Open Me Sources
On a super-fun/super-geeky note, I’ve decided that I want to learn Java. There seems to be a world of opportunity for Java programmers, and I’m already fairly comfortable with JavaScript, PHP, and ActionScript; syntactically, they’re all somewhat similar. My only real problem is that I - you know - have a job and stuff. It kind of gets in the way of my spending a great deal of time doing stuff non-work related.
I was starting to get a little worried that I would lose interest if I just read a book on Java, or just picked away at it every now and then. When I was discussing my problem with my friend/co-worker Cindy, she suggested that I work on a project instead of just learning the language. One step further, she suggested that I build an application to help her create tournaments for the statustrophy (the much coveted award for any statusfirm competition)!
Cindy and I have also been chatting about trying out some new development techniques around the old tech dept, and it occurred to us that this might be a wonderful opportunity to try some of them out. Cindy was on-board for that, so we’re now developing an application to dynamically generate tournaments.
We decided to make whatever we do open source so that it cannot, in any way, be deemed competitive with our work. After making the decision, Cindy said something to the effect of “now this whole thing is going to fall apart because we won’t be able to agree on a license.” Shortly thereafter we decided to add one more coder to the mix - Brent. Honest to God, his first question was “what license are we going to release it under” which sparked a brief hour long discussion. It’s amazing how something so seemingly minute can spark such debate. Do we want people to be able to monetize our application? Do we want to be able to monetize out application? I don’t know, I just want to learn Java, try out some development techniques, and hopefully end up with something really cool at the end of it all.
I sincerely hope that the wheels stay on this thing. I need a good challenge to keep myself motivated. I spend so much time thinking, planning, meeting, and discussing that I rarely get to delve in and do some real, gritty development. I really enjoy what I do, but I’m afraid that if I neglect my skills that I’ll end up rusty, or worse yet, obsolete. My first two years at statusfirm were marked by incredible personal growth. I’ve learned more in that condensed period of time than any other I can think of in my life. I know that I will have new opportunities to grow in new ways, I just don’t want to think that everything I’ve learned up until now was for nothing. Especially not when I was just starting to get good. 
(Every time I think I have it all figured out, I learn something new that proves what I thought I knew was bunk and what I thought was quality really could have been better).
