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In addition to the Python sprint day work I am doing (as well as pymag stuff) I've been editing the obligatory "zomg baby is walking" video, which is below.
It's funny - she's been close, and doing short spurts, but last night it was like her walking switch just "came on".
Earlier this week - I made the rather difficult decision and resigned from my current job. Yes - I have a new one in the bag.
The job I resigned from has been one of the best, most rewarding jobs in my career. I've had the luxury of working with some of the best engineers I have ever met, on a problem/solution that is, by far, the best in it's class.
I've been working with what I count as my second family for close to five years. You don't walk away from something like that lightly, or without good reason.
My reason was simple: I enjoy startups. I love blazing trails, exploring technology. I love pushing boundaries and making something tangible and new where there was nothing before. It's why I love software.
Some people would say that software is not a painting - and to an extent, they are right. But the pride you feel when you see your software come alive, get adopted and grow day after day is much the same feeling of accomplishment and pride you get when you do finish a work of art.
Personally, I feel that startups engender the wild west - all ideas are open and ready to be explored, much of the territory is uncharted, and you remain (in many cases) unencumbered by processes, bureaucracy and history.
That all being said - it's not without an aching heart that I say good bye to my friends, colleagues and the product I helped usher into the world. Both the product, and the people remain best-in-class, and I wish both the company, and the people the best in the future.
The great (and sometimes bad) thing about startups though, is the fact that if you live in a place where startups are always coming and going (i.e: Boston) then sooner or later, you're going to end up working with many of the same people again. Due to this, I'm ultimately OK with saying good bye to many of the coworkers I have today, because I will see them again in due time.
That all being said - I have a new job (obviously). Later this month I will begin working for an Acton, MA startup called Blackwave. I've had the pleasure of meeting the people there and exploring the technology, and I have to say I got that old spark back in my head. The spark that keeps you up at night thinking about how to solve The Problem and how to test The Problem. The one that makes you get up early to write notes down to yourself like "if we simply change x here and here, then in theory we can cut our testing to y..." and so on. It's the spark of inspiration.
In speaking with them - I wanted to solidify something that's been chewing at me for a little bit - and that's having some amount of freedom to contribute to open source - in my case, Python-Core and python-related projects. I'm happy to say, Blackwave was more than willing to express their support and openness to contributing to the community. I can't go into details - but with any luck, I should be able to be a lot more open with much of my work, and also give a lot back.
Again - with that all being said - I will take this one opportunity to say - yes, Blackwave is hiring. If you're a python/java/c/c++ person, or you just love doing QA and testing and are looking for a small, fast moving team - and live in the Boston/Metrowest area (southern New Hampshire is OK) - go ahead and drop me an email. I'm definitely putting feelers out for any Pythonistas in the area who are looking around. I'm doubly interested in Pythonistas with a QA background to help focus on test engineering/automation.
Send your resumes to me (jnoller at gmail dot com)!
I'm looking forward to the upcoming months with excitement.
Dear Previous House Owner,
The least you could have done is told me that anytime it rains, the nicely finished tiled basement area, the one holding my computers and livelihood floods. I realize, that had I known that the nicely finished basement with the tiled floor gets flooded every time it rains because of the half-assed code violating installation of the sewage pump in the garage allowing water into the house, I would not have bought the house.
In addition to the hidden plumbing issues, the veneer you added to the area (which floods anytime it rains for more than 10 minutes) to hide the fact there is a flooding issue was a nice touch.
I understand I have only myself to blame - after all, I should have torn up the floor and pulled apart everything to find out the fact it floods (every time it rains) and that the upstairs bathroom has a rotted floor, a bum toilet and issues with the sheet rock (rotted).
I have no recourse against you, the inspector, or anyone. Instead, you, a couple with a small child saddled another couple (with a small infant child like yours) with this house.
When I started the purchasing process, I began it with excitement. Now I sit in a house I have lived in for less than a month, but spent most of my money on, with my feet in a standing pool of water as I type this - the gently splish splish of my feet in the ice cold water reminding me of how much I wish you were here so you could help me mop, for the fourth fifth sixth time.
Oh, but mopping doesn't help - but you knew that. You knew that the reason there were tiled floors in this part of the house is so that there was "no long term damage" to the area (which floods every time it rains).
So thank you for not telling us the house floods every time it rains. You've helped us build up so much character knowing never to trust anyone, even if they are another young couple with a small child - just like us.
Unlike you, I'm honest and responsible, and I'm going to fix this mess you've left me with, so my wife, daughter and I can live happily here in our first house which floods every time it rains.
I'm quite cross with you right now.
-Jesse
I love making up words.
A recent post on the pycon blog has me rethinking using Twitter or Jaiku for "micro blogging" (especially during a con). I've personally not used either one of them, but my preference would be to try out the now-not-accepting-new-users Jaiku.
How many people out there in the #pythonweb are using these?
Edit: I've signed up for both twitter (username: jessenoller) and Jaiku (username: jessenoller). Now I have to write a python app that dual-posts to both. Who knew social sites would be such a pain? :)
Edit2: I signed up for pownce too. God. That's facebook, linkedin, pownce, jaiku, twitter, and a blog.
It's been a nutty last few weeks. The work in the salt mines has been especially busy, and well - overly salty. Some would say it was too salty for consumption.
Wife, Baby and I are settled into the new place - yes, the various sundry problems including flooding, flooring, bathrooms and other cruft was resolved post-haste and satisfactorily, albeit expensively.
In other news, things should hopefully start calming down - so I can pick up on the non-salt-mine-or-parenting work (i.e: more delicious Python goodness).
In addition to all the craziness - Abby is crawling, and climbing now. Both of these new developments in addition to the new digs means "lots of stuff to get into" - you know you're going to have a problem when you see her make a beeline for a power cord.
Lots of changes: I'm looking for PyCon as a chance to meet some people I've met before (although briefly) and meet a lot of new people. Hopefully, while I'm there I'll be able to jump start a few "non salt mine" projects that have been sitting in the queue, and get some more article fodder over to Doug and Brian.
Of course, I can't wait for summer. I think there's going to be something inspirational about coding from a hammock.
In other random thoughts - in his note about the Sun+Jython announcement Tim Bray had a choice quote:
Quick Python trivia question: Near as I can tell, Guido works half-time on Python over at Google. Is there anyone in the world, aside from Frank and Ted, getting paid to work full-time on Python?
As a guy who gets obsessed about the hammer he uses to build a house - I wonder what it would be like to design hammers for a living?
I've mentioned this before - on Jan 4th, I ended up closing on my first house. The primary driving force of course being my now nearly seven month old daughter, the secondary driving force is well - owning a house.
Both my wife and I were excited, ecstatic even. I mean, it's not a palatial mansion by any stretch - but it was ours.
Then, things went sideways. After closing, after we start painting - we find a problem. A big, glaring problem. That problem happens to be a leaking toilet - that has apparently been leaking for some time (measured in potentially years) into the sub flooring. This means all the wood beneath the tile floor under the toilet it rotten and moldy, and that dampness and mold may have spread to the rest of the flooring and areas.
We found this pulling the toilet to put in a new one - now, instead of a cheap plop-in-a-new-toilet, we're staring down the barrel of a much larger "strip to the walls due to rot and mold" deal. We can't move in, and we didn't even imagine this would happen.
Rotten wood, mold. The works. And no, it's not covered, and it is no ones responsibility (or rather, no one is liable). Nope, we just get left holding the bag. The inspector found a tangental issue: but not the primary issue, so no one was technically the wiser.
Stupid toilets. From now on I'm only buying houses without running water, in non-flood plains in areas with no termites. Also the house will be made of stone.
Man. 2008 is already going sideways, in a good way. In this case - I knew it was coming, which is a good thing. Last Friday, I spent a chunk of time signing more paperwork than I've ever had to in my life, but walked away with the keys to my very own home.
Other people have goals like "punch a camel" or "jump off a bridge" - one of my longstanding goals has been to "simply" get a house. Something is rather off-putting about paying someone else's salary/mortgage and raising a child whilst renting.
Munchkin will now have her own large yard in which to run, although my idea of putting a running line up and getting her a harness so we could just let her run back and forth were summarily dismissed.
I've already bought paint, been to Lowes a few times, and bought myself actual tools for "working around the house". Once the next month of "omg gogogogo" wears off, all should be happy.
If you really want to see pictures, I put some up.
Now, to juggle the outstanding python stuff, a tight work schedule, a six month old and moving.
It's that quiet, reflective time in the morning in between the "run around and get ready for the day" and "wake up the baby and prep for daycare". It's a new type of time allotment I'm not quite used to yet - maybe it's reflection time on how crazy things have been this year.
New stuff at work, the baby - this year is officially one of the most "interesting" years to date. The company I work for being bought earlier this year - the birth of my little girl, adjusting to being a Dad, taking a step back at work and learning some Java-Fu, then cycling off to "yet another thing" (throw in a product release or two for good measure).
To throw more gas on the fire - my wife and I are in the process of buying our first house. We're on the post-inspection-wtf stage right now. I guess I just thought there wasn't enough going on in my life, so I needed to throw in more costs, lawyers and other stress.
It's been one crazy year. I think next year I'm going to try to calm things down a bit, although I'm already drafting plans to rebuild the existing deck.
This post is not about programming - so skip it if you want. It's about this weekend - or more particularly, about one of the - if not the most frightening moments of my adult life.
As anyone who reads my stuff knows - I have a beautiful almost four month old baby girl named Abigail. Since she's come into this world, I've found my hear grow a million times the size of what it was before, I've re-evaluated so much in my life - simply put, my life simply isn't the same.
And I wouldn't trade it for the world.
On saturday, as I was coming down the stairs from changing yet another atom-bomb of a diaper, one of our three cats was asleep on the stairs and I didn't see her. I stepped on the cat and immediately lost my balance - and my grip on Abby. Abby fell about four or five feet to the hardwood floor below me. She landed on her back/shoulders and head. Luckily, she started crying the exact second she hit her head and I picked her up within milliseconds it seems.
She was crying/moving/kicking - which up until I heard her cry this was the most frightening moment. The second she started crying, it was the best moment in my life. I wouldn't let her go - I just gripped her as tight as I could as she cried and my wife dialed 911.
Well, after 24 hours in infant ICU and her first MRI, Cat-Scan and X-Rays, we finally got to bring her back home on Sunday late-afternoon. It's funny - once everything calmed down in the hospital, she was already acting if nothing had happened, she was kicking and smiling and charming everyone in the unit. Seeing her strapped to a board, with a small infant-size neck brace around her neck - tubes and IVs and monitors all stuck in/on her was awful, but she smiled and kicked through it all (with a healthy dose of crying, but that's cause no one would let her eat).
At the end of it all - she got out of this with a small skull fracture, which should be nothing to worry about and a bump on the noggin. Her and Daddy now share something - head trauma. She's back to her old self, but I can honestly say I am not - I'm still nervous and overly careful. We've banned the feline occupants from the staircase and we've stayed home an extra day (per doctors orders) to spend more time with Abby.
Everyone kept telling me how these things happen - and that babies and children are resilient things. Thinking about it - I know they're right, given what I put my parents through and the number of ER visits we had to make when I was growing up.
Becoming a Dad - and now having her first real hurt come from my actions - really changes the way you see the world and how you measure what's important in life. Don't let anyone ever tell you different.
Just crossed Reddit, it's right here - I don't think poor Titus will ever live down the quote from the last pycon:
"I don’t do test driven development. I do stupidity driven testing... I wait until I do something stupid, and then write tests to avoid doing it again." - Titus Brown
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There's a lot of django-testing information in the slides. Also, newforms is covered. I'm still trying to wrap my head around newforms for a knowledge base system I am trying to write on my free time in django2.
Take a look at the presentation. I <3 django.
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