2012 Year in Review: Professional Life

One of the nicer things that happened this year was that things have started getting better at work.  A lot better.

2012 marks the year in which we stopped paying lip-service to making things better and we started doing it. I cannot go into the details of everything that was done for obvious reasons but we made some big strides in the quality of our product and how we target what is to be built and we made some real in-roads to tearing down long-standing impediments.  Those are both exciting developments.

As far as how we build things, we've made some major changes there.  Unit-test-driven development has all but completely infiltrated one office and is starting to take hold in others.  Resistance to acceptance-test-driven development is starting to falter; I imagine it will crumble in the next one to two years.

We've also become less resistant to rolling out process improvements in general as I imposed an "auto-rollback" system on the team and it did not rise up in revolt against it... or maybe they did but I and some other supporters were able to quell the rebellion.   Either way, things are getting better.  Most importantly: other members of the team are starting to impose their own process improvements.

Are things where they ought to be?  No.  They never are.

We're getting there but it's an act of supreme patience to allow things to unfold on their own schedule.

2012 Year in Review: Country Living

I wouldn't exactly say that I lived in the city before.  So, obviously, I was pretty damned shocked when my wife informed me that we had not been living in the country the first three years we were in Bend, Oregon.  The solution was to find a place in the country and secure her agreement that it was, in fact, in the middle of nowhere.

So now I live in the wilderness.  Am I happy with it?  I don't know.  I'm probably happier than I was in Bend but that's more a function of being in a nicer house with a little more privacy than I had in "the big city" and less a function of living in the middle of the desert.

The drive sucks but all the tolerance I built up for long commutes came rushing back as soon as I moved out here.  Even with the long drive, it's still incalculably better than living in a real city with a commute that takes the same amount of time.  In Seattle, a half-hour commute would have carried me about three or four miles at best.  Here, at least, my long drive covers a lot of ground and I'm not constantly slamming on the breaks.

None of those things compare to the affect this new house has on my wife and our cats.  All seven of whom love the place.  It's a little rough on the cats to be tempted by such untouched landscape and not be able to go play in it but it's better than just looking at our neighbors' bathroom window when they look outside.  There's a lot more "romping" room inside the house.  My wife, of course, loves this place because it is big enough for all our crap, it's private, and her commute didn't change at all.

All told, I'm still not sold on this being any better than living in a city - especially when compared to the suburb of a real city like Los Angeles or San Diego - but I'm no less happy than I was in Bend and my wife is much happier with it so it's an improvement.

2012 in Review: Test-Driven Database Development

One of the big things for me in 2012 was the completion of my book, Test-Driven Database Development: Unlocking Agility.  While, technically, the book is not done as of the end of 2012, my part of it is complete.  The only task I will need to complete is approval of the final pages.  It's done enough that, if I drop dead right after completing this post, the book would still be released.

Even with friends who had already been there before warning me, even with a smaller publication under my belt, I was unprepared for the amount of work this would entail.  I spent much of 2011 and 2012 writing the book and, after that, there were numerous review and revision phases in which I had to participate.

A lot of authors, at this point, say "I wouldn't recommend it."  I am not one of those people.  Was it hard?  Sure.  Does that mean I wouldn't have done it, if I knew how much work was involved?  No.  It was an invaluable experience and, I imagine, the next one will be easier just by knowing how much work it entails.

Furthermore, the topic is, I believe, an important one.  If I really can help developers start making database design less of an impediment and more of a participant in Lean or Agile processes, then the time was well spent.

Not to mention that having a real book under my belt so early in my career can only have a positive influence on my professional life.  Anyway, this was a big deal for me and I want to thank everyone involved in making it happen, from the folks at Net Objectives and Addison-Wesley who green lit the project to all my friends and colleagues who have contributed directly or indirectly to the development of the book and the ideas it contains.

2012 Year in Review: Sleight of Mind Series

I took the plunge.  After years of excuses and "having too much going on in my life," I finally decided to put something I wrote out there.  I'm not talking about a professional writing, of course.  I'm not talking about political prose either.

I'm talking about the Sleight of Mind series.  It's the first body of fiction that I've ever tried to actually sell, or even allowed someone outside my family to read.  Even though I generally don't worry too much about what other people think and I'm not known for being overly sensitive, I did have to overcome some trepidation in order to release this product.

Maybe it's good.  Maybe it's not.  Maybe it's good and the market will never realize it.  Maybe it's terrible and the market will reward it anyway.  Maybe something else entirely will happen.  One thing is certain: you can't win if you don't play.

A lot of people were involved in me getting off my butt and doing this.  Friends who reviewed early versions and gave me honest-ish feedback, for one.  Even more credit, however, must go to my elusive and secretive wife.

I won't mention her name on account of her elusiveness and secretiveness.  I will say that she is heavily involved in reviewing the works and keeps them mostly defect free almost single-handedly.  Without her eye for detail, I probably wouldn't get anywhere with anything at all.

Oh and, by the way, today is your last day to get episode 3 free for quite a while.

Happy New Year, End of Year Wrap Up

Well, everyone, the year is wrapping up right now.  For many, it's already over and 2013 has already begun.  For others, there are several hours to go.  Any way you slice it, now seems like a good time to do a year in review.  I know you are all super interested in my life.

The landmark events in my life for this year were as follows:

• finally got off my but and started self-publishing the Sleight of Mind series
• finished development of my book, Test-Driven Database Development
• moved into a new house out in the country
• getting some real traction in implementing test-driven development as well as other process improvements where I work

I'll drill into each of these in a subsequent post.