I need my own blog where I can post my rants
(or both).
Cheers,
Will.
Will
> It's a flawed system, but it integrates with my cell phone, keeps todo
> items and email together in one place, and combined with gmail
> basically organizes my life. I can also add a todo item just by sending
> myself an email with the +todo after the name at any time I think of it
The mind boggles at how many todo list items you must have. I tried
using todo lists once and ended up with a list so enormous I had to
give up the idea and lie down for a while! ;-)
Will.
Curt Cox
Arthur Dent.
"There had been a small number of significant letters in the piles of
junk — some documents from the council, dated three years earlier,
relating to the proposed demolition of his house, and some other
letters about the setting up of a public inquiry into the whole bypass
scheme in the area; there was also an old letter from Greenpeace, the
ecological pressure group to which he occasionally made contributions,
asking for help with their scheme to release dolphins and orcas from
captivity, and some postcards from friends, vaguely complaining that
he never got in touch these days.
He collected these together and put them in a cardboard file which he
marked "Things To Do". Since he was feeling so vigorous and dynamic
that morning, he even added the word "Urgent!""
Dan Shaya
Since I know you are monitoring this thread, is there anything you can
do about the latest hi-jacking of this group i.e. the Indian working
from home threads.
Real shame - This is ruining a really good discussion group.
Do you think that this group should be moderated?
I'm sure you would get people who would be willing to act as moderators
- does google groups support moderated groups - yahoo does?
Daniel
Brian Ehmann
Dan Shaya
Dick Wall
Cheers
Dick
On Oct 4, 11:36 am, "Dan Shaya" <daniel.sh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> How did you do that?
Will
> There is no todo list in Gmail as you note, but there are ways of
> fudging it. My own system is a little custom but is based on this
> description:
Just curious - how is your system different to the whitepaper?
I've been messing around with it a bit since you mentioned it, and I
too was unable to resist the temptation to customise. I'm interested to
hear about your system since obviously it is working.
Will.