Tales of the CodeStorms

More on Servant Leadership: Commitment to your teammates

2012-01-08T13:59:00.000-08:00

I've been practicing something called Servant Leadership for about two years now. This discipline entails being a support role, from solving your teammates' problems to inspiring confidence in your teammates. Prior to reading The Fifth Discipline (Peter Senge) and The World's Most Powerful Leadership Principle (James C. Hunter) -- I thought that "Leadership" was what you did: the budgets, the

How A-Trak Increases Developer Productivity on Windows Azure

2012-01-07T20:30:00.000-08:00

I've recently been working on non-.NET technologies on Windows Azure platform and I'm finding it amazingly fun and easy. From NodeJS to PHP, I'm finding it easier and easier as time goes on that the tooling Microsoft is releasing makes developers lives easier. That said, at Agile Business Cloud, we're also in alignment with Microsoft's shared vision of making developers' lives easier on

2011 Rundown by Jaime Bueza

2012-01-01T02:53:00.000-08:00

2011 has been an amazing year for me. I've written notes on what I've taken on and what I plan to make better in the coming year. 2011 Career - Launched True Originals for Bacardi, a social network for bar tenders - Launched Kinect Share for Microsoft -- Microsoft's community site for Kinect enthusiasts. It integrates with SXP on Windows Azure - Launched Salutation Nation for lululemon - Won an

Windows Azure and NodeJS

2011-12-29T16:33:00.000-08:00

When starting at my new home at RESAAS about 6 months ago, I was determined to become a better developer in a Windows environment. Developing in a *nix environment for about 10 years made it so I had to change my way of thinking (package dependencies, scripts, paths, keybindings) which is why RESAAS was a perfect learning environment for me. RESAAS is a social network for Real Estate

New technical direction on this blog!

2011-12-08T02:04:00.001-08:00

I've got a few awesome technical posts on Windows Azure and NodeJS coming down the pipeline. Jaime Bueza is a software engineer in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He has developed web applications for Nintendo, Starbucks, Bacardi, Nike, Electronic Arts, Ritchie Brothers, Kiwi Collections, Cox Communications and Microsoft. When he's not developing useful software that constantly evolves with

Small Thought on A Fearless Flag Bearer

2011-10-21T00:43:00.000-07:00

After being on several teams where we've had to ship projects on ridiculously tight timelines, I've come to realize that there is no amount of technical or creative skill that can replace bravery, conviction, and integrity. Sometimes, the only reason why Death Marches get completed is because of the three attributes of a person (bravery, conviction, and integrity). What I do find is that the

JavaScript is the assembly language of the Web

2011-07-26T02:31:00.000-07:00

In my last blog post, I outlined how clever developers are starting to use CoffeeScript as a way of moving forward with Harmony (JavaScript's newest spec that improves the lexicon to be more productive) without breaking current browser implementations of ECMAScript by leveraging transpiling techniques. Concordantly, there are other transpiling tools now for C# (JSIL) and Python (Skulpt).

CoffeeScript and the future of JavaScript

2011-07-24T00:46:00.000-07:00

We're in an age where there are several ways of "transpiling" languages. If you're not familiar with transpiling, it essentially allows you to write in one programming language and have that converted into another programming language. Ultimately, the primary goals of writing code in higher level programming languages is to achieve productivity. A great example of this is CoffeeScript, Skulpt,

Why did I write a microframework?

2011-04-18T00:52:00.000-07:00

I've always been passionate about tools that allow developers makes their lives easier and makes things more fun. Speaking from my agency experience, I've taken the time to do health checks of current developers and analyzed their tool sets. It become clear that there was too much fragmentation between what libraries, APIs, and development approaches -- It's not their fault as each project was

Stirring The Hearts of Your Teammates

2011-04-03T23:00:00.000-07:00

Remember, our line has always ruled with wisdom and strength. And I know you will show restraint when exercising your great power. But the truest victory, my son, is stirring the hearts of your people. I tell you this, for when my days have come to an end, you shall be King. In the world of agencies and corporate software development, there are ladders. These ladders place you where "they"

Shaping Great Teams on Bad Projects

2011-01-29T14:09:00.000-08:00

Ever since I read "The World's Most Powerful Leadership Principle: Servant Leadership", I've felt invigorated about corporate software development. This book has made me change my mental models and perspectives on building great teams on bad projects. One of the key things I learned from this book was that there is an undeniable difference between managers and leaders. As James C. Hunter says it

2010 Rundown by Jaime Bueza

2010-12-22T17:22:00.000-08:00

2010 has been a great year. Here's a rundown of the things I did. * Gave an introductory talk on NodeJS to the front-end team at Blast Radius * Explored test automation with Selenium and NodeJS using SodaJS + Kyuri * Created a free cross-platform app built on PhoneGap (CoffeeCheck.In) ** Iteration 1 Video ** Iteration 2 Video * Contributed to the HTML5Boilerplate (Pull Request 209) * Learned

How to push forward as a large software development corporation

2010-12-20T22:03:00.000-08:00

The Art of War has taught us that when a skilled general decides on a strategy to execute on, they either move quickly, or stay in a position that yields a tactical advantage over his/her enemy. Incidentally, we can apply the same concept in corporate culture. If you take a second to disconnect yourself from your environment, zoom out to a birds eye view, you'll realize how really slow your team

Ideas are useless without proper execution

2010-12-08T20:35:00.000-08:00

So stop saying you have ideas and start executing. Good luck and have fun, Jaime Bueza Jaime Bueza is a software developer in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He has developed web applications for Nintendo, Starbucks, Electronic Arts, Ritchie Brothers, Kiwi Collections, Cox Communications and Microsoft. When he's not developing useful software that constantly evolves with business

Advertising companies need to catch up with how the Web platform is expanding. Location-based services is the next natural step

2010-12-05T01:56:00.000-08:00

Mobile app spendings are consistently increasing as we push forward into the future. Incidentally, there are advertising agencies that are still stuck on desktop customer experiences. The future is going mobile and I feel like Apple is the only company that is scaling with the growth of Mobile advertising with iAd. The biggest trending mobile web services at the moment are location-based.

Building teams based on passion

2010-12-04T15:39:00.000-08:00

After being in a meeting on how to increase team effectiveness and increase the quality of the products we're trying to build, I thought of the process of building teams based on a common passion. Diving deeper, have you ever met a creative person that loved designing social networks? What about a designer that loved creating interfaces on Mobile platforms? Have you ever met a developer that

What was your first programming job and were you qualified?

2010-11-24T22:45:00.000-08:00

My tale starts when I went in for a job interview at the Vancouver Film School. The position I was applying for was "Intermediate Developer" -- Something I was completely unqualified for. The role of an "Intermediate Developer" would be to write internal applications on a LAMP stack and support the Senior Database Developer with any database scripts for different departments (admissions, human

Unionization for Developers and Designers

2010-11-23T21:27:00.000-08:00

There was a time in the past where I actually thought developers and designers would benefit from unionization. I realize now that it would shape a devastating reality to the overall advances of technology and design. Unionization would paralyze our ability to innovate because the level of protectionism inherent in unions encourages laziness. By looking at different disciplines, such as,

Leadership

2010-11-15T01:56:00.000-08:00

Words by Lieutenant General Hal Moore: There are four principles in leaders conduct in battle. First is three strikes and you're not out. There's 2 things a leader can do, either contaminate his environment the unit with his attitude and actions or he can inspire confidence. He must be visible on the battlefield. He must be in the battle. Self-confident, positive attitude, must exhibit his

Why Boxing Is In Decline And Solutions To Increase Viewership

2010-11-14T03:19:00.000-08:00

After watching tonight's fight between Manny Pacquiao and Antonio Margarito, I decided to explore why boxers are able to duck out of fights (Mayweather). The boxing federation, as a company, has it structured all incorrectly. In all honesty, boxing is in a state of decline and the only real way to re-energize the fans and really get some growth in the boxing community would be to revise the fight

Has Ajaxian Gone Down Hill?

2010-11-14T02:12:00.000-08:00

Recently, Ben and Dion (the main guys who started Ajaxian) have left Ajaxian's helm to concentrate on other projects. One thing I've noticed is that they've reduced the frequency of posts to about three times per week. Prior to Ben and Dion leaving, there were sometimes 2 posts per day. Furthermore, since the articles on Ajaxian aren't that interesting, I've gone ahead and subscribed to Dion

Job Hunting Tips for New Developers Out of University

2010-11-03T12:32:00.000-07:00

Open Source projects on your resume are more important than your co-op or education. I've seen brilliant developers that shatter walls of constraints by being strictly committed to the vision of the project. If there was ever an issue that constrained the team's ability to move forward, there was always that developer hero that would step up to the plate and do what he could to resolve the issue.

Distributed Development / Divorced Software Development

2010-10-31T21:59:00.000-07:00

In an attempt to dispel the level of optimism in distributed teams: I'd like to negatively state that divorcing your team like this is the worst way to achieve team efficiency and sustain a high level of quality in your products. None the less, it still happens project to project. I've bounced back and forth between teams where we've stuck in pods (all in one common area) and some where I'm

What If

2010-10-27T19:32:00.000-07:00

Have you ever asked yourself "what if" when you reach a point in your life where you could've acted on an opportunity? I've been an evangelist of the following quote: "you miss 100% of your shots you don't take". After having this ingrained in my mind for so long, I've come to realize that I am almost always disappointed with myself. Every opportunity I take advantage of, I'm always disappointed-

Mentors

2010-10-26T18:28:00.000-07:00

In my life quest to figure out the deeper arcanes of social dynamics and emotional intelligence--I've taken notes on patterns of behaviour and characteristics in most great leaders of our time. Frequently, I hear the phrase, "person of integrity" being used to describe leaders. What does it mean to be a person of integrity? Wikipedia has the following definition: Integrity is a concept of