There isn’t enough hours in the day to not to.

After 13+ years of employment with Coconino County I’ve decided to move on.  It’s been a really tough decision yet at the same time an easy one. 

Comfort

Leaving behind 13 years of effort is hard. 

Leaving behind team members, colleagues and friends I’ve made is hard. 

Leaving behind something that has become very comfortable and familiar is hard.

Passion

Following my desire to be more involved in the technical day to day leadership and doing is easy.  My heart lies with the coding craft.  I love to code and I love the process of becoming better at it every day. 

When I graduated from College I didn’t think much about code as a craft. 

From WikiPedia:

In English, to describe something as a craft is to describe it as lying somewhere between an art (which relies on talent) and a science (which relies on knowledge).

I think most colleges miss the first part of that.  It’s a shame as I believe this is a huge key to great programmers.  Perhaps it’s too much to ask of them?  After all many in the class are still just trying to understand a For loop or Big O notation.

What I do know is you can’t teach passion and this is key to the artistic side.  It’s all about internal motivation.  I’ve always enjoyed coding and always saw it as a way of expressing myself.  But I was lacking something and I didn’t know it.

My Awakening

About three years back I bought a license to Safari Books Online.  It cost more than what we were budgeting yearly for literature but I was staring at a bookshelf full of out of date books.  There had to be a better way.  With so many books at my fingertips I went from reading one or two books a year to seven or eight with a few more that I perused through and a slew of development blogs.

Clean Code

Clean Code, by Uncle Bob was perhaps the most influential in changing the way I thought about code.  Along with many more books and blogs I found that code could be so much more than just code.  It is my creative outlet to solving other people’s problems and it can be elegant and poetic.  Yes, I’m getting all gushy. The simple answer is that I care deeply about honing my code craft and we need more who think and feel this way in our trade. 

My Code Passion

• I love making life easier for people. Building software for this purpose is a passion; it's not just a job. I am constantly looking for ways to better myself, my code, my team and my product.
• I believe that deleting code is a beautiful thing.
• I want to leave code in better shape every time I touch it.
• I believe that well written code can be read like a story line.
• I believe in constantly looking to improve one-self and those around them.
• I believe that craftsmanship isn't just for wood working.

A New Journey

Following my passion, this week, I began a new journey with NAU (my alma mater) as a Senior Developer.  I will be responsible for setting the architectural direction and development of several applications around the advising process for Freshman and Sophomore students before they declare their major.  The group I support also helps them land jobs!  I’m very excited about it and look forward to bringing my skills to the table as well as continuing to hone my coding craft.

Need a little more help stoking your fire?  Read The Passionate Programmer. 

We need a few more passionate programmers.  Won’t you join us?

Happy Coding!