Fresh Click Media

A new year is on the horizon, and so it’s natural to look back on the previous 12 months, take stock, and plan for the future. So what kind of year has it been?

Overall, it’s been a good year. My background as a software developer is with Microsoft-based technologies such as Visual C++, and since 2003, .NET and C#. Although my technical mainstay is still .NET, this year has seen me work more and more with open-source, PHP-based solutions such as CodeIgniter and ExpressionEngine. I’ve continued to work with Wordpress, and in the second quarter, completed Biking for Bones, a site for my mother-in-law, who rode over 3500 miles in aid of the Arthritis Research Council.

Having registered with various job boards and spoken to various recruitment consultants in the past, it’s no surprise that I get a few ‘job’ emails from time to time.

The vast majority of these emails are of no more interest than spam. Despite me entering details about preferred location, experience and daily rate requirements on job websites, I often get mails that are for the wrong end of the country, junior jobs and low rates.

I just got a mail from a recruiter that contained the following text:

Dear Shane

PUT PARAGRAPH ONE HERE

PUT PARAGRAPH TWO HERE (Or delete if unneccessary)

Put PARAGRAPH THREE HERE (Or delete if unneccessary)

{Name of person removed}
Microsoft .net Consultant
{Name of agency removed}

I didn’t feel the urge to deal with somebody who needed reminding that an email can be separated into separate paragraphs if necessary, and that if it contained less than 3 paragraphs, the text should be removed.

Unbelievable. Still, at least they got my name right.

Respected Freelance website FreelanceSwitch founders Cyan and Collis Ta’eed have written a book about Freelancing and made it available through self-publishing site Lulu.
I picked up a paperback version and here I present my thoughts.

No doubt most developers are in favour of coding standards, but something that has annoyed me of late is ‘coding baggage’. For example, former Visual Basic programmers using VB style in C#. Such style pollutes the purity of a language that has its own style for a particular reason.