There's some news on the job front. I have found work. After I was laid off I had an informal list of people to contact who I'd worked with in the past. It was to get references and see if they knew about any leads. I also updated my resume and posted on Monster and Career Beacon.
There were a couple of leads and I put my name in at a few places. I got an interview and an offer followed. It looked okay so I accepted the offer and returned to work in July. I was out of work for a bit more than a month. So that wasn't too bad. Good to have paycheques coming in again that's for sure.
I caught on with an IT consulting firm in the Halifax office. I've been in consulting in the past from 1997-2001 back with PRIOR Data Sciences and xwave. It's a bit different than doing commercial product development from the years at Core Networks, SupportSoft and RIM. Writing code that we don't own. It's nice to be billable again and generating revenue, instead of being a cost. It's a Java and Oracle project I'm starting out on so that part is still pretty familiar.
I miss work from home at times. But the commute is pretty favourable to where I live so it hasn't been too hard an adjustment. So a new chapter begins.
Friday, October 17, 2014
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
laid off
well it finally happened. I was laid off from a high tech job. it was back in June. I was working at home. a little after 10 AM the phone rings. it was the director. he was mumbling and it was hard to hear. he said something like there's bad news there's been a reorg and I've been downsized. my work duties end as of the end of this phone call. There was also an HR person on the line and he handed it over to her. he seemed anxious to get off the call so I didn't keep him. It was over in about 30 seconds.
The HR stayed on about 30 minutes going over the many details of severance. There were some complications because of work from home. Usually in office the person is just run out the door and your cubicle is left behind for IT or whoever to scavenge or clean up. someone might meet you after with a banker's box of your personal stuff like headphones or whatever.
so that's that. I survived a great many downsizings over the years. statistically I was bound to get caught up in one eventually. meh RIM went from 19,000 to 5,000 employees in the last 3 years so for everyone, any day you go to work at RIM could be your last. well I got ahead financially at RIM and iPhone had been released when I joined in 2008 so I knew going in. I did get my severance which will come in handy.
The HR stayed on about 30 minutes going over the many details of severance. There were some complications because of work from home. Usually in office the person is just run out the door and your cubicle is left behind for IT or whoever to scavenge or clean up. someone might meet you after with a banker's box of your personal stuff like headphones or whatever.
so that's that. I survived a great many downsizings over the years. statistically I was bound to get caught up in one eventually. meh RIM went from 19,000 to 5,000 employees in the last 3 years so for everyone, any day you go to work at RIM could be your last. well I got ahead financially at RIM and iPhone had been released when I joined in 2008 so I knew going in. I did get my severance which will come in handy.
Monday, October 13, 2014
The Phoenix Project by Gene Kim, George Spafford, Kevin Behr
I recently read The Phoenix Project: A Novel About It, Devops, And Helping Your Business Win. It's a fable about Bill, the director of midrange computing at a fictional large auto parts manufacturer called Parts Unlimited. Bill has set up a comfortable life in middle management in the orderly world of AS-400s.
One morning Bill is called to the CEO's office. He's informed that the CIO and VP of IT operations have been terminated and Bill is now the VP. So Bill is reluctantly thrust into being a freshly minted VP in a role he did not seek. Bill's early tenure is marred by numerous IT disasters such as a failed launch of a major product called Phoenix, a failure to make payroll due to an IT issue, and a failure in the retail point of sales system. Bill has to work extremely long hours dealing with these crises and it begins to take a toll on his family life. To make things even worse the CEO presents Bill with an ultimatum. Fix IT in 90 days or the IT department will be outsourced.
Early on Bill is introduced to a mysterious guru character named Eric. Eric teaches Bill about how IT can be approached like manufacturing. Eric takes Bill on tours of a large manufacturing plant. They discuss inventory and work in progress, the evil of inventory in manufacturing, and how to apply this to IT.
Eric introduces the modern concept of DevOps. In devops development and operations are combined. So the idea is to reduce this "over the wall", "works on my PC", "all hands on deck deployment", "developer role / IT role", "separate performance testing" dysfunctions and inefficiencies. Replacing with one piece flow and continuous deployment.
The book was ok. It was a compelling read for the first 100 pages or so. It dragged a bit in the last 50 pages. From the developer side I could relate to a lot of it. Parts of the book, especially toward the end, came across as a bit autobiographical and self-congratulatory.
Still it was worth reading. The director at the time ordered everyone to read it and I've finally got around to it. I'm not sure if it was supposed to make us think, or it was "this is what we're doing now." I got it from the local library, as the manager at the time refused to allocate budget for some local copies. I guess that shows how important it was - brand new hardcover copy can be had for $20 each. meh w/e.
It was good for me to see more the IT operations side and what happens to both prepare for, and to support deploying the code that the developers release. I've written about one piece flow on this site mostly as it relates to the software developer experience - since that's been my area all these years. It was good for me to get some more insight into the IT side. I was pleased to see the same principles of value stream apply on the operations side too. So it can be integrated with development if the effort is put in to set it up.
One morning Bill is called to the CEO's office. He's informed that the CIO and VP of IT operations have been terminated and Bill is now the VP. So Bill is reluctantly thrust into being a freshly minted VP in a role he did not seek. Bill's early tenure is marred by numerous IT disasters such as a failed launch of a major product called Phoenix, a failure to make payroll due to an IT issue, and a failure in the retail point of sales system. Bill has to work extremely long hours dealing with these crises and it begins to take a toll on his family life. To make things even worse the CEO presents Bill with an ultimatum. Fix IT in 90 days or the IT department will be outsourced.
Early on Bill is introduced to a mysterious guru character named Eric. Eric teaches Bill about how IT can be approached like manufacturing. Eric takes Bill on tours of a large manufacturing plant. They discuss inventory and work in progress, the evil of inventory in manufacturing, and how to apply this to IT.
Eric introduces the modern concept of DevOps. In devops development and operations are combined. So the idea is to reduce this "over the wall", "works on my PC", "all hands on deck deployment", "developer role / IT role", "separate performance testing" dysfunctions and inefficiencies. Replacing with one piece flow and continuous deployment.
The book was ok. It was a compelling read for the first 100 pages or so. It dragged a bit in the last 50 pages. From the developer side I could relate to a lot of it. Parts of the book, especially toward the end, came across as a bit autobiographical and self-congratulatory.
Still it was worth reading. The director at the time ordered everyone to read it and I've finally got around to it. I'm not sure if it was supposed to make us think, or it was "this is what we're doing now." I got it from the local library, as the manager at the time refused to allocate budget for some local copies. I guess that shows how important it was - brand new hardcover copy can be had for $20 each. meh w/e.
It was good for me to see more the IT operations side and what happens to both prepare for, and to support deploying the code that the developers release. I've written about one piece flow on this site mostly as it relates to the software developer experience - since that's been my area all these years. It was good for me to get some more insight into the IT side. I was pleased to see the same principles of value stream apply on the operations side too. So it can be integrated with development if the effort is put in to set it up.
Thursday, December 19, 2013
the trouble with JSF
At work the last year has been back to the future in development. After a reorg in 2012 the DI team morphed into a disastrous and miserable time with some larger devops team who didn't want us, and we didn't want to be with them. I returned to Java server development in January of this year. In March of this year there was another reorg and devops vanished and the Halifax branch was swept out the door. So I narrowly avoided that fate. devops is not missed.
It's been a good year back in the saddle of development. It's where I belong and I can still produce quality design and code. I've always liked Java and I had some good Java years back at SupportSoft. This past year was a good year.
At this point my plan is pretty much to try stick with Java as the go forward plan. Even if the creation of new Java code suddenly and unexpectedly ceased the existing Java base is massive and there should be enough legacy out there to allow me to run out the remaining years of my development career. We'll see. There's still quite a few years to go on that!
So my dev team has a .java backend with a front end website. Most of the action happens in the backend but the website isn't exactly small. The website has been around for several years with the typical nooks and crannies and special features. It is built using Seam and JSF. I was at the website a bit but mostly I worked in the .java part. It's not an area of interest to me and there were other developers who were more interested in UI.
So after observing and being around the JSF for a year, writing some JSF code and being on code reviews, I can finally articulate some things that had been in the back of my mind about Java web.
The thing about JSF is this: where is the Java? You try to do anything and it's all .xml, .xhtml, .js. .css. etc. You virtually never touch a .java file. Why would Sun/Oracle spend all these years promoting a non-Java technology stack within the Java standards? It doesn't make any sense.
There are so many things wrong with this strategy. Java developers don't really mind doing UI. What they mind is being required to leave behind their years of skill and experience in Java to work with this completely different stack(s) that has nothing to do with Java. So we just don't really want to leave Java and why would we. And it is so painful having to learn all these multiple and large foreign syntaxes and terminologies just to get a basic screen to come up. And don't even start on "this code is correct but it doesn't work on version X of browser Y running on desktop OS or mobile phone Z"
So what happens is the Java development team becomes split. Those who do UI and those who don't. That's what happened at SupportSoft. This should be so avoidable. The strength of Java is that it's generally easy for a Java developer to move into a new area such as database, crypto, XML processing, business logic, etc. With JSF because it's not really Java there's this huge barrier with large up front learning curve and no easy transition.
For a long time this JSP/JSF situation was something that developers were just expected to shrug and passively accept. Kind of like the way it was with EJB back in J2EE. After all it's the "standard" way so too bad. Luckily some others realized before I did that the JSF approach is fundamentally flawed and going in a new direction away from a broken standard is better.
You can see some of that on the GWT overview page. This is basically the first words out of their mouth
It's been a good year back in the saddle of development. It's where I belong and I can still produce quality design and code. I've always liked Java and I had some good Java years back at SupportSoft. This past year was a good year.
At this point my plan is pretty much to try stick with Java as the go forward plan. Even if the creation of new Java code suddenly and unexpectedly ceased the existing Java base is massive and there should be enough legacy out there to allow me to run out the remaining years of my development career. We'll see. There's still quite a few years to go on that!
So my dev team has a .java backend with a front end website. Most of the action happens in the backend but the website isn't exactly small. The website has been around for several years with the typical nooks and crannies and special features. It is built using Seam and JSF. I was at the website a bit but mostly I worked in the .java part. It's not an area of interest to me and there were other developers who were more interested in UI.
So after observing and being around the JSF for a year, writing some JSF code and being on code reviews, I can finally articulate some things that had been in the back of my mind about Java web.
The thing about JSF is this: where is the Java? You try to do anything and it's all .xml, .xhtml, .js. .css. etc. You virtually never touch a .java file. Why would Sun/Oracle spend all these years promoting a non-Java technology stack within the Java standards? It doesn't make any sense.
There are so many things wrong with this strategy. Java developers don't really mind doing UI. What they mind is being required to leave behind their years of skill and experience in Java to work with this completely different stack(s) that has nothing to do with Java. So we just don't really want to leave Java and why would we. And it is so painful having to learn all these multiple and large foreign syntaxes and terminologies just to get a basic screen to come up. And don't even start on "this code is correct but it doesn't work on version X of browser Y running on desktop OS or mobile phone Z"
So what happens is the Java development team becomes split. Those who do UI and those who don't. That's what happened at SupportSoft. This should be so avoidable. The strength of Java is that it's generally easy for a Java developer to move into a new area such as database, crypto, XML processing, business logic, etc. With JSF because it's not really Java there's this huge barrier with large up front learning curve and no easy transition.
For a long time this JSP/JSF situation was something that developers were just expected to shrug and passively accept. Kind of like the way it was with EJB back in J2EE. After all it's the "standard" way so too bad. Luckily some others realized before I did that the JSF approach is fundamentally flawed and going in a new direction away from a broken standard is better.
You can see some of that on the GWT overview page. This is basically the first words out of their mouth
... goal is to enable productive development of high-performance web applications without the developer having to be an expert in browser quirks, XMLHttpRequest, and JavaScriptIt's like, wow, the anti JSF. productive development. not having to be expert in browser quirks and JS. you also don't have to leave Java. you know, Java, that thing you invested years of your career mastering and promoting. It's so bizarre that Oracle/Google lawsuit over Java. Google has done more than pretty much anyone to preserve, promote and advance Java.
Sunday, November 03, 2013
thoughts on the Obamacare rollout
Along with the "tech surge" I heard Google and Oracle have volunteered personnel to help with the healthcare.gov site. hmmm this seems to violate Brooks's law which states that "adding manpower to a late software project makes it later." So now time will be lost answering questions and bringing all these new people up to speed.
I read Obamacare came in at 500 million lines. what is the system doing that requires so much code? By comparison Windows8 came in around 80 million lines. So this system is really six times bigger and more complex?
I'd like to see the looks on the Google and Oracle developers faces when they see the Obamacare source code for the first time. Welcome to corporate/government IT!
I'm confident CGI already has a very deep understanding of agile. The probability that the issues can be traced to a lack of agile, or misimplementation of agile, is basically about zero.
A lot of the problem can be traced to the immovable deadline. If X million must be signed up by end of March 2014, then the site must go live no later than end of September 2013. So they went live because they had to and they obviously weren't ready or particularly close to ready. So it's just another big government IT project, late and over budget. But with the hard launch date there's nowhere to hide and no way to slip on the delivery.
It's easy to vilify CGI. To be fair, the go live deadline wasn't their estimate. It was Congress who dictated when the law was enacted that a 500 million line system would be built and ready in Z months - with apparently no consultation with the people who would build this system if this was realistic. CGI tried but it may have been an impossible mission.
I read Obamacare came in at 500 million lines. what is the system doing that requires so much code? By comparison Windows8 came in around 80 million lines. So this system is really six times bigger and more complex?
I'd like to see the looks on the Google and Oracle developers faces when they see the Obamacare source code for the first time. Welcome to corporate/government IT!
I'm confident CGI already has a very deep understanding of agile. The probability that the issues can be traced to a lack of agile, or misimplementation of agile, is basically about zero.
A lot of the problem can be traced to the immovable deadline. If X million must be signed up by end of March 2014, then the site must go live no later than end of September 2013. So they went live because they had to and they obviously weren't ready or particularly close to ready. So it's just another big government IT project, late and over budget. But with the hard launch date there's nowhere to hide and no way to slip on the delivery.
It's easy to vilify CGI. To be fair, the go live deadline wasn't their estimate. It was Congress who dictated when the law was enacted that a 500 million line system would be built and ready in Z months - with apparently no consultation with the people who would build this system if this was realistic. CGI tried but it may have been an impossible mission.
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
sent home, to work
There was a big local downsizing last week. The entire office is being closed, the remaining four occupied floors from an office built in 2008. ah the brand new building, the high tech kiss of death. I guess it was to be our contribution to an overall 40% global RIF.
A fraction of the locals, around 10%, were told they will be working from home in January after the office closes. I was among that group. Statistically at least it was a bit of a surprise. Although it's more like still in the running for January rather than a lock. There's new management scheduled to come in early November so who knows what decisions they will make. At this point the plan is to start work from home in January.
In some ways I'm looking forward to it. I won't miss the commute in winter. To think about it, how much time and money has been wasted on commuting over the years. I know some people who work from home and they speak well of it. In some ways work from home has executive perks including
A fraction of the locals, around 10%, were told they will be working from home in January after the office closes. I was among that group. Statistically at least it was a bit of a surprise. Although it's more like still in the running for January rather than a lock. There's new management scheduled to come in early November so who knows what decisions they will make. At this point the plan is to start work from home in January.
In some ways I'm looking forward to it. I won't miss the commute in winter. To think about it, how much time and money has been wasted on commuting over the years. I know some people who work from home and they speak well of it. In some ways work from home has executive perks including
- work location chosen to optimize your commute
- private office
- personal printer
- private bathroom
- own coffee machine
- comfortable high backed manager's chair (go for it)
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