2012 predictions coming home to roost

They did it!
Googles market cap passed Microsoft, dunno exactly when but when I just looked G =227b MS = 225b

big tick for me… prediction numero uno comes in with a bang with weeks to spare.

see here

yeeees…

(I’m not sure I mentioned closing above, so I’m counting it even if there is a huuge retracement before the close.)

btw the conf is still on although I have been even slacker than usual replying and posting. I am currently trying to sort it for the first Thursday in Feb (7th).
might not make much progress in the next week or two as I am somewhat snowed under (not literally sadly – soon though, soon.).

I hope you all have plenty of Christmas dinners lined up. I have.

cheers

simon

2013 Excel Developer conference London January 2013

Just in case you missed it in the earlier post we are going to run another developer conference this coming January.

I have already had a tonne of great suggestions for topics but am open to others. so please email me ideas for topics you would like to see and or presenters you would like to see. And what freebies we should do.

The current early suggestions draft line up is looking like some serious hard core performance stuff:

1. Excel 2013
2. Agaves and new dev features
3. powerpivot & BI
4. flashfill and new presentation features
5. speed tools architecture
6. Rad excel development – how to actually run an excel dev project
7. Ultra performance – Excel on compute clusters
8. Trading forex (retail) from Excel
9. Excel services, what? when? why?

These are all just suggestions, if there is something you do or don’t want to hear about let me know

We will probably aim for a midweek day towards the end of Jan, one long day, pub before and after, and at dinner. Probably the same venue as last time, same target size (20-40 people).

Any thoughts suggestions or observations welcome

cheers

simon

MMS malware attack

Watch out for emails purporting to be from vodaphone(currently) claiming to have a picture for you. they havent, just a virus.

info here.

Twats

hope you had a good weekend. I did.

cheers

simon

First snow of winter

yaaaaay!

Its not exactly dumping it down I accept, or even settling in fact.

But still might be time to service my snowboard and get the snow tyres on the smurfmobile.

And think about a Excel dev con in Jan perhaps? (in Villars??)

By popular request the Jan 2013 conference will be in Gangnam style.

I used my 2012 xldevcon brolly this am watching the kids play footy in the pishing rain before it turned to oh so cool snow). Ross was right brollies are much better than teeshirts. What goodies shall we do this year?

Also have a think about topics you would like covering…

cheers

simon

ps. divvent forget the crass stupidity that is clock changing is coming tonight to mess up sleeping patterns everywhere. And flight schedules apparently.

Duct tape devs

I read this article by Joel recently.

I consider myself to be a bit of a one of these. I am more interested in getting something live than making something beautiful. The article gave me some reassurance after a crap interview I had recently.

Hands up, it was my fault, I did interview spectacularly badly (well in one part anyway). But as well as my own pish poor performance I also think I touched a few comedy raw nerves.

It was a technical C# interview, I had already totally cocked up the on-line C# test because I am not anal or obsessed with language history (and I am a bit rusty on C#, having been back on pure Excel/VBA/Oracle for a while). And bear in mind this was a multiskill role (with heavy energy trading business focus as well as technical), not some pure C# nerdathon.

Anyway the interviewer asked me if I had used linq, yes, I said but I thought it was a bit pointless. His eyes went wide in shock, he was dumbfounded. So much so that I had to check we were talking about the same linq (language integrated query). we were. As far as I am aware many devs would consider the database a better place to do the queries. Yes, if you have created a textbook multilevel mulit inheritance, multi interface, hierarchical nightmare you might be too far gone to do it in the DB. I am totally sure there are plenty of scenarios where it is useful, and equally plenty of times other techniques are at least as good. I’ve only dabbled with it so I could be wrong.

Then he asked me about design patterns, so I answered (honestly) that I tend to write fairly simple code, try to avoid inheritance and complex class hierarchies. More shock.

He asked me some other stuff I can’t remember but I am fairly sure I got that 100% wrong by his criteria, and 100% right by the duct tape programmer description.

It only just dawned on me that C# was his life, I am sure he has managed to squeeze every single C#/.net feature into one of his projects somehow. And is proud of that. Definitely in the 34% sparklier gang. Me, I’ll churn out the same old pap that I know works time and time again, unless I am sure there is time and justification for blue sky thinking.

No wonder he was traumatised when I suggested something he loved was ‘a bit pointless’. At least he didn’t ask me about silverlight or he would have got both barrels.

This interview made me realise I don’t want to be a ‘pure’ C# developer, in that rarefied atmosphere where technology is more important than solving business problems.

I want to use the cool tools IT departments get like VS, SQL Server, Toad etc, but I want to be with the business fixing the pain points (with the techs they rely on (Excel/Access/VBA/.net etc)).

which are you sparklier or dact tape?

cheers

simon

Rad Dev drinks next tue in Canary Wharf

A few of us Excel/RAD devs are meeting up next Tue (16th Oct) at All Bar One in Canary wharf from 7pm.

You don’t need to be very radical (eg open toed sandals and white socks might be tooo much). Even Delphi devs are welcome (and Access devs… if there are any left). In fact you don’t even need an interest in Excel, VBA, development or RAD, just an interest in drinking is fine.

Its just social drinks, as technical as you can get in the the pub after 10 pints.

Leave a comment or drop me a line if you are up for it. If you want to come along later deffo let me know then I can update you if we move somewhere nice.

cheers

simon

Blunderful spreadsheet caused West Coast Mainline bid fail

I just saw this.

They are talking about refunds to bidders totalling 40 million quid, partly caused by some craptastic spreadsheet.

Not sure if it was a domain knowledge error wrapped in a spreadsheet or a pure spreadsheet error. Either way I’m glad it was nothing to do with me!

Things are calming down at Codematic towers now so I might well bother my arse to post a bit more often. But in all honesty I don’t see me returning to the 40+ hours a week I was investing in posting here in it’s heyday.

cheers

simon

Amazon paperweight

Did Amazon really just release a tech product whose name sounds like, and is only a couple of letters away from meaning ‘large pointless brick’?

I guess product names aren’t that important after all then?

I am considering a tablet purchase but I can’t decide whether to go over to the dark side or stick with Android. I think Apple currently has the better ecosystem and better developer story and better apps. but I do hate that trapped feeling that comes with being told ‘No – what you want is not allowed’. Not possible, not commercially viable, I can live with, ‘not allowed’, not so much.

On the other hand I am on the Apple iOS developer program.

I am not sure the paperweight is coming to Blighty, but the 7″ Sammy and  Nexus things look handy enough.

Have you got one? what’s your experience/advice?

cheers

simon

 

New Programming hero

This is not suitable for people of a polite disposition who are easily offended,or who work somewhere anally retentive, but…

I found this website (thanks /.) which has a magnificent table mapping various programming/project management buzzwords to their real world meaning. Its here.

I will ask santa for a tee shirt for xmas I think – I’ll let him choose which version.

I totally applaud any effort to highlight the fact that (good) programming is not simple. High quality development is tough, whatever technology and process you are using. Some are tougher than others though.

If you were at the Excel dev conf in Jan you will know my views on project management.  They haven’t changed.

cheers

simon

 

Olympics

Well done Yorkshire in London 2012.

Close to top 10 in the country table I think.

That’s what you earn by getting up before you go to bed and eating cold coal (MP ref).

I hope you have all been enjoying it as much as we have here. We have had to re-enact many sports, like…

Badminton: the kids actually play badminton and I stand by with the ladders to get the shuttlecock off the roof

We have also done swimming, diving, sprinting  (could barely walk next day), long jump (struggled to drive home) and loads of others. I tried for sprint spreadsheeting but no one was interested.

funniest so far, one of the kids tried to Anna Mears me on the BMX track. turns out a 20 kilo kids tends to bounce right off an 80 kg adult. Lucky they bounce well at that age, and he beat me the next race (again).

Worst bit: British media coverage, I think the bbc has spent more time in ‘pundit analysis’ (largely vacuous bullshit) than showing actual sporting achievement. Post race interviews were/are generally sickeningly intrusive. BMX was comical, every time they called a time trial fast it was slow and vice versa, literally 100%. Loved Cav and Chris Boardman though

Fave bits so far… anything with Bolt and/or Blake in, Jess Ennis (no pressure!), any GB velodrome action (except the commissars of course), especially Trotty, and Sir Chris (stunning last ride!). Also delighted for Handy Andy to win at Wimbledon. And the C2 slalom boyz. I thought Greg Rutherford was excellent on the field, but truly magnificent with the media.

Hoping for Irish (and GBR)  gold in the boxing, and a BMX medal for Shanaze.

What are your worst and best bits?

cheers

simon