Joe Delgado's Development Page.

Not Really a Blog (10/10/13 by JD)

I don't need or want another blog. There's lots of tools out there that I believe are very cool and I need somewhere to keep track of them. If other people find them useful that's cool.

The Pomodoro Technique

Been following this technique for a few years now and it's a great way to do work. Basically you focus for 25 minutes on a task and take a five minute break (called a pomodoro). Log four pomodoros and you get a 15 minute break. Working all day and constantly is a great way to burn yourself out and destroy your productivity. TeamViz is probably one of the best applications for tracking pomodoros that I've seen and they have an iPhone app!

SCRUM

I've been a software developer for about sixteen years (work wise) and programming BASIC on my Commodore Vic-20 and C64 since I was 12 or so. Used to love typing in programs from Ahoy, Compute!, and Compute Gazzette. Of course, typing in page after page of three digits and later Hex didn't really teach me a lot about programming, but they often had great articles and examples in BASIC that I devoured. Anyway loved programming, but working with people who don't have a clue...gets very old...very fast. Enter SCRUM.

Usually spent a lot of time sitting in meetings to go over a project. Sit down to code it and miss the mark because I didn't get the whole picture or the users changed their minds. When I first learned about SCRUM it was like the sky parted and beam of light struck the page. Here's something that I can use to evolve something and not try to get everything perfect at once. Here's something that works more like the users I support think and work.

VIM

When I first attempted to use VIM about sixteen years ago I really hated it and stopped. A few years ago, I decided to try again when debugging on a Linux box. I also forced myself to use it and learn new things about it. A couple of years later, I'm no expert, but use it as often as I can.

Design

JavaScript/jQuery

jQuery is pretty awesome and has helped me a lot with my projects at work. I like that I don't have to worry about incorporating different tricks to handle browser differences.

Web Debugging

Problems

Programming