Not everyone can be at the front of the game.  This of course holds true in our little open source world. We all can’t be the Githubs or <insert other company you believe to be successful right here>.  Here is a little tip:

Every time you you give someone a tidbit that becomes a part of their success, you too are part of that success.

Of course that doesn’t mean they owe you some sort of financial prize or even acknowledgement.  The real reward is just knowing you helped move someone a little farther along.

My friend Chris Strom blogs.  As a matter of fact, I think he blogs just about every single day.  The best thing is his blogs are never rants or fluff.  They almost always have code, and they always provide great insight into what makes Chris ticks.  I read his posts whenever I have time, so I can see what he is up to.

Tonight I read his latest post, ‘Code Should Only Exist to Make a Test Pass’, and instantly a smile lit up my face.  Little tidbits like that are what keep me going, and hopefully I can inspire someone else to do something great in the near future.

(of course I hope I was the source of inspiration for this, if not… we can just pretend I was)

I’m going to describe what I think would be the ultimate company.  This company would be self-funded. Not self-funded on the backs of millionaires or Daddy’s money, but really self-funded.  The company would actually come into creation with little or no funding.  It would be started as some side project or some night time passion.  The initial goal of this company wouldn’t be making millions of dollars.  There is plenty of time for that later.  The initial goal of this company would be first to come up with the simplest idea.

The actual simplest idea that could be created.

There have been too many times in the past where I’ve been on projects where the goals were lofty.  These goals were so lofty, there was no way they could be reached.  The projects actually failed searching for a problem; never-mind actually coming up with a solution.

Once I was able to visualize this simple idea, I would figure out what the value was.  As I see it, things that are worth it have some sort of value.  You must charge for your idea.  You have to; hopes and dreams don’t pay the mortgage or put food on the table.  There will be time for freebies later, but for now, you must offer something, and you must assign value (hopefully monetary value) to it.

Your idea has worth.  You know this.  So you might as well charge for it.

Now of course I’m going to want to all my friends to work on this project with me.  I could offer them fictitious shares of my future fortunes.  But I won’t.  I can’t spread the pot too thin at first.  Also, I don’t want to dilute the value of my idea by having too many cooks stirring the pot.  They’ll be plenty of work for them in the future.  But now, we must stay focused on our idea.

So we have the idea of something simple that can actually make money.  What do we do next?  Well we execute on the idea.  We work nights and weekends on the project in hopes of getting it up and working in front of people as soon possible.  For most of us, illusions of grandeur are the norm.  We need to get this in front of real people, who pay us real money, real fast, so we can get real feedback.

After a few months of real people, using your real application, you’ll have real world experience.  Sure, you wrote this application to scratch you own itch.  Isn’t it satisfying to have people pay you to do something you actually did for yourself?

Put it out there and let people kick it around.  Ideas are cheap.  Execution pays the bills.

You’ve been doing your own thing for a while?  Doesn’t it feel good to create something for yourself? No silly coworkers.  No inept management.  No pointless meetings.  Could it have been this easy the entire time?  I’m sure it could have.

The only thing stopping you from starting that next business is you.  Look in the mirror and tell yourself to get started.

We need to get real.  How easy is it to actually make money off your own product?  Let’s say you have a service that you offer for $50/month.  $50 isn’t that much for a service that has some value is it?  If you find 150 people or companies to pay you per month, you’ll gross $90,000 a year.  Now this isn’t much money of course.  You’ll most likely have to pay for some sort of hardware or some sort of integration or some sort of hosting, and some to the government, so of course you won’t pocket all that money.  But $90,000 is $90,000 more than you had before you started your business.  And for some, this might be enough money for them to quit their day job, so they can focus on increasing the value of their simple idea.

This might might not be enough for others.  Others have kids, and spouses, and cars, and houses.  What can those people do with $90,000?  The answer is quite simple: You can save it.  After a while your savings will grow.  And since you already have a day job, you don’t even have to spend any of this money.  The day will come when you have at least 6 months of expenses in the bank.  The day will come when you tell The Man that working for him has been fun, but you will be moving on, and there is no counter-offer that will keep you from pursuing your dream.

Do I still have your attention?  Are your imaginations piqued?  What are you doing still reading this?  Go out and create something already!

And remember this:

If you are worried if someone will actually pay to use your product or idea, it probably isn’t good enough.  You have to convince yourself before you can convince others.

Before we begin, lets be reasonable.  As a hiring manager, or a startup founder, why would I hire you without experience?  That seems like a pretty crazy way to run in a business to me.  So when I see blog posts with the title, “How to Land a Rails Job with No Experience“, my bullshit alarm goes off the meter.

Now, we need to be reasonable of course.  At one time, none of us had any experience.  We were all once green in some way or another.  So how many of you went out and paid $699 – $1500 for somebody to tell you how to get experience? (and no, I’m not talking about college)  I’m going to guess the answer is pretty low.

I’m going to give you a lesson on how to get experience for free.  No, I won’t charge you even one dime.  I’m going to give you a free lesson, because I don’t think this type of knowledge has a dollar amount.

So where do we begin?

Step 1.  Find a real problem.  Make sure this problem is either something you are genuinely interested in, or something you wouldn’t mind finding a solution for.  If you can’t find a problem, maybe you should go back to Step 0, and evaluate if you are really looking for some experience to further your career and life goals, or are you just looking for a quick buck?

Step 2.  Dedicate some time in figuring out what a solution your problem would look like without involving any specific programming technology.  For instance, if you want figure out how to do a drop down list using AJAX, work on understanding the semantics of the interaction before looking up any documentation on how to do it with Rails.

Step 3.  Iterate on your solution until you have something that satisfies you.

Now take a look back at these three steps.  You’ve identified a problem, you did some research, and then you created a solution.  Isn’t that what most businesses do?  So technically, what you just did qualifies as experience, correct?  Well of course it does, but some might not consider that real experience.  Here is a life lesson:  You don’t want to work at any job, where they won’t take this type of experience.  Just take it as a warning, and run away before you get burnt.

Now you’ve piqued some potential employer’s interest,  what do you do now?  I’m sure they’ll want some sort of resume, and I’m sure you’ll have sort of interview.  If you don’t have a resume already, now is the time to make one.  In my opinion there are no secrets to this, all a resume does it get you seen, so you can potentially get an interview.  There are plenty of free books at your local library that tell you how to do this, so any who charges for this is just trying to take your money.

As for the interview itself, there are no real secrets.  Your job as the interviewee is to gauge (in the first 5 minutes or less), the people you will be interviewing against.  Of course this is easier in person, than on the phone.  If you have a phone interview, make sure to ask everyone what they do from day-to-day before you start, so you can get some tidbits on things you can say that’ll make them look or feel good.  And truthfully from what I can tell, from my experience in interviewing for technical jobs, involve some person who was most like bullied around at some point in their earlier life trying to trip you up by asking you questions about situations you most likely won’t occur in real life.  The easiest way to get around this situation is to get the interviewers to focus on themselves and their egos.

Now, how can I help you get a job?  Here are all the things I can help you with over skype for free, if you take the time to work with my schedule.

1. I can help you review your code.  No, I won’t write anything for you of course, but I’m sure I can give you some advice that will help you along your way.
2. I can review your resume.  I’ve seen a bunch of crappy ones in the past, so at the minimum, I can at least offer you some advice.
3. I can give you a few strategies for getting through interviews.  Or, if you’ve had a particular bad situation, I can be your cheerleader, to help you get back on track.
4. I can help you to start learning how to do test driven development.

So, what does Bryan get out of all this?  Well, you might not believe, but I enjoy helping people progress their lives and careers.   I also get the experience that may potentially help me become a better teacher in the future.  Also, helping others is part of my 5 steps to live.  Keep in mind, I’m a family man, and I have kids, but I do have free time here and there.  If you are interested in some free help, I’m on skype and you can email me at iam@smartic.us to schedule some time.

Last week, I shared the five steps that I try to live by.  I received some great feedback, but one comment in particular made me want to write a follow up.

Sounds sensible, if a bit vague. Dunno if that’s an intentional degree of privacy you want to maintain, but I’d be interested in hearing  – @grossberg

Of course while writing that post, I was trying to remain vague, so you could determine how your situations matched up.  This week, I want to revisit and detail my five steps.

Have passion

I can talk and write about things that I’m passionate about all day.  As some of you may know, I like Ruby; I’m really into testing; VIM is my favorite editor; I get huge enjoyment out creating situations that allow others to be successful.

So how do I manifest this passion?  Well the simplest answer is this blog.  I write about things that interest me, and I hope they interest at least one more person as well.  I also try to speak at conferences and local developer events.  No better way to show your passion than being the center of attention.

I’m always thinking about other ways of sharing my passion.  I think regular old video blogs are pretty corny (and I’ve tried, but they just feel like I’m talking to myself), so maybe I’ll try something different.  Or maybe I won’t because we all know that perfection is the enemy of good (or done in my case)

Have an enemy

The phrase, “Have an enemy”, invokes so passion.  In most case, I hope this enemy isn’t a person, as mine isn’t.  My enemy is the status quo.  Nothing burns me up more than doing things a particular way for no better reason of, “Well, that is how we always do it”, or “That is the way it is done”, or my least favorite, “That is the way they do it”.

Now that I have enemy to battle with, I have something concrete to base my passions on.  Of course some people have real enemies, and I’ll let them battle it out themselves in another forum.

Get some sleep

It disappoints me to see people trying to achieve success at the expense of themselves.  Maybe they work too hard, or they don’t eat correctly, or maybe they just don’t get enough sleep.  They way I see it, all that success you are working to enjoy won’t be very enjoyable if you aren’t around to see it.

So, what does this mean for the mere mortal?  It means we try to take care of ourselves both mentally and physically.  This isn’t that hard, but sometimes we forgot the simple things.

To accomplish this, I mostly try to get enough sleep.  All my kids are old enough and sleep through the night now, so anytime I’m not sleeping properly it is my fault.  When I get eight hours of sleep, I don’t dread the next day, and I make less stupid mistakes.  I’m sure sleeping enough hours is also good for your body as well, but I’m not doctor.

Smell the roses

Sometimes we get so caught up in becoming successful, we don’t take the time to enjoy the fruits of our labors.

I like mobile phones.  For years, I’ve been enamored with all things small and mobile.  Some might call this fascination a hobby.  My end goal isn’t to have the most little mobile devices, but while I’m building my little mini empire, I most definitely will be entertaining myself with phone collection.  Hobbies are great because they can give you that little mental energy boost (or break) that you need sometimes.  I suggest you go fine one.

Be happy

I’m generally a happy dude.  Of course I get caught up with the rest of them from time to time, but I generally have a positive outlook on life and everything around me.  One thing that keeps me happy is knowing that I have a great family and great set of friends to fall back on in times of trouble.  For others this might not be enough.  Happiness is very personal.  The only important thing is that you have it.

I’m absolutely terrified of the domino effect.  Sometimes I do nothing at all in fear doing something that might have a negative effect down the road.  This is especially important to me when it comes to people’s happiness.  There is nothing worse than having your cheerios soiled by someone else’s unhappiness.

So in conclusion…

There you have it.  This is a much more personal expanded list of what makes me tick.  Keep in mind, posts like these are selfish.  This is much for my own enrichment than anything else.  Seeing something print gives it a sense of permanence, so I’ll hopefully be much less likely to stray off the path.

I’m all about organized confusion.  So through all the chaos, over the years, I’ve come up with five rules to life.  Since I haven’t shared anything in a while, I thought I would throw this out there.

Have passion – If you aren’t passionate about what you are doing, why are you doing it?

Have an enemy – Batman would have been a freak in tights with a cape without the likes of the Joker and the Penguin.  Having an enemy allows you to know what you stand for.

Get some sleep – Taking care of yourself is paramount.  Eat well, sleep well, and be concious about keeping your blood pressure down.

Smell the roses – Work, work, work might seem the par for the course, but every once in a while, you have to take a time out to reflect and enjoy everything you are creating and influencing.

Be happy – If you aren’t happy with what you are doing right now, perhaps you should leave.  You don’t deserve to be unhappy.  Also you unhappiness is contagious, and you don’t want to bring those around you down in your dump.

There it is.  This is what keeps Bryan ticking.

This short presentation was a blast to give.  Some people mentioned that wanted to see the slides, so here they are.  I should do another post to follow up with my complete arsenal.

Bryanl Ignite Railsconf

I’m going to let you in on a little secret:  live coding went of a style a few years back when you weren’t paying attention.  Giving a talk and trying to demo some code usually ends with less than satisfying results, and the demonstrations are sometimes not idempotent.  So what can you do?

The easy solution is to just include videos of your demos inside of your presentation.  If you do this, you can make sure you audience sees your demonstration without your mistakes.  Your mistakes are like you unmentionables; keep them to yourself.

I’m only going to explain how to do this for Mac users.  There is a simple reason for this – I use a Mac.  I’m sure what I’m about to explain can be accomplished on other platforms, but those solutions won’t be explained here.

The first tool you’ll need is something to record the screen.  On the Mac, you have a few choices, and I can recommend two different tools.  The first screencast recorder is <a href=”http://www.shinywhitebox.com/ishowuhd/main.html“>iShowU HD</a>.  I’m sure the simpler iShowU recorder would work as well.  The next tool I recommend is <a href=”http://www.telestream.net/screen-flow/overview.htm“>ScreenFlow</a>.  Either of these tools work, but recording a non-moving screen with a persistent size is much easier with iShowU.

Now that you are ready to record, here are some guidelines:

* Most projectors only display well at 1024×768, so you’ll want to record your video at that size.  800×600 works as well.

* Make sure to use a large font size.  Squinting will guarantee that your audience isn’t paying attention.  If you want to know if your size is too small, take a a few steps back.  If you have to squint (and your aren’t blind) it is too small.

* Make sure not to go too fast if you are trying to make a point.

* Your clips shouldn’t be long.  Two minutes is a long time.  Don’t just let your clips run without commentary unless they are particularly awesome.  Like Chuck Norris kicking a Mysql logo awesome

* Make sure to speed up the slow parts.  Slow parts include compiles, installs, and downloads.

* Have a plan before you start.  The audience will know when you don’t know.

When your video is recorded, what do you do with it?  I’m still old school.  I use Keynote.  Lots of great presenters are using html based systems, but I’m not going to budge. I enjoy the ability to easily make PDFs and record videos of my presentations.  I also enjoy the ability to drag and drop stuff at will.

We are  getting ahead of ourselves here.  After you’ve recorded your videos, you might have to do some light processing to bring them up to speed.  You most likely have iMovie on your Mac.  iMovie doesn’t do everything, but it does allow you slow down and speed up video.  After your video is at the proper speeds, export it, and drag it into your Keynote.

What do my videos look like when they are done?

http://www.vimeo.com/11693648

This morning I’m at Google IO out in San Francisco.  I’m actually quite happy to be here.  In general, I’ve avoided the so called “super conferences” due to amount of people.  With so many people it is very hard to meet new friends and associates due to whole lifeless vibe of the gathering.  In reality it isn’t lifeless; there is just too much going on at one time for anyone person to get a good sense of the vibe

So, back to the topic.  There are no black people here.  Well there at least a couple.  Myself, two black folks who I saw walking up the escalator, and this black women who has walked pass me just now.  But other than that our race isn’t really represented in the tech sector.

I want to assure everyone reading this, that I don’t just sit around looking for minorities.  I believe that people given the same set of chances will succeed in the same percentages across race and sex lines.  And that brings me to the point of this rant.

I consider myself lucky.  My father was in the military, and we moved around a bit while I was small.  My father tried his hardest to give me every thing he thought I would need to do well.  Back in the 80s he saw that computers were the future, so he bought me one.  Not only that, he bought me every book that I asked for, and even purchased a course on learning C.  I think this is the key.  I hate to say it, but this wasn’t the cool thing for a black dad to do.  He didn’t have me out there trying to be the next basketball star.  He was firmly pressed that success in education was paramount to success in life.  Unfortunately, I think he was in the minority (even though he was a minority).

Without knowing it, my father had actually solved the whole equality of the races thing.  The solution is simple.  Stop focusing on being black, and start focusing on being successful.  Success comes from much practice and hard work.  Of course it came come from the hustle, being a good athlete, or being an entertainer, but those chances are extremely slim.

Testing is Rails land is a crazy thing. I’m sure glad that it seems hugely popular, but sometimes I feel people start out with the wrong approach. I originally wrote this as a reply to Unit and Functional Tests are as Useful as 100% Code Coverage.

First, lets clear some things up. 100% test coverage shouldn’t be a goal for your project. I believe that you should track test coverage over time, and make sure that coverage is always increasing rather than diminishing. This metric over time will tell you if you have the right amount of coverage.

Second thing. Rails got it wrong with the name of tests. What Rails considers unit tests aren’t really unit tests. What Rails says are functional tests aren’t quite functional tests, because it seems to me that the integration tests fill the role better. I know this is really a semantic thing, but since we are talking about testing, I’m still on subject.

That being said, I believe there is really only one way to do testing. First you gotta to know what are trying to accomplish. If you are using Cucumber, now is the time to write out those steps and throw on the @wip tag. Now you should run that feature and watch it fail. Failure is a very important part of testing. If you write a test, and it passes the first time, why did you write the test?

OK, now it is time time dive into your test/ or spec/ directory. I think the golden rule of test driven development is this, “Code exists to make your tests pass.” Most likely, you’ll want to start with some kind of controller interaction, so writing a controller spec or functional test is what needs to happen here. Think about this way: you are writing your application from outside in, so think about the interaction points and work from there. In most cases, you can’t hit your models without going through a controller, so it isn’t time to write model tests yet. Testing first is generally pretty easy. The problem that many people run into is that is also time consuming.

My testing pretty much goes like this.

1. Write the simplest test I can think of

2. Run the test

3. Write just enough code to change the error message or make the test pass

4. Refactor… or not

5. Repeat

What I find is that I’m moving up and down through my stack. Cucumber –> Functional –> Model –> Functional –> Cucumber –> Functional –> Cucumber.

Now back to this blog post. I really enjoy the spirit of it. I’m afraid it glosses over an important fact though. You need both the feature and the lower level test. The easiest way to think about it is like this: Your features are what you plan to build, and your lower level tests describe how you are building it. You need both of these and one really can’t be more important with the other.

For years I’ve been collecting books. For the first few years this was a problem, but as of recently I hit the tipping point. I now have books everywhere. In the garage in boxes, on my desk in multiple piles, and not to mention over filling a bookshelf.

A short while ago, I knew that I wanted to move everything to a digital format. The first reason is because I wanted to reclaim some space. The second is I really wanted all my books in a format that would allow me to search them. The third reason is because I want to take my books with me. They are too big for my laptop bag, and pretty heavy. The most important reason is that my wife is tired of seeing books everywhere.

Now I have an iPad, and the iBooks application from Apple. It is a neat device that I’m enjoying in the short time I’ve had it. For years now I’ve always made sure to buy all my Pragmatic Programmer books directly from them, and most times I’ve opted for the digital version as well.

Today, I get to marry those two, and the first results look really promising. Apple makes it easy to get books on the the iPad by dragging the ePub files, that the Pragmatic Programmer’s website generated for me, right into iTunes.

Now when I sync, I get the neat bookshelf metaphor and very good looking book to read and search at my whim.

So all I want to say is thanks Dave and Andy for allowing me to tick another accomplishment off my list.