CptCodeMonkey

Unfortunately I had to cut it down to 2K character so might have missed enough information to be useful.

The NoSQL thing was a total failure on my part, yes it was a really cool idea but I was dealing with vague requirements ( and didn't qualify like I should have).

Trying to explain myself has been fairly useful as it's brought up questions I didn't ask, like why didn't the PM's tell me their complaints up front instead of waiting until the CEO had to get involved. In retrospect that's actually kind of upsetting.

Also three rules as a contractor/freelancer I try to abide by:

#1 Always make your client more money then you cost

#2 It doesn't matter right/wrong if the client isn't happy ( unless they're crazy )

#3 Ignore #2 if it threatens rule #1 by managing expectations ( try to avoid using the word no ).

Last things, long time ago I was on a team that made our own web framework ( routing, MVC, ORM, etc ) and while it worked, it was a failure because of a lack of referential integrity, high cost to spool up new dev's, and lack of an external community support. Since then I try to avoid building my personal space shuttle ( really complex/cool stuff ) for paid work.

I think the reason I am still with the company is that they're in a badlands between small one off projects and more long term/perpetual projects which I've excelled at ( and they're still adapting too ) and I am wondering if the CEO realized that the PM's didn't convey an of their concerns to me before going to him.

So it looks like I need to have some more conversations with the PM's themselves ( I can turn on a dime if given constructive feedback).

Regardless of position on this subject, it seems like I am constantly reading about how verdict X was overturned in some appeals court or such. The effect on me is to feel less like US law is remotely sane and more whoever can come up with the latest psuedo-philosophical circle jerk angle and still stay financially solvent.

I have just a tad under 4K points and been using SO for 3.5 years. In the beginning it was easy to ask or answer questions but now the questions are less abstract and more focused on stuff far off the beaten path.

In production; its good to involve your customers in the development process so they feel included.

Seriously though, for small web projects I usually aim for 100% unit-test coverage on the models, 70-80% on controllers, and then depending on the application jasmine or selenium to verify the UI components are happy.

For larger projects, add in more integration tests ( models -> controllers, controller -> views ) and on something like mechanize to do full stack tests ( models -> view ).

Additionally for either small or large, running some sort of lint/static analysis at the CI can be beneficial.

The only thing I don't like about Fabric ( and perhaps I missed reading a step in the docs ) is working with very complex systems, I wanted to break fabric recipes/scripts into multiple files and found doing `fab -f zkservers.py reload` slightly tedious. I've much rather do `./zkservers.py reload`

CouchDB installed onto the iPhone/iPad?

So far been fairly happy with SC2, my client has built a proof of concept app that probably pushed the limits of the framework for controllers/models/views/etc but it's still performent on most of the iOs/apple devices.

I usually ask that one right off the bat, usually its because they've realized off shoring wasn't working out or the "consultancy" they were using was only effective in ensuring the "consultants" had a pulse.

I am not very popular with a few of the local firms in that regard because I usually teach my preferred client's to ask really stupid questions like "We're using MVC version 2.0 but want to upgrade to 2.6.3, do you have someone with that skillset?" My client's like it because it makes them feel smart and I like it because I usually don't get re-contracted to fix my stuff and work around the client's reduced budget from a bad hire.

I used to subscribe to IaMa a while back and yes they were and to some extent are still a fantastic opportunity for the unwashed masses to quiz celebrities of all walks of fame.

Still considering what happened to Woody, I would think that incident would give a few celebs and PR managers a moment of pause to think "Is this really worth the risk?"

On the other hand, generally the dark side comes out of Reddit only when people are obviously (ab)using r/IaMa soley to benefit their current PR campaigns.

I often wonder what kind of thought goes through a person's head before they do an IaMa on reddit. You need to be either crazy, stupid, crazy stupid, or Neil Degrasse Tyson to think "Hey this is gonna be awesome!"

I like that, seems fairly benign.

Yeah, I've worked in two shops where every developer was on guard for themselves, those were not fun situations. I can usually figure out I am in such a scenario when I ask someone if they would mind helping me by reviewing or talking through how I solved a somewhat prickly problem. If they instantly turn me down in such a way that to suggest "Not my problem, not my concern" I usually tack that onto a mental score sheet for deciding not to renew or extend my contract.

Usually I am more receptive towards teams that have a final interview stage where all of the other dev's weigh in. I've avoided some fairly toxic places because of that step.

I use the jailbreak only Groove Shark app plus the Pandora music app. Both have annual/monthly fee's attached which is fine because I am paying for the service they provide.

Seems like the multiyear unit-test coverage campaign is starting to pay off for the core PHP engineers, 5-6 years ago they swore they couldn't do shortened array syntax without major problems.

Still haven't used nodeJS, but was wondering if its possible to emulate something like Twisted's inlineCallback decorator/generator pattern. http://krondo.com/?p=2441

Working with Twisted tedious at times, but that pattern/construct significantly streamlined things significantly for me.

I've been in a situation where the company was laying people off incrementally over the span of 18 months. I hated going to work, didn't give a shit about the company, and I was not unique or alone in that opinion. If you have to lay people off, do it as quickly and with as much dignity as possible.