OK I am a little late but it’s the thought that counts, right??

I am ashamed to admit that I have been neglecting the blog lately. I guess I haven’t really had very much to say of late. Nothing has changed there I hear you say! Even so,  I thought I’d give a quick round-up of the year to date…

Development

The new year has been a busy period. We have just finished the development phase of our next major release, my first since joining last year. Its been a step learning curve but we have managed OK. The next release will be a lot more involved so I am looking forward to getting going with that. It should see us through the rest of the year.

I have also lined up a few interesting side projects to keep myself off the streets at night. They are mix of web and iPhone apps using Ruby on Rails, the iPhone SDK and OpenGL ES. I am also hoping to take a look at Android development at some stage. It’s a very interesting time for independent developers. Every day seems to bring a new platform or app store announcement lately (Nokia’s Ovi Store, Palm’s App Catalog and as well as others by MS, O2 and Orange!). I guess with the amazing success of the iPhone’s App Store, it was inevitable that the other smart-phone makers would follow suit. It will be interesting to see how things shape up once the dust settles. I’m also hoping to climb out of my cave and go meet some other developers.

Gaming

It was a quiet Christmas in terms of gaming. I have been playing Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune on the PS3 when I find time. Its a 3rd person action-adventure game, similar to the Lara Croft series with a Gears of War style cover system. Its fun to play and the graphics are excellent, considering its over a year old. Overall, its fantastic value for money on the budget Platinum series.  I will definitely be picking up a copy of Uncharted 2 when it is released later this year. Also, the much anticipated Killzone 2 is due for release on the PS3 very soon. Unfortunately the Wii didn’t even get switched on over Christmas due to the dearth of quality titles. I am toying with the idea of trading it in for a DS or more PS3 games.

Football

Since I last posted, Stevie G was arrested, Rafa Benitez cracked, Arsenal have disappeared and Chelsea sacked their manager of 6 months. Meanwhile, Man Utd have went on a record breaking run of 14 clean sheets (and counting) and have stormed their way to a 5 point lead at the top of the English Premier League. They are currently English, European and World Champions, own the world’s best footballer (at least for now) and have an unprecedented quintuple in their sights. It’s a pretty good time to be a Red! I could be smug about it but I really don’t expect them to do a clean sweep. Barcelona are looking really strong at the moment and must be favourites alongside Utd for the Champions League. Also, it only takes one bit of bad luck (As Utd saw against Portsmouth in the FA Cup last year) and you can be knocked out. Everyone thinks the Carling Cup is a foregone conclusion, but I expect Spurs to be really up for it against some of the younger members of Utd’s squad. It should make for an exciting run in.

Well if you have been following my tweets recently, you will know that I have decided to move on to pastures new after nearly 3 years working for one of the largest financial services companies in the world. Having been off for a few days now I’ve had a chance to reflect on my experiences and what I have learned from it.

When I joined, I hoped that being at the technical sharp end of the high-pressure trading market would provide me with valuable experience. I wanted to learn what it took to build large scale, n-tiered, fault-tolerant and highly performant software. I thought I would be building software to strict specification and detailed designs as part of a water-tight software development methodology. I also was led to believe that I would be working with other teams, identifying common funtionality and building reusable services and common infrastructure. I also wanted to help in setting up an brand new technology centre. Unfortunately, things didn’t turn out as I had hoped. Read on to find out why. Continue reading →

Soon after graduating and starting work for my first IT company, I realised that we, as software developers, are typecast. Our future careers are defined by what language we use, development tools we are given, the software we develop and even the type of company we happen to work for. The next job will probably use the same sort of skills, and so on. Before you know it, years have passed and you are stuck in a rut using the same skills as when you started out. Continue reading →