Pittsburgh’s going to the Super Bowl!!
And I think my wife’s in love with Troy Polamalu….
Make sure your sound is on, and if you’re at work, it would be best to listen to this only when you won’t bother other people with hysterical laughter. It’s rare that something makes me laugh so hard, it brings me to tears, but this did it.
Remember when FuseBox came out for the ColdFusion community? Wow, it was great. Finally, we had a professionally developed code framework that was being adopted by people and companies worldwide. It showed even basic developers how code organization, standards, and design patterns could help them make a better product, and even help them professionally.
Based on that success, other brilliant people started creating, or porting, other successful frameworks for ColdFusion. We now have a good variety of very well-made frameworks from which to choose when starting a project. In fact, some of the “high brow” developers in our community now poo-poo Fusebox as something for beginners (I am not one of those), and Fusebox now takes somewhat of a back seat to some of the more advanced and intricate frameworks in many development shops now.
In my mind, this is how I see the future for the Flex world as well. Right now, Cairngorm is the 400-pound gorilla in the community – not only because it was the first major player in the market, but is also backed by Adobe Consulting – and I expect it is being used by the majority of Flex development shops out there. Cairngorm is a great architecture and was developed using solid, industry-proven design patterns. However, as with most thing in the technology world, it has some weaknesses and drawbacks (though many of them have been “resolved” with extensions to the architecture).
Now, I’m not saying that Cairngorm will suffer the fate of Fusebox, but I think there will be some parallels in that the Cairngorm adoption rate will slowly reduce as other players enter the market with viable alternatives.
If you are currently in the process of evaluating Flex for your shop, or have already moving forward with Flex and are looking for a common framework or architecture on which you can build your applications, you now have some options other than Cairngorm.
Take some time to evaluate these projects and see which one fits your team, your business processes, and development lifecycles.
I began working at my current company back in May of 2007 as the only UI developer for my group. They had several contractors previously, but had apparently been unhappy with their work, so after a brief courtship, I agreed to move on down to the Nashville area and join them. I haven’t regretted it at all.
Soon after I joined – and convinced them that I was worth keeping around – I had to start interviewing other developers so we could build the team out some more. First, there was one open position, which was filled within 2 months after we started accepting resumes. After he and I became solid additions to the team, more business requirements starting stacking up and so two more open positions were added.
The third position took a bit longer. After several dozen interviews that took almost 5 months, we finally found someone who we knew would be a good teammate. Our team was getting stronger. We all have complementary skills and we work very well together.
Then there was the fourth position.
After 3 more months, we brought on a contractor who we felt was worth a shot, but in the end, it just wasn’t the right fit so we started actively looking again. We keep looking, and looking, and looking…
Then in November of 2008 we got a resume that looked fantastic. I was very excited to interview this person and she did not disappoint – which had come to be my expectation. The initial phone interviews were exceptional as she fit the bill in what we were looking for technically. Then the in-person interviews came and she, again, did very well and we finally felt that we had the last piece of the puzzle.
Then the day came when she was supposed to start. Nothing happened. Weird. After some emails were sent out, we discovered that she postponed her start date by about two weeks because of some other life issues. Whew! I was scared there for a minute.
Then the day came when she was really supposed to start. Nothing happened. Weird. After some emails were sent out, we discovered that she decided at the last minute to not accept the position! After all that build up, and then to be disappointed again. It starts to get to you.
I now find myself in a mental state of ambivalence. I’ve looked at no less that 200 resumes since August of 2007, performed hundreds of interviews and been disappointed so many times, that I’m now in a constant state of jaded. I expect nothing from candidates and they really have to stand out professionally and personally for me to take notice.
I had a conversation with one of my colleagues this morning, and I think we’ve decided to start looking at people who have the potential to grow once in the position rather than finding someone who has all the skills already. We just aren’t finding that person. Getting one qualified candidate in over a year just isn’t something that I want to repeat.
We don’t want to compromise, but we also now realize that the odds are against us finding the person we want off the street.
You’d think with all the layoffs in the industry lately that we’d be seeing more good candidates, but I have to throw in two factors that are still working against us:
And so the days grind on looking at one average resume after the next… when will it end?
In case someone in the area is looking and hasn’t come across our open position, here’s the skinny details. If interested, let me know and I’ll forward your info along to one of our preferred vendors.
Senior Developer Position
Will be responsible for architecting, designing and developing the presentation layer for Intranet based applications. The position is the Billing Systems team and all the apps process millions of transactions. Expected to guide and mentor other UI developers.
Job Description
Design skills
Programming skills