Wille Faler’s Buzzword Bingo

I have recently noticed an increase in what can only be described as “link spam”: sites that are pretty much 100% spam start linking to random posts on my blog for no good reason. One can only wonder why? One explanation is that they want to increase their Google pagerank by trying to get trackbacks from blogs, but since most (at least mine) blogs require trackbacks to be moderated by the author, it seems to be mostly a futile excercise.

Personally, I just find the whole thing unfortunate: no area seems to go free from spam, e-mail, comments and now even links to sites are all used by spammers. The other day, I was even called up by a phone salesman. An automated salesman that is, a pre-recorded sales pitch on the phone. Can’t they just give up? I realize with 6 billion people in the world, a few are bound to be morons that can be easily swayed by spammers, but can it really be that profitable to send out millions of e-mails, comments and links in the hope that one idiot will respond and buy something?

Apparently this blog post about setting up Ubuntu got a mention at The Register (one of the UK’s most popular IT web sites) with regards to common network problems users of Ubuntu 7.10 have experienced. In practice it means that I’ve almost had as many visitors today, as I usually get in a good month.

..best let my easily inflatable ego enjoy the shine of my 15 minutes of pseudo-fame among fellow nerds..

Here’s a question for you, why is my mineral water considered a potential weapon of mass destruction going through airport security, when people can buy all manner of chemicals and flammable products from the airport pharmacy once through the security?

I’d think that a highly pressurized bottle of hairspray with non-pump spray action from Boots, together with an overprized lighter from Harrods would make a more potent weapon than my mineral water (Boots and Harrods have fully stocked shops at Heathrow)..

But maybe the flammable and explosive products in the tax free shops create harmless magic flames and explosions?
That, or airport security is mostly there for show and annoyance.

Still quite busy at work, and my connectivity outside of work is spotty at best, so posts will remain infrequent in the next week.

By the way, my access to the Internet outside of work might be spotty at best over the next few days, so posts may be a bit infrequent. But don’t worry, hopefully I’ll be back in full force again this weekend.

(This also means new commenters might have to wait a while to have their comments moderated).

By writing this post, I might be throwing big, ol’ rocks in a house made of glass, but I can’t help to think that about 80% of software blogs are pretty.. Childish and braindead. Looking at a site like DZone, which is supposedly a place for the best “software development links”, and I can’t help but cringe most of the time. Basically, the bulk of posts are a variation of one of the following subjects:

• “Hello World!” tutorial of some language or framework for the nth time.
• Declaring some language or platform dead (Windows, Linux, Java, .Net, depending on which side of the aisle people are on).
• Declaring some obscure framework, no doubt developed by the poster, superior to the industry dominant framework (”BraindeadDAO is greater than Hibernate! Nener, nener, nener!”)
• Declaring desktop apps dead.

Of course there are exceptions to the rule, and some bloggers are consistently interesting and good, but generally speaking, developers who blog seem to be stuck in a social maturity state most suitable for the playground sandbox.
I can settle most of the childish debates within a few words in this post: I got the “Hello World!” tutorial the first time around, Windows, Linux, Java and .Net will continue to coexist for some time (but all of them will become obsolete sooner or later), nobody cares about a two week old framework used and developed by one guy, at least not if it comes with preposterous claims of superiority over mature industry leaders, and finally: desktop apps are alive, kicking and very well.

I can live with the reoccurring tutorials, because they are actually written with a well meaning purpose, to help others.

But the constant platform/language/framework wars are just plain tiresome. The fact is, Java developers slagging off .Net, and .Net developers slagging off Java don’t actually have a leg to stand on: in 99.99% of the cases, it is just people being afraid to loose their investments in some technology. People who have spent the bulk of their careers writing software in language are scared shitless of being made obsolete by some other technology, and if it isn’t that, it’s because they are so set in their ways that they actually don’t want to go through the hassle of learning a new technology, hence they try to protect “their” technology by slagging others off.

The fact is, the software industry constantly makes technologies obsolete: CORBA is pretty much obsolete today, COBOL has been obsolete for some time, the big monolithic J2EE servers of the early decade are becoming more and more obsolete (but reinventing themselves with JEE 5). Programming languages usually have a lifespan of around 15 years before some other language starts displacing them (at least in greenfield projects). The smart techies will not be tied by a chain to a single product or technology, they will leverage their earlier knowledge, but constantly be prepared to learn new ones as they become relevant. You need to adapt and learn, or face becoming obsolete yourself.

But I’m pretty sure one thing is certain: a given technology won’t become obsolete just because some 25 year old kid wrote “.Net SuX0r!” on his blogg or some internet forum..

I’ve got an unfortunate knack for sarcasm and cynicism. To get some outlet for it, I have started yet another blog, Philosotainment - Philosophy & Entertainment, a blog which will have the sole purpose of mocking and making fun of this bizarre world we live in and the people in it through the vehicle of short observations, anecdotes and longer “philosophical” arguments.

This will not change the frequency of blogging, or the theme of this blog: I will still make amusing observations on dysfunctionalities in the corporate world and software development from time to time, as these tend to be more industry “inside jokes” than anything else. The new blog will have more of a “general theme” when it comes to the things it mocks (mass hysteria, politics, media, general stupidity etc etc).

..there have been reports of inches of snowfall in northern Sweden. In July. It’s a bloody cold country, but not that cold. It shouldn’t be snowing in July outside of the northernmost mountain regions..

* Note: neither myth is entirely true.. Polar bears are not indigenous to Sweden, and the most common natural hair colour for Swedish women is dark blonde/light brown.

This blog has existed since mid-february, and this is the 125th post. So far, it has gone from pretty much zero readership to about 60 people a day visiting the blog (with probably at least as many reading the RSS feed). Hardly a massive media empire, but at least someone can find some time in their day to shake their heads in despair to my random ramblings.
Before I moved to WordPress, I had a couple of false starts with a blog themed around the same themes as this one, I just never seemed to be able to write with any regularity. At the same time I had a Swedish language blog which I did write regularly to, and that had (and still has) quite a large following.

So why was I always able to write regularly to my Swedish blog, but not my English one? And why have I all of a sudden found the inspiration (well…) to ramble regularly on this blog this time around?
I think the answer is quite simple: At first I kind of forced myself to write regularly, but after a while I didn’t have to force myself anymore, thinking about the subjects discussed on this blog with such regularity got my brain going, eventually new subjects and things to write about started popping up in my brain everywhere. It was just a question of getting into the habit, and once I was in the habit it was self-reinforcing.

It is quite similar to working out and trying to keep fit: for the first few weeks (which are critical) you force yourself to the gym, almost against your will. But after about a month you no longer have to do that, it has become a natural part of your routine and you’d almost feel sick if you didn’t go to the gym. After forcing yourself into a habit, the habit becomes self-reinforcing.

Why am I writing about this? Put it down to random late-night ramblings.. But also, I feel that for a blog to be truly interesting, it needs to be updated frequently. Personally, I almost tend to delete any blogs out of my RSS reader if they are not updated at least once every other week (unless the writer is extremely talented, or someone I know personally).

Back from holiday now, so posts will hopefully be more frequent now.

My return will also spell the end of my official holiday, and I will subsequently slowly start looking for my next contract and/or freelance work. I am not strapped for cash in any way, so when it comes to contracts I am not eager to jump on the first thing that comes along (unless it is really good), but I am open for suggestions.
So for anyone who may be looking for people to take onto projects, or people to take on projects, here is what I can do, and what I want to do:

My skills and background

• 8 plus years of professional software development experience in commercial environments, several years in (hands-on) architectural and team lead roles.
• Primary background is within Java and J2EE technologies, which I know like the back of my hand, although reasonably comfortable with similar OO stuff, like C#.
• My strongest selling point is my strong background in integration, middleware and messaging type projects - I not only know when, where and how to apply JMS/MQ/Brokers etc etc, I’ve also been involved in actually writing integration middleware software.
• Strong knowledge of “Core Java” stuff like threading/concurrency, network I/O development and JVM behaviour on different platforms.
• Strong business acumen - having tried my hand at entrepreneurship before, I see myself as more than “just” a technologist.

What I can do/want to do

• Longer term full-time contract work (the regular 3-9 month stuff) within an existing project.
• Full ownership of smaller, well-defined projects/pieces of work at a fixed price (open to projects that can be done “remotely”, and I can probably also pool highly skilled resources from my personal network to scale beyond “one person” if there is a need).
• Preferred types of roles: “hands-on” roles involving at least 40-50% “coding” (typically with titles such as “architect”, “team lead”, “technical lead” or “senior developer”).
• Preferred type of environment: Agile environments strongly preferred although not required as long as there is some pragmatism within the organisation (as in where the emphasis is on “getting things done”, rather than “ticking made-up boxes on a form”). Entirely document-driven paper-tiger type waterfall projects where progress is mostly imaginary are of no interest.
• Private sector organization - I have been somewhat put off from Government projects from the few examples I have seen myself, there is a hint as to why in the previous bullet-point.

What I can offer
No-nonsense effective delivery of technically complex solutions solving real business needs. I do what I say, and say what I do: I don’t sugarcoat problems, I do what I can to solve them. I am positive, enthusiastic and result-driven, I genuinely love technology, software development and the challenges the area poses, so you’ll get more for your money than someone who is merely interested in “9-5″.

If you have anything that you want to discuss, feel free to e-mail me at wille.faler (a t) gmail (dot) com