Blogging

The End of a Decade's Work

Chip Lemmon — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 01:43:43 GMT

Well I guess I should be satisfied that I sustained a company for 10 years. But it is a bit anti-climactic. I've screwed up a lot, learned a lot and accomplished a lot since 1998. I like to think of it as a long MBA program based in real world experience. I wouldn't trade anything for the experiences I have gained over the past 10 years.

Nothing is more "real world" than being your own boss and running your own company. Nothing is more real world than not getting paid by a client for more than 90 days. Nothing is more real than being on the bench for several months watching your annual profits disappear. And yet nothing is more satisfying than knowing I did it for 10 years and did a damn good job at it.

I've seen a lot of crazy stuff. Crazy stuff other contractors do, crazy stuff clients do, crazy stuff client's employees do and crazy stuff partners do. I've been everything from developer to CTO. I've been a contract developer, business partner, CTO, Chief Architect, Sr. Developer, Project Manager, Advisor to a State Health Dept. and a member of a PMO.

I managed to survive more than 6 CTOs at one client and helped two clients when they sold their companies to other companies. I was once offered 0.5 percent, that's right one half of one percent of a start up as compensation for architecting their entire solution. Which by the way the company could not exist without as it enabled their entire offering. I even ran an off-shore operation for a while.

I was offered a job at just about every substantial client that I consulted for. I was laughed at of course when I told them how much it would cost to hire me. But that was okay because they just kept me on contract for a long time at my billing rate.

One side benefit I never expected nor planned for came around 2004. It was an introduction to the "community". I came across and subsequently hired a big personality in the .Net Community. We were friends instantly and I was immediately drawn into the community. I have met amazing people since that time from the typical .Net companies and some not so typical companies. I was given great opportunities to present to the community (which has probably fullfilled me more than those that attended my sessions.) While not as active as I once was I will always hold the .Net community in the highest regard and among some of the fondest memories over the past 10 years.

So why the long rant? Well because in March I decided to take a full time employment position and I actually enjoy it very much. And so to clean things up I have decided to close my shop. So in August 2008 I will close my company exactly 10 years after starting it. A company that has brought me joy and tears, excitement and fear. If you have ever run your own company, you'll get why this is such a big deal. If you haven't you should try it some time. It will certainly give you a different perspective on full time employement.

Maybe I'll be back on the independant side some day. But for now I've hung my hat at a GREAT company with huge opportunities. So while I focus on my new career this blog will probably fall silent.

Thanks,

--chaz

Congratulations Robert May! You opened a can of worms...

Chip Lemmon — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 12:46:00 GMT

It is interesting in the blog-o-sphere, when somebody speaks their mind and shares their true feelings about something how it can generate such buz. I think that is when you know something is really important. Robert May hit one of those topics this week with his post Response to Vista? That's it?

I haven't seen blog banter like this since the good old VB vs. C#, Oracle vs. SQL Server, IE vs. Firefox wars... Robert got himself stuck between 2 zealots...

Mr. Windows.... how dare you insult the greatest thing since sliced bread... Vista is so secure it will help you win the war on terror!
Mr. MAC... well it's about time... and your OS still isn't as good as my OS....

Bottom line... $200.00 might buy me more security just as buying a new car with low-jack will prevent my car from being stolen. But I'm not about to go out to buy a new car just because the old one might get stolen. Perhaps I'll consider low-jack on my next car when this one dies. Come on folks... get the metaphor.

And for all the developer types out there, I am anti Vista until VS 2003 runs cleanly on it.

Oh and Robert: don't bend your opinion to the pressure of the zealots. Your opinion is valid and I am sure it is shared by many. Me, I have never been less interested in an OS upgrade. Call me a managed code software developer I guess....

--chaz

Data Center Move

Chip Lemmon — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 17:44:00 GMT

Man, I've done a lot of stressful odd things in my career, but a data center move must be among the worst. One of my clients has contracted with a large 3rd party to maintain their infrastructure. As a part of that there is an effort to consolidate data centers. Of course my distributed system is one of the affected systems. I'm hoping we will all sigh with relief Monday when we pull the trigger and go live. I'd also like to get back to my regular responsibilities of architecting and developing solutions for the business. This move has been all consuming.

Oh yeah, since I have little time to blog I'll include a quick update on the NJ UI Designer & Developer Group. We have 5 interested members... Please let me know if this type of group strikes you as interesting. I think there is a lot of good stuff we can do with this group.

--chaz

Bad Tutorials

Chip Lemmon — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 01:43:00 GMT

As many of us do from time to time, Mike Nicholes had a rant on his blog. Most rants are just useless noise that makes the author feel better. But in Mike's case, he really hit the nail on the head! Nothing is truer than Mike's statement;

“I don't like the hours I used to waste spewing out Typed Datasets and binding them to Web Forms and then thinking that I was doing Enterprise development because Microsoft documentation had tutorials online that used the word "Enterprise". “

Hey all you enterprise folks out there, you've heard the saying; “people don't know what they don't know“. So if the one comfortable/trusted source of information(i.e. MSDN) says its so, who are we to disagree? Well, I guess WE (the enterprise folks) are... After all we seem to know what the others are missing. That is why I started my Entry Level Enterprise Development “ELEDev” effort. It is to train the folks out there that want to know what they don't know. It is to right the wrongs of demos, tutorials and samples gone astray.

Admittedly I've seen a whole lot more on the web (blogs) about architecture and enterprise development than I did a year ago. This is a great step, but let's not lose ourselves in the purity of the methodology. Let's remember that we write what we do on our blogs to educate, assist and sometime entertain our readers. Therefore, it may be necessary to explain the simple and the mundane stuff adnausium. But your efforts will go a long way toward helping folks get the hang of the “right” way to develop Enterprise applications.

Please consider presenting an introductory Enterprise Level topic at your next Code Camp!

--chaz

Community Members Selling Ads on Free Community Blog Sites

Chip Lemmon — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 15:06:00 GMT

Oh come on DonXML! Don't you think you are being a little hard on those that sell ads on their blogs. Even if the hosting is provided free of charge, shouldn't people be able to be rewarded for their time and effort in gathering and creating their content?

Now regarding CommunityServer I agree with you and applaud your integrity! There is absolutely no reason for somebody to use it and earn a buck without purchasing the license. First of all it is so inexpensive that there is no excuse not to pay for such a quality tool. Again, not for profit organizations may be different as spelled out in the licensing agreement. But this brings us into the ethical issues of Open Source, GNU licensing variations, standard software licensing and peoples' adherence to them. I'd like to believe that if people are using software in violation of a licensing agreement that it is an issue of ignorance. However, I am not naive and I know there are those out there that directly and knowingly take advantage of licensing regulations.

It is everybody's responsibility to understand product licenses and adhere to the rules. Otherwise, the IT job that is cut due to lost revenue might be your own some day!

--chaz.