Blog

9 months ago

Greg Thomas

Waiting for the Forecast

If you’re always watching the latest weather forecast, you’ll never do anything. It might rain, it could be a bit windy, the heat might be too much, or it could be freezing cold, filled with snow and hail. Or it could be fine for what you are doing, and you can work around it. The same goes for forecasted profits and income, yes, assuming today, everything stays the same, but if we change the date and time, we should still be doing well or badly. But those are Big Ifs since no one can see the future. Forecasts are ideas

9 months ago

Greg Thomas

The Bugs are Back

Between May and July is bug season. If you haven’t finished your outside work by then, it’s not getting started until August. Factors outside of your control now control your work. Bugs are everywhere and they drive what we do, even if they are completely unrelated to it.

9 months ago

Greg Thomas

Bit by Bit Works

Believe it or not, if you do bit by bit each day, each week, it does work. It just depends on whether the bit you are doing is actually worthwhile. I.e., running 5 minutes a day might not help too much, running 20 probably better. Doing learning on new topics, a chapter a day will render results, a page not so much. Bit by Bit works as long as the bits are worth the effort.

9 months ago

Greg Thomas

The Constant Cycle of Innovation

Every day, the parameters surrounding my field of software development change. It is a constant cycle of learning and relearning. At times it is exhausting, in other moments it is invigorating. There are times I would like to take a break and wait for the next cycle to occur (and sometimes this happens without me even knowing), and other times when I’m running against two competing cycles at the same time. I’m sure many other fields are going through the same rapid change, and I don’t see it slowing down with all that we have around us. The thing I’ve

9 months ago

Greg Thomas

The Inefficient Cloud

When we had to buy hardware to set up your tests, we were efficient as hell. We would spend weeks, maybe even months, watching for deals and agonizing over cache, RAM, CPU, disk arrays, and storage size. Someone still has to do that to make the implementation of clouds effective, but you don’t have to do it anymore.  We barely have server rooms anymore. Now you want to try out a virtual machine or build a resource group, you spin it up and go to town.  For getting up and running quickly, this is a dream, no more weeks and