MarcosT Blog

I don't know if this was a bad, good or great year regarding jobs. In this year I was in 2 different places, is strange, at least for me. First, I quit my job at Andromaco Labs. and I went to a great job: Clarius Consulting. I'm not lying if I tell you I felt all my dreams came true the first time I put a feet inside that office. You probably know who are these guys or heard about Daniel Cazzulino, Victor Garcia Aprea or Fernando Simonazzi. Maybe they are part of the elite of .NET Developers in the world. But the things didn't go well after all, I never felt part of Clarius, I felt lost, and why not, at that time maybe the job was out of my league. Anyway, that job was the worst and the best experience of my career. I've learned more than you can imagine, but just an example: I gave my first steps on TDD with the help of Daniel. I saw how the code and with the help Victor how change my way of think about programming. Awesome. But, after more than 3 months I quit. The pressure was huge, and I was living just for work, and I don't like that. I love programming, but that was an excess
I think after all, it was a good year, I learned that money and technology it's not everything, should be a balance with human relationships... I will be looking for that balance always in the future.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!.

I think I hit a record about how many books I read (and bought) this year, technical (computer related) and non computer related. This is some kind of mini list about the technical books and some kind of review.
- Head First Design patterns: Oh boy, what a book. Superb. I've learned a lot from it, even if the samples are in Java. Excellent way to show a very interesting topic like Design Patterns. I also have Mesker's C# Design Patterns, but Head First is much better, with clearer explanations. If only HFDP were C# (and why not C# 2.0) specific,maybe it would be the perfect book.
- Essential C# 2.0: Michaelis' book it's the best C# 2.0 book you can find right now. Excellent explanations, for example: he's explanation on iterators is the best one you can find in a book. If you are searching a great C# 2.0 as reference, or simply to do the transition from C# 1.0 to 2.0, look no further.
- Professional .NET Framework 2.0: Duffy's books it's great way to know better the inner workings of the .NET Framework 2.0. He gives you a low level view of the CLR, and IMHO, if you know better the CLR, a better .NET programmer you will be. An Excelent book.
- Agile Principles, Patterns, and Practices in C#: While this is not a C# 2.0 specific book, it has a lot of stuff I need: Principles. I think there is no other book that mixes C# and Principles. By knowing principles, you will become a better programmer, not matter what language you choose, but if the examples are in a language you know, even better.
- The Pragmatic Programmer: This book arrived this week, and I started to read it right away. Since a I'm not a senior programmer I mean, with lots and lots of years of experience, I was looking for a book with advices to became a better programmer. Many people said that this books is similar to Code Complete. I think Code Complete (I own it) it's a little more technical, and the pragmatic Programmer tries to share great programmers experiencie and good habits. The books has lots of analogies and I like that a lot.
I'm leaving next week for vacactions... and the pragmatic programmer will be inside my bagpack.