Learning Something New Every Day
I follow the advice given by the Prags of learning a new (computer) language every year. Or rather, the broader advice of investing in yourself. So many developers are stuck in their old jobs, using the same old languages, solving the same problems using the same techniques. We work in an industry where knowledge and experience count for a lot. We also work in an industry that moves at a lightning fast pace. Learning something new broadens horizons, emphasizes connections and makes it even easier to learn that next language. Learning lets you stay with that wave, instead of falling behind it.It also lets you meet a whole bunch of people you wouldn’t otherwise have met, which was an unexpected benefit. This year I’ve dabbled in a few things myself, and every once in a while I manage to write up my little experiments in article form.
Mashups
I wanted to figure out what all the hype was about, so I started playing with mashups. In doing so, I also learned a little about software as a service, and a lot more about Salesforce.com. And I met a bunch of interesting folk over at Salesforce: Adam, Paul, Kavindra, Ron, Nick, Rick and more. I wrote up the result in a little article: Mashups: The What and Why
Adobe Flex
I met James Ward (self styled RIA cowboy) at the excellent JavaPolis conference in Antwerp a few years ago, where he tried to convince folk to start using Adobe Flex. Well, he succeeded. Flex is fun, and cured my aversion to writing client-side code. Building on that, I wrote another article: Creating Flex Salesforce Mashups.
Future
Right now I’m learning a little about Google Web Toolkit and Google Gears. They’re both fun, and have transformed the way I look at Ajax and web applications. As I find time, I’ll be writing up these too (in fact, I spent Sunday cleaning it up so it’s almost done). What next? Well, AIR looks interesting!
