Blog

September 1, 2015

Greg Thomas

Know your Platform

Learning a new coding language or API is not easy – some you can naturally gravitate towards, especially if that API or framework has an interface for your favourite language du jour. And it is always frustrating because despite all of our knowledge and experience we are starting at the same old examples to get up and running quickly. “Hello World” It can be deflating and demoralizing – you have built such wondrous inventions on C# now must go work on Ruby Rails, or the PHP machine must now do some defunct ASP programming on a legacy application. It has happened

August 31, 2015

Greg Thomas

Nothing Takes 2 Minutes

Ask someone when they are going to have something done and their immediate answer is going to be “In a sec”, “In a few minutes”, etc, etc. Translation – “I am so good I will have all my work done within 2 minutes and you will bow before my glory”. Perhaps not quite, but you get the idea, we want to impress someone with how fast you can get something done while ignoring how long it will take for everyone on the team to get it done and get it done right. If you can get your fix up to the

August 28, 2015

Greg Thomas

What Dream are you Chasing?

It is very easy to become entranced in the magic and mysticism of a new venture – whether it be a new startup or project.  We tend to focus on the carrot – what can we get and be if we are successful – and the carrot is always something of the physical variety. Listen to anyone speak on the topic when the offer is in front of them and 9/10 times (based on my own experience) it goes something like this… If I put in x effort, I will yield y reward.  If that happens it will have been ssssssssooooooooooo worth

August 27, 2015

Greg Thomas

How to Build a Great Team

I had this concept a number of years ago when I was starting out as a Software Manager and had to build a team from scratch of all new people and spent a lot of time thinking about what kind of people I wanted to have on my team.  There were some people I hired at the time that ran counter to some conventional wisdom and for the most part it all worked out in the end. Instead of doing it as a blog post, I did another SlideShare presentation that let me lay out my thoughts a little more

August 25, 2015

Greg Thomas

An Argument for Self-Training

If you really do not want to become a great developer or team lead, avoid doing anything and everything on this list; Spend time learning and staying on top of new technologies. Join a local user group focussed around a specific platform for technology that allows you to network with your peers. Join groups on LinkedIn to stay abreast of industry trends. Setup Google Alerts to receive emails to your inbox focussed around certain technologies and trends. Watch videos upload to YouTube that walk you through the How-Tos many different ways. Read some (not all) of the blog content out there to get ideas