Lance Wicks
Kiwi,
Judoka,
Geek,
Husband
Daddy!

JudoGeek Blog

So what to do? 

So it's Monday again.
I am sat in my kitchen with a cup of coffee and some toast wondering about what to do today.

This time last week I was working for someone else, today I am not.

So what to do?
The temptation is to hit the job sites and find another 9-5, but I have really enjoyed dropping my kids at school and picking them up. I have enjoyed spending time in their company, heck I have enjoyed cooking them dinner.

So what to do?
There is this credit crunch thing, there is my fears and there is the harsh reality of mortgages and bills. Should I be polishing the CV? Or should I be looking for a niche I can fill as a entrepreneur?

So what to do?
Judo? VMware? Web? PC Support? Video Conferencing? Teach kids Judo? Teach adults? Start a Judo business? Sell Judo gi? Become an eBay entrepreneur?

So what to do?

You might be picking up that I am at somewhat of a crossroads. That I need to make a decision that has big consequences, how to decide such a big call?

One of the issues I have faced in recent times is the imbalance between my passion and my work. I am a geek, I get up and check my email almost before getting out of bed. I read hundreds of blogs and consume/collect new technologies the way some people collect shoes or baseball cards.

One of the areas I have been excited about is virtualisation and the automation of datacentres. Taking all those machines and making them run themselves. A machine goes POP! and automagically a replacement is built up to take it's place. A server gets busy, and a new one gets built to take half the load. Very cool right.

This is the area of IT I feel myself being drawn into.
But... it's an area that has yet to "take off". As a individual will I make any revenue? Will I go broke evangelising just so a bigger player can make money off it later? Does it make sense to try and make a living in this area?

Or should I look at Judo and make a living there?
I am passionate (very) about Judo, but is there a living to be made there? There is I know people teaching in schools and getting paid, but is that me? Or is the "JudoWeb" where I should focus? is there a business model in my various websites? One I can make a living from without "selling out" completely? Can you make money in the Judo world and maintain your integrity?

Or is the future elsewhere?

So, reader of this post, I ask for your opinion. I want the wisdom of the crowd here. Some of you know me personally, some only via this blog. Both opinions matter, let me know what you would suggest I do?

I await the wisdom of the crowd.

Lance




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Another video for my wife... different reason. Napier Life 



I found this video care of the Kiwification blog. Napier is my favourite place in the world to live. I really wish I was there right now (he says looking out at a blustery UK day).
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Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes... 

Hi all, so here is a long and very personal post. Please feel comfortable not reading it.

So today I was forced to resign my role at www.solutioncentre.co.uk where I (formerly) worked as a pre/post sales engineer. I am very disappointed to be leaving, yet I want to look at the bright side and look at this as an opportunity.

How exactly it’ll be an opportunity I do not know yet.

Solution Centre is a small company (three fulltimers... two now), and I had a really wide range of tasks and responsibilities. This makes the future quite intriguing, what to do? This year alone I have been involved in writing a complex server application in Perl, writing a solution to poll 50+ servers and gather disk usage infomation and graph it. I have also installed Packeteer (now BlueCoat) iShared WAFS servers as far away as Vietnam, Shanghai, Abu Dhabi and elsewhere. I have done considerable testing of WAFS products from a variety of providers. Of course I have also been involved in a wide variety of other projects such as website maintenance, writing proposals, installing Windows 2003 SB servers, etc.

In time I have also taught Judo at various levels, managed a team to the World Masters (also competed), and even lectured at University of Bath. In fact my lecture has been requested several times since. Add to this my ongoing websites and the Judo podcast I am torn as to what path to take. Which path shall lead to where I want to be? Which one is paved in gold and which is a path into quicksand? And how to tell?

At this moment, I see myself working freelance and monetizing as much of what I do as I can. Very scary! Sadly this has not been a planned departure, so I am not as prepared as I’d hope to be. But I am an optimist and sincerely believe that just around the corner is the better future... I just gotta grab it. That said a credit crunch is arguably not the time to be “going it alone”. I know I’ll miss that cosy little “day job”.

That said, it was my comfort zone. And it is always a good thing to push your boundaries and take the hard road over the easy one. So I feel in ways quite energized and excited, it almost outweighs the fear.
I am writing this post, in part to clear my head, but also to seek the sagely advice of those of you who take the time to read my log. I would warmly welcome any advice, comments, thoughts, opinions, etc. Please do drop them in the comments or email me ( lw@judocoach.com ).

Thanks,
Lance

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One for my wife... Aha the "literal" video. 

My wife loves this video (and secretly so do I), this video is a brilliant homage! And damned funny too.


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TDD with Perl, Episode 1 - Introduction. 

Welcome to Episode one of my soon to be series of posts on becoming a test driven developer in/with Perl. Before we begin let me explain that this is not going to be a l33t uber-programmer guide; this is for people with some familiarity with writing code, with Perl and want to get better.

This series of posts has been inspired by the scary fact that if you Google PerlCritic this blog is/was the seventh entry. Which tells me that there is a lack of information out there if the small stuff I wrote is ranked so high.

So... Test Driven Development (TDD), what the heck is it?
Test Driven Development or TDD is a increasingly common phrase and idea that you need to get your head around. The concept here is that you write pieces of software that test the actual software you are writing.

The idea is that for every subroutine you write, you write a test (or several tests actually) that proves it works. In the purest methodology you write the test first, then the code. But for someone new to it, this is not realistic. That said, the sooner you start writing tests, the more sense it makes and the easier the process.

So how do you start?
That is what this series of posts is going to cover. The series of posts will (hopefully) help you begin to use TDD and appropriate tools in your development with Perl (and maybe even with other languages).

Some of the tools in you toolkit will be:
* Perlcritic
* Perltidy
* Test::More
* Test::Harness

Basically, here is what we shall be covering.
We shall start with creating a "smoketest" script, and discuss why they rock! How to build one and how it can help you. In our smoke test we will be doing things like testing your code is formatted nicely using Test::PerlTidy, testing that you are follow "Best Practices" with PerlCritic and also some other basic testing. We will also look at how you test components of your own code, etc.

Basic ideas, expressed in a basic way, to help you get started. Once you get started it gets easier and easier and your skills improve and you spend less time fixing silly problems and more on creating new features. Why? because your test suite checks everything and tells you when you have done something silly and tells you early.

So, please stay tuned and wait for the second episode in this series where we'll start building a smoke test and your basic test tool kit.



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