When I set out to write a programming blog, I thought that I would be talking about more code and less business. Turns out that business runs in my blood just as much as code does. Therefore I present to you a business post about ending my 15 months of work as an Intern and UI Designer at Florida Virtual School.
Before I begin… I’d like to say that I love FLVS and have made lots of friends while working there. Please do not take this blog post as any statement to the contrary. Also the views expressed in this blog post are mine and mine solely. They do not necessarily reflect those of my past, present, or future employers or acquaintances and should not be regarded as such.
Saying Goodbye
“Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.” -Theodor Seuss Geisel
On one fateful morning in Fall 2010, I was given the opportunity to speak at Florida Virtual School’s staff conference, Momentum 2010. I spoke on a panel at the convention with a handful of some of the top students in Florida, one was even a National Merit Scholar Semi-finalist. On the panel we helped educate hundreds of teachers on how they could improve their students’ comprehension and engagement in an online learning environment. That morning, as I ran into the Hilton Orlando’s lobby, I had no idea what a ride I was about to experience.
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I promised myself that I’d write a detailed analysis of what I learned after working on a large project, so here goes my first “Lessons Learned” blog post. Hopefully there will be many more to come. Enjoy!
Since the new year, I’ve been in charge of a web branding project for Haggery Consulting (HC). The branding team consisted of Shane Maloy and myself. I was in charge of all website development and brand design, while Shane worked on social media promotion. These “Lessons Learned” from working on HC’s project are here to serve as a reminder to myself on how to effectively work with teams and clients and to help others learn from my experiences.
I’ve broken this article into the following lessons. The first 4 lessons are programming related and the last 5 are business related.
- Always have a development workflow
- Always isolate gemsets
- Version your gems precisely
- Manage SSH keys carefully
- Written communication is key
- Reply to All doesn’t work if you don’t use it
- Always make time for the client
- Work with like-minded people
- Adapt
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A little over a year ago I ventured into open source development with Ruby on Rails. It’s been an incredible journey to learn the platform. My struggling points as a developer has been applying what I’ve learned. Reading concepts are one thing, but internalizing and reproducing them are another. Over the last year I’ve learned Rails, UI/UX design techniques, and everything in-between. I understand what growing developers go through and I want to help them in their journey, just like so many others have helped me in my journey. This blog is my attempt to detail what I’ve learned and what I continue to learn about web development and the web developer lifestyle. Hopefully it can benefit you and many others as you progress through your own unique journey.
