A year in review.
I thought it would be interesting (if nothing else for my own sanity) to look at the past contracting year. I went from perm to contracting around his time last year - so 12 months, 2 engagements (one with a renewal), what happened?
The contracting work itself has been good and obviously taken up the majority of my time. The operational running of my contracting company on top of that has been relatively easy - it's been in place since 2012 and relatively easy to tick over.
Outside of that, I've put a massive amount of effort in keeping up to date - probably more than I have in years. Anyone that knows me, know that I care about training and continual learning, and it is on that that I wanted to focus on in this post.
Certifications
Within the last year I've gained (or retained) 2 certifications (or maybe 3).
Last December, I re-certified my MCSD: Web Applications certificate. I'd gained this qualification originally back in 2013, but one of the requirements of it is to re-certify every 2 years. I should be due to re-certify again next year - but it looks like Microsoft are changing that (see below).
Having spent so much time "hands-off" I really do feel that having that certification helps when talking about "hands-on" roles. So many people discount my CV for anything "hands-on" due to the "Head of" titles. That is understandable - thus I do as much as I can to demonstrate that the skills are still there and current.
I'd say that I found the re-certification more of a challenge to prepare for than the original MCSD. The original MCSD was 3 separate exams. And while there was some overlap, largely you focused on one, albeit it quite large, area. The re-certification was 1 exam covering those 3 already sizable areas. So, quite a lot of revision there - especially given that the Microsoft exams have a tendency to cover parts that you'll rarely use in your professional life (did I mention they where quite large).
February, I took the Scrum.org Scrum Master (PSM1) certification. I'd been looking into Scrum for quite some period. I've probably been studying the area quite heavily for the last two years. If anything I was probably over prepared for that exam (never hurts). I did get one question wrong ... still don't know which one it was. Word of warning though for anyone thinking about taking the exam, do the background study, understand why the Scrum Guide is the way it is. Learning just the Scrum Guide is not enough.
And last month I became the proud recipient of a second MCSD qualification ... MCSD: App Builder. {Pause for applause ... little bow, etc }
Little different than the above though as I didn't take an exam. From what I can tell it is a reflection of the fact I have a current MCSD (the Web Applications) and passed an exam in the last 12 months. Going forwards this "MCSD" is kept in good standing by passing an elective exam each 12 months. Not sure which twelve months (calendar year or awarded anniversary) and I'm also rather unsure of it's compatibility with the MCSD: Web Applications.
I've read a couple of blogs from Microsoft which suggest that the App Builder replaces the Web Applications. And in the same blog, it seems to read that the two will run side-by-side. I'm sure it will make more sense over the coming months.
Articles
I've really tried to get into the habit of regular blog articles. These have largely been split across two - technical and my Return On Investment series on LinkedIn.
Over the year, I've written a total of 59 articles - 21 of those as part of my ROI series.
I'd hope to combine the articles under one home going forwards. I'm not overly fond of with LinkedIn or Blogger as a blogging platform. It is somewhat of an indulgence to write a custom blog system, but that is pretty much what I will do ... partial excuse to play with more technology.
Books
I'd mark myself as "could do better". I really don't seem to have read as much as I could have over the past year.
- Exam Ref 70-487 Developing Windows Azure and Web Services (MCSD)
- Soft Skills: The software developer's life manual
- How to win friends and influence people - Dale Carnegie
- Working effectively with Unit tests
- Peopleware
Pluralsight
Ok, now I've done so much better with Pluralsight. I've gone really heavy into their Learning Path feature with Angular (you'll see that below in the list). Their testing function has proved useful for helping with that learning. I took the Angular test back at the start of August - since then then I've (almost) completed the whole series so will be interesting to see if I get an uplift on the below.
Course list:
- Agile Fundamentals
- Scrum Fundamentals
- Kanban Fundamentals
- Creating Effective User Stories
- Agile in the Real World
- Big Scrum
- Scrum Master Skills
- Mocking with Moq
- Agile Estimation
- Play by Play: ASP.NET Core 1.0 on any OS with John Papa and Shayne Boyer
- Building a Web App with ASP.NET 5, MVC 6, EF7 and AngularJS
- Introduction to Grunt
- JavaScript Build Automation With Gulp.js
- Angular Fundamentals
- Angular JS Pattern: Clean Code
- Angular JS Unit Testing in-depth Using ngMock
- Building Your First Xamarin.Android App from Start to Store
- Angular JS Unit Testing in-depth Using ngMock
- Angular JS Pattern: Clean Code
- Play by Play: Angular Testing
- Angular JS: Get Started
- Angular JS Services In-depth
- Angular Routing In-depth
- Angular Directives Fundamentals
- AngularJS Line of Business Applications
- Angular Best Practices
- AngularJS In-Depth
- Building a SPA Framework Using AngularJS
- An Angular JS Playbook
Podcasts
There is a real silver lining to have 2-3 hours worth of commuting per day - lots of time for podcasts. (Lets focus on that rather than the cost of running my car and time spent on the M6)
Podcasts have really help me get through a huge amount of information over the last 12 months. I'll suspect it will remain a core of my learning.
The core podcasts I listen to are:
- Dot Net Rocks
- Hansel Minutes
- Adventures in Angular
- JavaScript Jabber
- Azure Podcast
- Software Engineering Radio
- InfoQ
Events
I've been meaning to attend meet-ups for a while not ... I also quite fancy doing a talk ... but shhh, don't tell anyone. So finally started attending DotNetNorth last month. So only one event so far. But I should be able to increase my attendance by 100% by going again tomorrow ;)
Looking fowards to it.
Health
Being as busy as a I have been over the last year, something had to go - and it has mainly been my running. The 12 months prior I'd done a lot of running (300+ miles) and lost about a stone in weight. Unfortunately most of that weight is back on.
That isn't to say I've health problems (unless you count a verruca). Just I'd like to not carry quite so much weight.
Next 12 months
Same again ...
I'd like refresh myself on JavaScript (fairly happy with it already - but would like to take it up a notch), and then learn TypeScript and Angular 2. You can see a theme.
I'll also have some MCSD certifications to take (see above). Not sure what on when yet.
I suspect then I will learn based on what I fancy as I go.
But definitely need to read more. And return to running.