School of Webcraft

I've started looking at the online courses at P2PU.org.  There is a school of Webcraft with courses created by Mozilla.  The first course (ok, technically it's the second) has us writing a basic HTML document by hand.  Here's my effort.  I didn't make any mistakes on the first attempt, but I did it a second time just for giggles.

A fresh start

I've been working in software development for over 25 years.  After graduating from college with my CS degree, I started programming for a large company.  Since then, I worked for a variety of companies across multiple industries as a developer, an application architect, a development manager, and various related positions.

When I started in this field, programming was the reserved world of a few trained specialists.  As technology has infiltrated every aspect of daily life, the role of the programmer has also morphed, and the way programming is done has also undergone drastic changes.  One of the big challenges in today's environment is just in keeping up with the technologies, languages, and tools available to know what is the most appropriate to use in which circumstance.  Most people end up becoming an expert in a small number of technologies that are used daily in their jobs and have little exposure to what else is available.  As their responsibilities shift, they may learn new technologies or they may try to fit what they already know onto new problems that have better solutions.

The challenge I'm presenting myself with today is building the bridge from what I've learned throughout my career over to what the leading technologies are today and when, why, and how to apply them all.  Since I don't have that opportunity (or responsibility) in my current job, I've turned to online training courses to fill the gap and provide the exposure I'm craving.

Will this die early on the vine?  Will the realities of my day-to-day job keep me from expanding my knowledge into areas I won't need in my current role?  We'll see...