The topic of a recent discussion that I got into revolved around what made 37Signals, 37Signals to begin with.
Was it their life style?
Was it their methodology?
Was it the fact that they were small?
Was it their book, Getting Real?
The opinion that emerged out of the discussion was that the answer was none of these. What made 37Signal, 37Signals is that they contributed true value in the form of Ruby On Rails, then Basecamp and then truckload of other products.
Ideas are a dime a dozen. Anyone can start a blog and talk at length about how amazing product management should be done.
Of course, anyone does not include the millions of 501 programmers, who cannot even program or muster enough motivation to lurk at a blog or own a book on programming, leave aside writing one, but well, anyone with enough motivation, some basic writing skills and some imagination can talk about software development and do blog posts on wisdom gained from doing years of software development.
If you do not have years of experience in software development, you can talk about social media and pull numbers straight out of your ass and impress people. Or better still, you can just quote numbers others have pulled out of their ass and act smart and knowledgeable.
If even that does not do it for you, talking about Entrepreneurship and how you will run your company when you start it up might do the trick.
Preaching, is easy.
Don't get me wrong. Sharing of ideas and experiences is what this blog has been about since its inception and we need some inspiration and sharing of ideas from time to time. It keeps our creative spirits alive. But too much inspiration can be addictive.
When you find yourself taking shots of inspiration morning, afternoon and evening. When you find yourself seated in meetings about entrepreneurship once every week, you know that you are just talking. Participating in a discussion, even at a world wide scale is good but do too much of it and you get a little sick and tired of it. There are times, when after years of blogging, you look back at your blog and you question if the value that you have added is adequate.
Yes you contributed a few innovative ideas, you sparked a few interesting discussions and you rocked on Reddit a couple of times but are ideas, thoughts and discussions all you can contribute? What about real value? What about a real product? What about discussing real code?
Somewhere months ago I asked myself this question and started Code Persona, my little corner where I document my development experiences. The site of course did not take off primarily because of lack of content.
Within weeks of starting the website it was rather evident that I might be decently acceptable at writing code (who needs talent when you have intensity) my ADHD makes it nearly impossible for me to write technical posts on the web much like I find it difficult to be reading from a physical book all the time.
But recently the desire to add genuine, concrete, value has been driving me nuts. In short, I have done enough of preaching and while I love sharing ideas here, which I will continue to do as frequently as I have been doing, I also really want to get out there and discuss something concrete. Like, say, code for example.
Without going into specifics, lets just say that it was simple divine intervention, that prompted me to grab a microphone and headset that had been sitting on my desk only to get used occasionally for boring conference calls, to start recording a series of videos on Microsoft Entity Framework.
The thousandtyone youtube channel was born.
This is 'not' going to be about thoughts on management, this is not going to be about discussion on process and hopefully this is not going to be about countless arguments on what is right and what is wrong.
This is going to be the IDE and code. We start with a series of videos on Entity Framework and from there every week we will dive into anything and everything that seems interesting. I spend a good part of my day breathing, writing, reading, eating, drinking and thinking about code. It is high time I start contributing something through it.
Like I said, the first series of about five to six videos is going to begin with Entity Framework but from there, we are going to jump into anything that seems interesting. Object Orientation, Inversion of Control, Test Driven Development. If it seems interesting, we might end up doing a quick fifteen minute video on it. If the video does not cover everything that had to be said on the topic, expect the video to turn into a series of videos.
Also expect to see a video series on Getting Started With Programming. I know quite a few business analysts, testers and managers who can benefit from that. Besides, the real motive behind that series is going to be teaching my young eight year old nephew how to write code.
The YouTube format of fifteen minute videos works perfectly for someone with ADHD like me. Besides you can chose to skip the videos, rewind them if you do not understand them or play them at triple speed if you believe we are moving along too slow.
Long story short, here is the thousandtyone youtube channel. We are going to write code on the record mode, we are going to learn how to write better code, we are going to teach you how to write better code and we are going to do that rather often. Hopefully, every week.
Code Persona will get updated every time a video gets published on the channel so if you are subscribed to it, you should get notified every time a new video hits the thousandtyone youtube channel.
Basically, it's like this. I spent all these years talking about good programmers and good programming. Here is your opportunity to see me writing code and tell me how much I suck at it. You are not going to miss that opportunity, are you? #Grins.
Go ahead, hit the channel, take a look at the first video and subscribe to it if you are interested in being a part of it.
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