DEV Community: Jeff V

It's time to start thinking about unemployment

Jeff V — Thu, 02 Apr 2020 13:58:56 +0000

I was 25 years old when the Twin Towers came down. I remember going into work on a fairly empty freeway looking at the sky to see if any planes were heading toward downtown Denver.

What was coming for us weren't planes, but unemployment. Little did we know then, but the dot com bust was in full swing and 9/11 give it a final shove. I was unemployed for the 1st time of my life just 2 months later in November of 2001.

I had 3 kids at the time, my youngest under a year old. Needless to say, I was worried as I had no backup plan and no clue what to do.

Of course times are different now, but I fear the worst is coming. I think ALL industries will be affected by this. Much like the virus, unemployment won't care who you are or what you do.

After having some conversations online and noticing that a lot more tweets about getting laid off were popping up, it got me thinking that there may be some people out there that are in the situation I was in 20 years ago.This is what I did. Some of it was luck, and some of it was a little planning and a lot of self truth.

I think this down turn will look a lot like the housing crisis in 2008. Not in the real estate way, but by the fact that everyone is going to be affected. In 2008, large amounts of people got foreclosed on. Now, large amounts of people will be out of a job and will have the same issues paying their bills.

Just to be clear! I'm expecting this to be much worse than 2008. I'd like to believe that things will get better quickly, but no one knows for sure. So its best to settle in for the long term. We all may have to do things that suck for awhile to survive.

Here is what I did back in 2001:
The following are recommendations are better if you do them now, prior to losing your job. However, they still apply if you already lost your job.

The 1st recommendation:
Look at your finances. Cancel anything that is deemed a luxury. Or at a minimum look at your options to turn down how much of you have. For example if you are at 1 Gig internet, look at how much you can save with a slower speed. Look at those extras too! Do you really need Netflix, Hulu and HBO?

2nd recommendation:
Stop any & all auto payments. Not to stop paying on them, but make sure you are the one that is pressing the button to pay those bills. Its a lot easier to ask a creditor if you can pay partial for this month, if they haven't already taken your full payment already. They won't issue a check back to you after an agreement has been made. This is an effort to negotiate. Remember creditors want money. Sometimes they will take "some" money over no money.

3rd recommendation:
Research your states unemployment laws and their website. When I was laid off, I called into the call center and had to keep a written log of the resumes I sent and interviews I had. Now everything is done online. Just make sure you know what the process is. You will find that the unemployment check is helpful. Although not enough to live long term off of.

4th recommendation:
Look into your credit cards, to see if they have any protection services. I had a Discover card then, and they offered a service that if you became unemployed they would waive payments for 6 months (or something like that).

5th recommendation:
Look at your living situation. The most important item in your life is food and shelter. Figure out options. If that means moving back in with Mom and Dad (or any family) then make sure you start floating that idea now.

6th recommendation:
Research where the jobs are. Back in 2001/2002, Colorado had very little job openings. A quick search on Dice told me that California had a lot more jobs in my field. This ties in with Recommendation #5. Don't be afraid of moving if the opportunities exist.

The following recommendations are for after you have lost your job.

The 1st recommendation:
Breath... Worrying can make you sick & distract you when you can't afford to be distracted. You won't be able to think straight when the time is needed. So take a breath and remember that the sun will rise and set today.

2nd recommendation:
Call your creditors. Let them know you have lost your job and start having that conversation with them. Remember to prioritize your creditors too. Housing and food are paramount when you have no job. Your credit card bill... Not so much.
You will take a hit in your credit score, but remember, so is everyone else.
Make sure you have enough for the essentials.

When I lost my job in 2001, I called my bank that held my car loan and they allowed me to skip payments that were added on at the end. Like I said above, my credit card had a service that I turned on (at no cost). I found creditors to operate in good faith as long as you were.

3rd recommendation:
Pay attention to your resume. This could have been a recommendation above, but now you will have a lot of time to look at it. So make sure you do it now!

4th recommendation:
Do as much free learning as you can! Again... Time is on your side. Make the best of it.

5th recommendation:
Build your applications/portfolios now. Set yourself apart. Again, you will have a lot of time.

6th recommendation
Find a cheap hobby. Do something you've always wanted to learn. For me in 2002, it was cooking. I watched a lot of FoodNetwork and tried a lot of recipes from there. Remember Emril? BAM!

7th recommendation:
Remember to breath. Take some time for yourself. Go for walks, go to the park with your kids. Workout where you can. Stay healthy. Remember we are all going through this at the same time. You too will get through this.

My unemployment in 2002 lasted for 3 months. It brought me and my family to California. We lived with my parents for a year. It also generated a lot of memories for me (as a dad) being able to watch the kids for that time period. It was tough, but after you get through it, you realize that you survived. These are the periods that build your character.

One more piece of advice. Remember the phrase: "Is that the best you can do?" - Don't be afraid to ask that question. The worst anyone will say is Yes. Most times though, people will want to work with you.

How did my resolution for 2019 work out?

Jeff V — Wed, 01 Jan 2020 16:12:29 +0000

Since joining Audible last year I went from reading close to no books to listening and learning 10.5 books in 2019!

Here is my list:

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Blood, Sweat and Pixels
Becoming
Power Moves
Hit Refresh
Good Omens
Born a Crime
A Polaroid guy in a Snap Chat world
Hi Bob!
Out of My Mind
The Innovators (half done)

My favorites were (in order):

1 - Blood, Sweat and Pixels (read this book!)
2 - Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (great story)
3 - Becoming (really good, read by Michelle. Obama)
4 - Hit Refresh (interesting)
5 - Power Moves (well done for audio)

My least favorites were (in order):

1 - Hi Bob! (wasn't what I thought it would be)
2 - Out of my mind (it was, just OK)
2 - Born a Crime (a lot heavier than I thought)
3 - Good Omens (good story but confusing at times)

I have got a few in my library that I need to get to in 2020:

The Innovators (need to finish)
Tools and Weapons
Educated
Einstein
Steve Jobs

As far as 2019 resolutions this one worked out pretty well for me.

I know to many reading exercises the brain. But I learned a lot from listening to these books. I would have never gotten to them otherwise.

My technology upgrade of 2019

Jeff V — Wed, 27 Nov 2019 13:01:43 +0000

In 2018, I had found that I had been working at some companies that weren't the most technology forward companies. It was one of those things, where the companies paid well, I could do the job and life was OK. Until I wanted to look for other opportunities.

TBH when Microsoft killed the Windows Phone I stopped being interested in coding on my own side applications. I relied on what I knew in C#, SQL, javascript (& jQuery) and just coasted for several years. Of course I was still learning, but I wasn't learning anything new out side of those main competencies.

Back in 2016 I picked up AngularJS and wrote a simple application. I thought it was pretty cool & easy to pick-up. I thought maybe this was going to be the vehicle to get me coding again as a side project, but then Google did the same thing that Microsoft did to me... AngularJS was not going to be backward compatible with the new Angular 2+... Once again, I had jumped on something that wasn't adopted. I had to start over...

I remember after that saying, "I'm done. I'm not sure I can do this anymore".

Looking back I was having a bit of a pity party. I was starting to feel old & I wondered if I was going to be stuck in legacy applications for the rest of my working life.

After this multi-year pity party and just coasting watching Netflix instead of coding... I found myself in 2018 with the same core competencies that I've had for years. As you know, the technology train stops for no one. I tried looking for a job and all these tech-bro dudes were asking me about things I had NO IDEA ON! I failed every interview. I wasted so much time and put myself under a TON of stress.

After about of month of looking, I told my buddy that I needed to retool. It was then that I set my sights back on the front-end. But where to start? There we so many new things. I was starting at ground 0 again!

At first I was overwhelmed, however, after thinking about it I began to come up with some items I wanted to learn.

The 1st one was GIT. I had never used it, and EVERYONE is using it. So that went on the top of the list. With GIT, I wanted to try to figure out what the command line was all about. So that went on the list too.

The next one was figuring out what some of these new front-end frameworks were all about. Angular pissed me off and it seemed too daunting, React has a reputation of being really complicated, but Vue was getting a lot of love from Twitter and everyone suggested that it was really easy to learn. So NodeJS & Vue went next on the list.

Another item I wanted to know about we DI (Dependency Injection). But I didn't know how I was going to learn it. Luckily my job offered some help there.

I probably could have added another 5-10 items, but I stopped here:

NodeJS/Vue
GIT/Command Line for GIT
dotNet Core/DI

Node/Vue

Technically I started working on NodeJS/Express & vuejs in 2018. I rewrote ChoreManager from jQuery/webAPI to vuejs & Node/Express. That development & learning went into 2019. I never released it though. Mostly, because I found the UI/UX to be a little too much. I enjoyed learning vue & NodeJS/Express, it worked as expected & it was dead simple. I even got to do some vue at work. I also got to do some command line stuff with NodeJS.

I did start to work on PrayerSurfer that too is a vuejs & NodeJS/Express application. However, that project has also been put on pause. I may start that one over using Angular. As far as I'm concerned I've learned enough of Vue/Node/Express in 2019 to mark that as completed!

GIT & the CLI

This year at work I switched teams, and the project was written in Angular & dotNet Core webAPI. This year the IT department switched from TFS to GIT (using Azure DevOps).

Do to my switching of teams I was able to learn a lot this year. I've been working with GIT for about a year now and the commands I use in the CLI are:

git branch
git branch -D [BRANCH_NAME]
git checkout -b [BRANCH_NAME]
git pull
git push -u
git add .
git commit -m "MESSAGE"
git status

There are probably a few more. But these work for 99% of what I need it to do. So I'm checking off GIT & CLI for 2019!

dotNet Core & DI

As I mentioned before, my new project was written using a dotNet Core webAPI. I quickly found out, that there are some new features in Core but nothing really changed for me from my last project using 4.5.

Since this application was written by a former employee, he was no longer there to answer the WTF questions I had. The 1st one being is why did he roll his own DI code? He was doing some weird and overly complex generics code that would import the classes as needed. Yes, it was nice solution, but only he knew how to modify it. My teammate & I decided to undo that code and implement the DI that Microsoft suggested (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/fundamentals/dependency-injection?view=aspnetcore-3.0)

This turned out to be a lot of modification as far as making sure it was in the startup and all of the dependencies were put into the constructor and the private variables set. But after a few weeks, the project was building and running as expected.

I would not say that I'm a DI expert. However, I will say that I know how to set up DI in a dotNet Core application. So... I'm checking that off.

This project is the gift that I have to keep on learning with. As a team we also implemented:

Async/Await pattern - which is basically making sure every method is marked as Async and there is a corresponding Await in the method code.
Started to implement Dapper - I had no idea what Dapper was when I came on to this project. I was introduced to it & when I was refactoring a small console application, I decided that EF was too bulking for what this application was doing. So I implemented Dapper, and I found it to be perfect for the application as well as pretty easy to implement.
Integration Tests - since this application has 5 different databases with each one having its own EF contexts, we tried to implement UNIT TESTS but found that very difficult to do. So instead we basically mocked our DB with various contexts and wrote Integration Tests instead. These are proving to be very fragile, so one of our major next tasks is to implement the Repository pattern and remove Entity Framework and replace it with Dapper.

Angular

Although not on the list, Angular was front and center for me this year. I was pissed off at Angular for a long time, but I know that it isn't going anywhere. So, I switched teams specifically because it was in Angular. I figured it would be an excellent way for me to learn it.

I still have a bit to go, but there are a lot of similarities with vuejs (interpolation, 2 way bindings with properties, templates, components, yada yada yada). I am still in the camp of Angular gives you a lot of rope to hang yourself with, but once you get used to it, it does work. I've spent a lot of time updating controls in the application as the last developer rolled his own for everything. As a team we made the decision to utilize PrimeNg as our controls for the site. So I've been doing a lot of setting properties on the controls and making it work like it had been.

TypeScript

Again, not on the original list. But I would be remiss if I didn't include it. There are some nice things that TypeScript offers. Even if I don't utilize all of the cool &/or complex features I'm still writing typed javascript and I was exposed to and I think I finally understand the concept of this.

I had a scenario where I was doing a setTimeout() and I originally set
const context = this;

However, someone pointed out that a fat arrow functions handles the different scopes of this.

As you can see, my learning journey continues. I wish that it wasn't always in fits and spurts. I would imagine after another year on this project I will be a lot more comfortable with everything.

Since I'm talking about what I've learned this year... This is whats on tap for 2020:

Continuing in Angular
Continuing in TypeScript
Continuing in dotNet Core
Learning about & Implementing the Repository Pattern
Learning & Implementing Dapper
Learning & Implementing Unit Tests (finally)
More DevOps scripting
More CI/CD processes

It looks like it will be another busy year in 2020!

Nightmare bosses

Jeff V — Thu, 05 Sep 2019 11:58:40 +0000

I have had a pretty decent career (so far). I've been a developer for 20+ years. I have a resume that has 10+ companies on it. I've had mostly really great experiences, but they haven't all been... I've had some bad days with managers (& teams)...

Scenario 1:
Manager was forced to hire me - You know that old saying, "it's not what you know, it's who you know"? Yeah... That happened to me very early in my career & it didn't work out so well for me.

I got a job at US West in the Y2K division in 1999. I worked with Marc's wife at my 1st job out of college, Marc was a director at US West. I went over to their house to help them with something (probably something technical, but I can't remember the specifics). While I was there, I struck up a conversation with Marc and found he was friendly. We spoke about what I was doing & what I wanted to be doing. After that 1 Saturday, he asked me if I wanted to join his team at US West doing some web development. This was exactly what I was hoping to do in my career so I wound up doing the interviews & all went VERY well. I was offered the job & that was the end of the pleasantries at my time at US West.

I quickly found out, that they were "forced" to hire me. I was reminded of that fact many times during my time there. Needless to say, this didn't enhance my position in the group. The main PM for my project was Bev, she was a total bitch to me. She would openly tease me in front of the team & remind me that I was here because of Marc & I was not worthy to be on her team.

The team was young & basically I was the weakest member of the team. So they all followed Bevs lead. I hated every minute of working there. However, I stayed there for a very LONG year, because I was still new at coding and for some reason I felt obligated to Marc, which was obviously a mistake.

Thankfully after I left, things got better, A LOT better. After my experiences at US West I learned that my mental well being is WAY more important than any job. I vowed to NEVER be treated like that again. I have asked to be removed off of teams due to negative behavior. It is never comfortable to have to do this, but I have stayed true to my vow & in the long run it has served me well.

Scenario 2:
Good old boys club - I was in a crappy job, my manager at the time didn't know what the heck he was doing, but he didn't treat me badly. It just wasn't a good job, so I jumped at the chance to interview with an oil company in Denver. The interviews went very well for me. This was a contract to hire position. So when they offered it to me, I felt like the decision was an obvious and I took it.

For the 1st month, everything was going OK. However, I started to notice that they had this negative energy about the team. They quoted the "Art of War" a lot & the conversations were very locker roomish. One dude would never look me in the eyes when I spoke to him. The other dude, constantly spoke about his nightly conquests in the bedroom. The manager had a decent personality, but he encouraged this behavior & wound up being just as unprofessional as the other goons on the team.

I was testing some code I had written, and when I integrated it into the full code base there was some test code that I wasn't aware of that sent emails to some people in the company (including the CIO). After I was made aware of this, I immediately cleared out that list. However my manager decided to take the team out to the bar and publicly berate me in front of my other team mates with foul language. Needless to say, that I deemed that place as hostile, and high tailed it out of there! It was the ONLY job where I didn't give a 2 week notice.

"People don't leave companies, they leave managers"
I found in my travels at different companies that adage to be very true. However, I try to remember that managers are just people too. They are flawed just like you & I are. Sometimes you are at a job where your manager is still trying to figure out their job. Sometimes you are there & they just aren't good at their job. And sometimes... they are just plain assholes. Even in that case, you have to remember that you can't get along with everyone.

The one thing I remind myself of is, life is too short to have people treat you poorly. Don't let them do that too you.

So those are my nightmare scenarios. I know I'm not alone in having terribly bosses. What are your nightmare bosses? If you ever want to chat about these scenarios to commiserate, hit me up on twitter!

Learning how to be a good steward

Jeff V — Mon, 26 Aug 2019 01:41:37 +0000

Whats the point of this:
This post isn't about sounding my own praise.

The following are just a few examples of what I have done to pay it forward. I really want to hear what others are doing in their community.

My history:
I started out just like everyone else did back in the mid to late 90's: Wondering what computers were going to do for me? And more importantly, what the hell I was going to do with them! I had just graduated with a CIS degree in business. I was an average student & I hated my business focused classes. But I loved the VB4 class, my Database class, my finance class & my management class. Those were the 4 classes in my entire college career that I really liked. The rest I just slogged through & consequently barely passed.

That was 20+ years ago now. I graduated as the dotcom bubble was happening. But I didn't work at a startup at 1st. I worked as a QA person, making a whopping $27,000 per year. My manager at the time, knew I wanted to get into programming and after about 8 months in my job, he took me to a book store and bought me 3 very expensive VB5/6 books. My 1st application I wrote professionally was basically to do what I was currently doing in my QA job. I recognized a pattern that worked for 80%+ of my day to day tasks. I ultimately automated my position. It was a good little app & apparently it was used for years.

After that job, I started my job hopping journey. I also worked on a Y2K project for a baby bell company. I did eventually make it to a start-up before the dotcom bust happened. In fact I wound up working for 2 start-ups, which both wound up failing. Yes, I'm getting old, but with age means I have some knowledge (hopefully) & some experiences in the development field. Maybe I can share that with others...

What I've done... So far!
I've volunteered at my wife's school, teaching a basic programming at an after school club & I'm currently mentoring junior developers.

Both experiences have proven to be challenging, but not in the same ways.
Obviously, mentoring adults is a lot easier than teaching kids at an after school club. However, both have proven to be good learning opportunities for me.

With the after school club, it forced me to plan what I wanted to show the kids. I couldn't just "wing it". Some of my lesson plans were successful and some were total garbage. It also taught me that being a teacher is tough. It was especially so with kids that may not have wanted to really be there for the same reasons I wanted to be there.

Ultimately it was a good experience. I got to know the kids a little better & maybe someday 1 or 2 becomes a successful coder. IDK - its possible :)

As a side note: I was blown away by what these kids in elementary schools are learning. I had no concepts of programming at their age, yet these kids were being taught the basics in a very cool way using code.org and scratch (https://scratch.mit.edu/). It was really amazing to see how far these kids were in their practices.

I've currently started mentoring adults. These adults are trying to switch careers & are trying to get into development as full time programmers. At first I thought mentoring adults would be easy. However, I started to notice the difference in how I became a programmer versus how they are trying to become a developer.

Since their path is different from mine, I'm a little out of my depth as I can't tell them to do what I did. I had the luxury of being a developer while I worked on side & passion projects.

What I've learned from mentoring so far is to listen, be positive & to advise when needed, but most of all be respectful. I'm also reminded to practice what I preach (with practice & going to meet-ups for example). I'm also humbled when I have a rough day at work, knowing there is someone on the outside looking in, that would LOVE to have a hard day coding.

The best part of mentoring is the relationships though. I'm very excited to see how this ends up.

What are you doing ?
I would love to hear what you are doing in your community to pay it forward. I'm always interested in other ideas. Let me know.

I'm also interested in what you look for in a mentor. Leave a comment below to give me some ideas to be a better mentor.

Whats in an image?

Jeff V — Sun, 18 Aug 2019 13:23:38 +0000

For PrayerSurfer my goal is to be inviting to everyone. I've basically decided on the following rules:

No religion
No gender
No words

It can't be strictly Christian, as other religions pray. It can't be religious as there are also non-religious people that pray. I'd like to keep gender out of it, if I can. Also, I'd prefer not to have the logo a word/words. This could be international, so iconography would be best.

So now the trick is to figure out what conveys prayer with non-religious and non-gender images.

With the rules in place, I began to think about what conveys prayer?

Praying hands
Flowers
Candles

I can't draw worth a damn, but I can use paint.net. I'm sure if I hired an artist they would blow me away.

UPDATE:

I wrote the above a week ago, although I agree with most of the rules above, I decided that iconography is good, but after playing with some images I decided to use some words as using strictly images got cartoonish looking. Which is also an assumed rule that I don't want the logo to be.

Finishing strong!

After a week of not really thinking about the image for a week. Today I decided to look at images of prayer. I found a cool clip art of a person in a prayer position. Then I found one with a person in prayer with the wifi signal above the head. I loved this one! However, I couldn't find a stock image of that one. I used the praying person and the wife symbol to create my own image.

I then started to look at surfboards for the "surfer" part. What I decided was to just use a surfboard outline, then just combine the 2 images to convey the
"prayer" & the "surfer" aspect.

I think I found my logo font. When I was looking for images of "Prayer", I found an image of a shirt that had the words Prayer Warrior in a Stencil. I found a Stencil font, downloaded it to my machine created the text PRAYER SURFER.

I started to go down a path with creating a simple sand dune, then I had 2 surfboards next to each other. Then I was playing around with the orientation of the boards. Then I added text to one of the surfboards... Then I added a palm tree... And... It just didn't look right. To me it looked cheesy.

I decided that wasn't going to work, but I did like certain aspects of the original image. I liked the prayingwifi image, and I thought the surfboard was simple but interesting. However, this is where I decided to break one of my original rules. I liked the text, but I didn't want it on another surfboard. So I decided to make the text stand alone in the stencil font. What I came up with, was this:

The thing with logos, is that they can be tweaked. This is version 1. I'm sure when I show this to my friends and family there will be good suggestions. I look forward to that.

Let me know what you think. I'd also love to know how you create your logos.

Personal Portfolio

Jeff V — Sat, 17 Aug 2019 13:49:46 +0000

I've always thought it was better to have a side project that is published online, versus not having something out there.

In the beginning, I had parentsDB.com which was my 1st web site that I created in classic ASP. Then I had GodSurfer.com which was a php & javascript application. After that I created a 5ish Windows Phone apps & 2 Windows 8 apps. However, after the Windows Phone & Windows 8 died, I stopped having any internet presence.

I had a web site that had my resume on it, but I had no work to show off.

I think it is very important to have some work online especially if you are looking for a new job. I think it is better than having a GitHub portfolio, which is the current trend. I believe having something that someone can explore on their own, is easier than someone having to install it and then try to figure it out.

Having a working site or an app that is in the stores is actual production level code for you. If you are looking for a job, I believe having something out there gives you a leg up on your competition.

Whenever, I have interviewed, if I had one of my sites or apps online, I found that the hiring managers & developers doing the interviews often asked me about those projects versus standard interview questions.

Having a site that is using a database, shows you have knowledge of a database. Having a site that you have published shows that you know more than just code, technically now you are DevOps! Plus having a site out there allows other developers to ask you questions on YOUR PROJECT. You know your code, so the interview changes dramatically. It also helps if they want you to bring in a code sample.

Outside of the employment aspect, having your own side project is fun! I find that I'm connected better to the technical community. I'm also learning a ton in the process & I'm spending time doing something I love!

After you build out your app, it is important to be able to show case your project. The best way I've found is to have a portfolio type of application. One where you can post your resume & talk about your project.

You can check out mine here

Not exactly easy!

Jeff V — Sun, 11 Aug 2019 12:42:30 +0000

I made the announcement last week that I was going to be creating a new app called PrayerSurfer. As with all new announcements, that was the easy part. I've been thinking about this app for the last 10 years, so I did have some thought on what it was going to do. Not surprisingly though, there was still some unanswered questions.

Question #1: Database

I am a MS SQL developer by trade. I've been trained in relational databases, so they come very natural to me. However, with this app I wanted to look into mongoDb. I've heard a lot about it but every time I've looked into it, my eyes glazed over and went back to my relational databases. What I needed was a good tutorial.

I happened to get lucky as the very first video tutorial I found was the one I wound up using (3 part series). It wound up being VERY simple. The tutorial gave me everything I needed. From the mLab setup to the code to interface with the database.

I decided for the demo, that I am going to use MongoDb for my database.

Question #2: UI

This really isn't a question, as I always figured I would do it in vue.js. Vue is dead simple and I like that about the framework. However, I did briefly think about doing this in Angular. I do Angular at work, & my understanding of that framework is growing. But for now the UI is in Vue.js

As I was going through the tutorial, it occurred to me that the project that he was building would be a great base for prayerSurfer. However, I would quickly run into some issues that wound up taking me a large part of my weekend.

Issue: How do I deploy my Node/Express app with the UI code?

I followed the tutorial exactly. Locally the app was working just as the tutorial was. I was stoked, and I thought I would have the demo up by Friday night. However, when I tried to deploy it to Heroku I got some 503 errors. Since this was my 1st attempt at doing anything with Heroku, I was stumped.

Attempt #1

After the initial deploy to Heroku, I looked at my previous vue.js project that was using a Node/Express server (on a different port) and what I found was that I had not figured out how to get that to work either! It appears that my code was still using localhost:5000 instead of running on a separate instance on my server. I thought I was a lot further with that project than I actually was. I was gutted by this, as I started to realize that I don't know how to actually do this.

Attempt #2,3,4,5...

I tried to organize my code in different ways. Retrying the deployment to Heroku as well as to my windows hosting account. I created different repositories (I now have 5 different repositories that all have the same code in it!). Nothing was working. I asked around on twitter and got some suggestions on alternatives. I tried webpack, I looked into Docker, I looked into different Heroku tutorials. I was stuck & ultimately I went to bed frustrated.

This morning

I'm sure this was one of those problems that my brain was working on over night. As I woke up early on Sunday and tried the following:

Create my node/express app and deploy that to a Heroku instance.
Then create my UI only vue.js application separately and deploy that to Heroku.

The API application worked great! I was able to call it in Postman and it was returning data. However, the client application deployed but I was getting an "application error". This lead me to abandon Heroku for the client side application and I deployed my dist folder to my windows hosting account that I have and low and behold they are talking to each other!

You can see it here

Obviously, I'm very pleased that I was able to make progress. But I'm not satisfied with how Node/Express & vue.js work together. It feels very clunky, which is probably on me. I need to see if I can host the entire application on 1 server. I can't be the 1st person to have this issue. So, if you have an easy way or a good tutorial that you know of, please leave a comment below.

Next Steps

Everything is next! Styling, functionality, some sort of security, administration functionality, code clean-up, repository clean-up. I have a lot of work to do. But getting to POC/demo up and running feels like a big hurdle to over come.

It’s time…

Jeff V — Fri, 09 Aug 2019 16:39:51 +0000

I'm sure some of you know my history by now. I started as a web developer as a hobby that then became my job. In my adult life I started to create applications that mimicked what was going on in my life. When I became a parent, I created ParentsDB.com. Then when I started going to church, I became a Christian and I created GodSurfer.com. There are other applications I wrote, but this isn't about them.

When I started on GodSurfer, I was on FIRE. Both in the coding world as I was learning php, C#, javaScript, OOP concepts as well as being a developer learning & doing VB6 & VB.Net winforms development at work. I was also on fire in my new faith. I loved being a Christian. I loved the fact that God loves me. I loved the thought of being forgiven for my sins. I loved having a relationship with God. I created GodSurfer to intertwine my 2 favorites things in my life.

However, the ugly side of the online Christian community quickly started to show. Much like in software development, there are Christians out there that are gate keepers. Their job is to tell you, that you aren't Christian enough if you say this or if you say that. So as I started to want to grow my site, I could never get any support from other popular Christian sites. I couldn't even get local leaders interested. To be fair, they didn't understand the power of the internet yet. But I couldn't not find any support.
This went on for years. I had hoped that maybe God would open doors for the site, but it never happened. So out of frustration (& some distraction from the windows phone apps I started to develop), I stopped coding on GodSurfer. It was also around the time that we stopped going to church (due to kids sports commitments). Being shunned by the Christian community greatly affected my relationship with God. This is one of the main reasons I no longer consider myself a Christian.

Although my relationship with God is quiet, I still find myself sometimes in prayer.

With all the mass shootings that have been happening for the last 20 years, I've been on the side lines with "thoughts & prayers". However, that changed in 2013 with the Arapahoe High School shooting. This was the school that 2 out of my 3 kids attended. Ever since then, any school shooting brings me right back to that time and place. Now instead of "thoughts & prayers", I get angry.
Right before I ended my coding on GodSurfer, I wrote a small prayer wall app on the Windows Phone that worked with the GodSurfer web site & twitter. I wound up screwing it up by forcing user registration. Shortly after that my user based crashed and I could NEVER get momentum again. But in that brief period of time, I noticed that it was very popular (for me). I always thought I should create just a prayer wall app. However, as I mentioned during this time, I was pissed off at the community. So I didn't...

Which brings me to today. After a miserable week of hearing the tragic stories of lives shattered. I have decided to start working on PrayerSurfer.com. This is not a Christian application, nor is it a religious application. All religions have some sort of prayer. Even myself have a need to sometimes pray. It is just something to use when you need more than just talking to yourself. My goal is to create an app that everyone can use.

I announced this on Twitter earlier this week. Now it is time for me to begin working on it. I want to a series of blog posts about the process. Some will be technical & others will have a personal twist (much like this one).

Retooling & searching for the joy of coding again

Jeff V — Sat, 20 Apr 2019 13:08:13 +0000

I did not graduate with a CS major. I graduated with a
Business Administration with an emphasis in Computer Information Systems. Programming is my passion & I love the field that I'm in. However, I did not know back in my college days what I was going to do. In speaking with my family now, they all have said it was obvious that I was going to do something with computers. Although my major didn't surprise them at all, but none of us (including myself) knew exactly where it would lead.

College was not great for me. I was a lousy student & I really didn't like my major. I found most of my courses extremely boring which explains why I was always distracted & quiet frankly hated being there. There were only a handful of courses in college that actually kept my attention.

My favorite course was American History, which included a ton of reading. I'm guessing I enjoyed history because I knew of the events already & I was diving deeper into those very interesting events.

My next favorite course was Business Finance. I just happened to be working at a call center that supported the HP Business Calculators about a semester before I took my Business Finance course. At this job, I had to learn a lot of different financial based calculations that the calculator supported. I spent a lot of time with lawyers & financial advisors that relied on these calculators to calculate ROI, Amortization, Interest etc. By the time I took the finance class, I knew how to do all of those calculations already, so it was really easy for me.

My other favorite course was Business Management. It was an entry level course. I think this was a case of just having a really good professor. He made the topic interesting, straight forward & logical. It probably defines how I think of management & why I think most managers over complicate everything (but I digress, as this isn't the topic of this post).

If I would have known then what I know now... I probably would have majored in Finance with a minor in History (or vice versa). But that would have altered my life greatly & probably not for the better.

Since I really didn't like my college courses (or learning in general), I thought when I graduated I would be done with learning. Boy was I in for a rude awakening...

As a developer you are locked into a life time of learning. There is no escaping it. If you want to be good at this craft, then you have to learn. You can't rest on your laurels, things are always changing. So you always need to keep up by learning & exploring.

I find it VERY ironic, that for someone that does not enjoy learning to be in a career where one HAS TO constantly learn... Maybe it says something about me, that I've stuck with it for as long as I have (but this post isn't about that either).

RETOOLING:

So far, there have been two times in my career when I've had to retool. The first time happened when I was a new user to StackOverflow & jQuery was version 1.5ish (about 9 years ago). I was shocked by what was going on with this JavaScript framework & in awe of what JavaScript could make the browsers do!

I started out as a classic ASP developer (technically I was 1st a VB5/6 developer, but that is a minor detail just to highlight how long I've been doing this), then I switched to a .NET WinForms developer (VB.Net). But jQuery changed all the rules & I loved what could be done now in the browsers without having to use super verbose code (document.getElementById) & the EVAL statement - YUCK!.

So I retooled, I had started working on GodSurfer which was a new site that I had developed using php & jQuery. GodSurfer was my proving grounds, it was very important for me with this retooling.

I eventually changed jobs to become a web developer using .NET WebForms (C#) & jQuery. I felt fairly proficient at it and because of my personal website that I was doing on my own, which gave me a feeling of being satisfied (which in hindsight a very dangerous feeling). Due to that bit of retooling, (because I was fairly early in the adoption) I could find any job I wanted using jQuery. C#, & SQL for the next 5-8 years.

The second time I realized I had to retool was last spring/summer (2018). I found myself possibly looking for a new gig, & I found myself not knowing any of the new JavaScript frameworks, toolsets, & verbiage! I was now an antiquated developer that only had skills in C# and SQL. I could no longer call myself a full stack developer because the landscape had changed so drastically. I was devastated! I couldn't believe that it had happened to me again.

Just like when jQuery was new, I needed to retool again. Except now I'm over 40 years old, I had no personal website & I was beginning to wonder if I even wanted to continue learning yet another language, toolsets & style.

Sigh... Last summer, I was doing a lot of sighing. I was in a comfortable job, but was feeling underpaid & a little disrespected. See I was doing a lot on my team. Some said I was holding my team together. I was working nights & weekends as well as a multitude of other things. Such as building utilities, creating documentation for processes as well as mentoring other team mates. I liked my job. I even liked doing all the other things. I just wanted to be recognized for it. However, the company was having none of it.

I put my resume out there like I always had. I got a ton of phone calls. There were a lot of interesting jobs. But the market had changed in Denver. The job interviews were very technical & very cold. I was questioned by recruiters about what I knew & didn't know. They questioned my pay scale & made me question if I was worth that pay. There was something different about this job search than the others in the past.

There was also a question in my mind of whether I really wanted to find another job. There is a significant mental difference between wanting to find a new job because "I'm looking for X", verses "I'm looking for a job, but I really don't want to, but I have to because I feel disrespected...". I might write about that eventually, but for now, those interviews that I went on, didn't go all that well...

I went on 5 interviews. I failed them all. I knew I needed to step back when one of the interviewers asked me: "Do you still code?" Game Over... I was done interviewing, & I was totally devastated.

What the hell am I going to do? - is all I kept asking myself. I thought about going into management. Maybe the company I was with would have an opportunity later, but someone would have to retire or die to move up the food chain, & I wasn't sure if I would even be in the running. I thought about doing another round of interviewing as a management candidate, but I have no experience! How was that going to work?

When I was a kid, I played instruments. I played the trumpet starting in elementary school all the way through High School. In fact, I was going to go to college for music. I also played the piano for about 6 years. I enjoyed marching band in school, but I HATED playing the piano. I remember my Dad telling me I should just start playing music by ear. That was such a foreign concept for me. For me, the ONLY way to play music was by sheet music. Learning the notes, the rhythms & practice. Lots & lots of practice.

During my Junior & Senior year in High School, I got a new piano tutor. I think she was a college student. She could tell, I was not enjoying playing. I remember her asking me why. I told her that none of the music was interesting for me. She took me into the adjoining music store & we picked out a movie & TV themes music book. I remember learning & playing the theme songs to many TV shows with my final piece that I have ever played being the theme from the Peanuts (Linus & Lucy). This piece of music was probably the most complicated piece I have ever learned, but I loved learning it & mastering it. I had found enjoyment in the music finally.

I remembered that time period when I was asking myself, what I was going to do. It was just too easy for me to say, "I'll just find something fun!". If it were that easy, wouldn't I have done that already? Plus, I wasn't sure if I could find the joy in coding any more. This thought, really scared me. I've always had joy in coding. I always told people that I got lucky in my career because my job is my hobby. If there was no joy left, then there was no hobby. I was totally screwed if that were true...

During the early summer, I told my boss that there was something called vue.js that looked really interesting. I remember the next day we had a meeting with other colleagues & they happened to say that they were just starting to use vue as well. That day my boss told me to look into it more.

Vue was very easy to learn, as well as it being the gateway for concepts like: templates, components, state management, cli, webpack etc.

All of the above concepts are what the other frameworks & libraries were using (Angular & React.js). Thankfully this was the case for me, as I had no idea what a CLI was, or templating or State Management was & I didn't know GIT. All I knew was jQuery.

I decided to rewrite a MVC 5 page that didn't use ANY JavaScript. This was an Admin page, so very little people use it. This page had an index, edit, & a delete page associated to it. It took me 2 days to make that page into its on Single Page Application in vue. I remember being flabbergasted at how easy that was to do. I also remember this feeling of joy. So much so, that I re-wrote another 5 pages into vue over the next month (which I worked on nights & weekends). I was having fun again.

Once I realized what was happening, I told my buddy that I was going to rewrite my abandoned applications from my Windows Phone days into all the new JavaScript frameworks. I knew I still had a ton to learn, but for some reason, this seemed like a good idea & oddly a fun one.

So I got started that next weekend. However, being 40+ now, there were no more late nights until 2AM or multiple nights in a row coding. I figured if I could do 2ish hours a week that eventually it would add up. Also life also interrupted my plans. My youngest went to college so family priorities prevented me from sitting at the computer as there was no extra free time. That didn't deter me though. I coded when I could, & didn't stress when I couldn't. Pretty soon, I was investigating & using the newest version of the vue CLI. Then I hooked up Visual Studio Code to my GitHub repository. I found a couple of examples of what templates were & started to use them. I even found vuex (state management) after a few months of working on my application (which I now have to refactor my application to use fully).

Unfortunately, I'm not quiet done yet with my application, as I had forgotten how hard it actually is to deploy a web app. There is so much testing to do. I'm also fighting to incredible urge to refactor everything! The point though, is that I'm all of a sudden a lot more knowledgeable about this new JavaScript landscape then I was during the summer. Vue made it fun to code again.

I think it is safe to say that I'm back as far as being a coder again! It is almost like vue threw a bunch of new wood on the fire that burns for me with coding. I've found the joy again, & I've recommitted to my passion! I'm more motivated than ever to try to understand JavaScript & coding in general. It is becoming more important to me now to understand the concepts that I don't necessarily use all the time. I find myself going back to the basics & making sure I understand everything (or as much as I can). Even though I've decided not to get off of the technology bullet train, I realize I have a TON of work yet to do. Angular & React is my next target.

I feel like I should fill you in on what happened with my job since the early summer of last year. Eventually, my company gave me a small compensation package. I never thought I was that underpaid. I really just wanted them to show a little gratitude for the job I was doing. So this small token did just that. Then later in the summer they sent me to Germany to train users on the application that I was maintaining and supporting. That was a great honor for me. That trip was great. It was one that I will remember for a long time. Plus, I got to experience Oktoberfest while I was there. Just before I left for Germany in September, an opportunity opened up on a new team. I applied for that position & I got that position! The new team was working on a new application that is more of an internal application using Angular & .NET Core. I started on my new team this year! I'm good right now with the company I'm at. I'm hopeful that my relationship with this company lasts several more years in the future.

What's better than pay?

Jeff V — Wed, 17 Apr 2019 12:20:08 +0000

Lately I've been seeing a lot of questions about salary on Twitter. One user asked:

"Do you prioritize salary over culture/environment of a company or does culture/environment take precedent over salary? I wish I could have both, but so far, no luck. What’s your preference if you can’t have both?"
https://twitter.com/ParissAthena/status/1113855296357662725

This is a great question, which my answer was:

"I found salary was more important early in my career. Now culture is way more important."
https://twitter.com/webdad3/status/1114001651889627136

My statement is 100% true. When I was younger first starting out, I chased the dollar. I took advantage of the fact that programming was a growing field. I've now had 14 jobs in approximately 20 years. Each one of those jobs usually was an increase in pay (except during the dot com bust).

I could look for a new job and get a salary bump here and there, but now that I'm older I look at how much vacation time I get & how much my 401k match is. My greatest concern now with starting a new job is starting over with the people and having to prove myself all over again... I guess I'm finally adulting!

I realize that no job is perfect, as there will always be struggles with management & people. For me knowing the struggles (people) at my current job is better than learning the struggles at a new one.

This topic got me thinking that, I have had some TERRIBLE jobs, some MEDIOCRE jobs & a few GREAT jobs! The great jobs all had one thing in common & that was chemistry with the people that I worked with. I have 3 such companies where the people made the job feel easy. They are American Specialty Health, Forrest Oil & Rev Gen. Each and every one of those companies that I worked for are a part of me & my story. They are also the bar I hold when comparing to my current job.

My current job & team is pretty good. It might turn into a very good one (possibly the 4th GREAT job), only time will tell. When I was at American Specialty Health it wasn't great until a manager was fired than it became Great Job #1. That was about 6ish months into my tenure there. Forrest Oil & Rev Gen were 6 month contracts, but the chemistry was equally as good (as ASH), but it happened very quickly.

So what's better than pay? Well, pay is pretty damned important, but having fun where your job doesn't feel like a job is more important than pay for me now.

Been there. Done that.

Jeff V — Wed, 17 Apr 2019 02:48:02 +0000

About 10 years ago, I somehow landed a work from home gig when I lived in California. This was a position of need, as my commute was 90 minutes each way.

Side Note: I once calculated that the time spent driving in traffic was approximately 30 days a year. Those are 24 hour days...

The company I worked for didn't have an actual remote worker policy like many companies now do. The CIO liked me (I worked with him previously) and when we were working out the details of my return, I asked about working from home full time. Ultimately he said that I could do it and we agreed that I had to come in 2 days a month. Looking back at this deal, it was pretty awesome! In fact it was VERY awesome.

Side Note: For 4 years I worked from home and commuted to the offices 2 times a month. I was in the office for less than 100 times over this period!

I loved working from home. I got so much done and since nobody knew how to manage remote workers I was often finding myself having a lot of free time at the end of the week.

I had a ton of time to do the kids doctors appointments. I Picked up and dropped off the kids at school every day. When 4 o'clock came I was out the door for the kids different practices. I didn't have to worry about commuting any where. It was very convenient.

WFH TIP: In the beginning of my work from home experience, I would have to remind myself to go outside and get the mail somedays. I found it very important to have a schedule. It was way too easy to not take a shower and get dressed. So, working out, taking a shower and getting dressed for the day quickly became an essential thing to do.

Things were going great in the beginning. I would go in for the 2 days a month and would catch-up with my friends. It was great! After a while when I would come into the office, I slowly started to notice that I didn't know a lot of the new people. Eventually my friends got their own WFH agreements that didn't coincide with when I was in the office. So the social aspect of the office changed for me.

I know that my managers looked at my deal as too sweet. There were several other reasons that things started to "go off the rails", the biggest factor for me was that the work culture began to change. By the time I left, I had absolutely no connections in the office, I was a stranger there. Even though I had been working there for a total of 8 years.

Ultimately I left because working from home isolated me so much that I was craving attention. The company was/is a GREAT company. By working from home though, I could no longer see that fact. I left a great company for the 1st company that talked to me. It was such a rookie mistake, but it was a mistake compounded by my isolation. That company I left for, was TERRIBLE it was a spectacular disaster for me!

I realized my mistake about week 2 of my 9 month tenure there. I was devastated as going anywhere else was going to give me another 90 minute commute! I just couldn't do it. Ultimately this lead me to moving to Colorado which has been a great move for me and my family. The old adage of when one door closes another one is opened is very true for me in this situation.

WFH TIP: To work from home successfully, it takes a specific type of personality to do it & companies have to know how to manage remote resources. Don't work from home if you have distractions or managers don't know how to manage remote employees.

I am in the office every day of the week. Very rarely do I work from home now. I prefer working in the office. I think it holds me accountable & I'm socially grounded in the office. I'm glad I got to work from home. It was definitely an itch I got to scratch and I know it is an unpopular opinion to have, but I like working in the office.