28 Jan 2021
I put together a new track and made it available on SoundCloud:
I’m trying to get better at cataloging and sharing my music. I may eventually build a separate index just for those tracks, as a means of developing a portfolio of sorts.
Today’s links:
- I greatly enjoyed this writeup on the evolution of GitHub’s internal deployment system. As a person who strongly admired the original system (I still believe it was the BEST I’ve ever seen), and as someone who worked on improving it, I always wondered how it would progress as the company grew even larger. Inserting a state machine in the process makes perfect sense, of course
- This interview by Sonic State w/ Alessandro Cortini on the new Make Noise Strega is a great watch
- Also checkout the official Make Noise announcement
- I completed 30 days of the Sleep Pack on Headspace today. I’m now moving on to the ‘Pro’ pack, working on getting used to sitting without guidance for ~20 minutes each day. I highly recommend the app if you have the opportunity to check it out – it’s a fantastic way to ease into the practice. My only minor quibble is the lack of more ‘advanced’ meditation teachings, but you can pick up the books, find a teacher, etc, for those. This is a good way to build the foundations and get going
27 Jan 2021
As previously mentioned, I’m on sabbatical. Part of my job right now is learning how to actually relax for once, and how to be more present with my family and with life in general. The other part is spent exploring potential next career moves. It’s absolutely a position of privilege, and not a day goes by that I don’t think on that.
The majority of my career (25 years) has been focused on Technical Operations, Site Reliability, and various levels of management within software engineering organizations. I’m giving serious consideration to stepping back into the land of individual contributor, but am interested in doing so in a different capacity than before. I want to put my “beginner’s mind” on again, and learn something new. Rather than pursuing something in infrastructure or operations, I believe I’m going to chase down a path of software development and have a chance at growing in something very different than I’m typically used to. The two software paths that come to immediate mind are Ruby on Rails and iOS development via Swift. I’ll be spending some time playing more with both of these over the coming weeks and months.
Today’s links:
- Listened to an interview w/ @dhh Remote Ruby yesterday, and hear that Rails 7 is expected to ship with structured logging support built in. This has long been on my wish list – any systematic nudge to bring people straight to structured logging will be a boon to the industry, regardless of format
- Been kicking the tires of Twist, with my buddy Brad. I’ve been longing for a different communication tool for the workplace – something effective, but something that honored asynchronous work. Tooling like Slack feels like ‘shoulder tapping at scale’. So far, after nearly a month of use, this seems like a strong contendor
- I’ve begun working through the Ruby track on exercism as a means to get back into practice before I consider re-entry into the workforce. I’ve worked through it in the past, and this is a great way to get direct support learning the idioms of the language
- Noting that I was interested in learning more about Swift in a hands-on manner, Brad also sent me a few links over Twist for some of his favorite learning spots. Among the list: Paul Hudson, John Sundell, Ray Wenderlich
- Make Noise, my favorite Eurorack module creators, has an announcement later today that I’m very interested in learning more about
26 Jan 2021
Hello!
I’m currently on a brief sabbatical from the workforce, and part of that means remembering to enjoy writing again.
In order to do that, I’m starting a small link blog. I’m uncertain how often I will publish, which is also part of the terms of my time off. Maybe I’ll even write something from time to time.
Today’s links: