admin originally posted this on EricDaugherty.com.

I use a ReadyNAS NV+ as my backup drive and bulk storage.  Although the newer firmware directly supports TimeMachine, I've never been able to get that to work.  (This probably has something to do with the fact that I was upgrading and downgrading my NV+ Firmware quite a bit to debug a separate issue).

However, I did find a great tool to create SparseBundles that you can use on a NAS (or any external disk).

BackMyFruitUp.  First, it is a great name.  Second,  it is a simple and easy tool.  The Tool I actually use is 'Create Volume Backup,' a subproject of BackMyFruitUp, which you can download from this page. 

You hardly need instructions.  Unzip it, run it, and type in the size you want for the sparsebundle.  Then just copy it to your destination share and point Time Machine at it.  Done.

Of course, I wouldn't need it now if my Time Machine SparseBundle hadn't become corrupted.  Luckily I didn't need it.  I also perform a seperate rsync backup on occasion to insure I have a 'basic' backup of my user directory as well.

admin originally posted this on EricDaugherty.com.

I've been getting a lot of spam recenctly.  But this isn't normal spam, it is actually 'legitimate' bulk, although *I* didn't sign up for it.  What is going on?

Someone out there, apparently with the name Emily Daugherty, thinks that my gmail address is actually her gmail address.  She's been signing up for all sorts of websites using her (really my) email address  in the past few months.  That results all sorts of useless email for me that is not caught by normal spam filters.

Today she finally tried to reset my gmail password!  I'm not sure if she really doesn't know her email address, or is simply really, really, really bad at typing it in.  Either way, it needs to stop.

I need to somehow convince her to stop using my email address.  Unfortunately, I don't know her real address, since apparently she mostly doesn't either.

Any ideas?

admin originally posted this on EricDaugherty.com.

Yes, and No.

Write Once, Run Anywhere, a slogan created by Sun to evangelize the virtues of the Java Platform, is a controversial approach to software development.

Write Once, Run Anywhere (WORA) is accomplished through an abstraction layer between the 'compiled code' and the operating system and processor.  This abstraction usually takes the form of a Virtual Machine or Runtime, such as the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), Microsoft's Common Language Runtime (CLR), Flash Player (or Air runtime), or one of the many interpreted language runtimes (Perl, PHP, Ruby, etc.).  These runtimes convert the intermediate language into device specific code that can execute on the local operating system and processor.  While this overhead introduces extra steps, which slow down execution, they also provide features not (easily) available in native code, such as garbage collection and Just In Time (JIT) compilers which can optimize the code while it executes, as opposed to at compilation time.

So does it work?  Yes, and No.

Server

WORA languages have achieved a significant level of success on the server side.  Code that runs on large servers and interacts with clients over HTTP or other protocols is almost always written in some form of WORA, whether it is Java, .Net, PHP, Ruby, Perl, or other interpreted languages.  There is no advantage to using native code in these cases.  All interactions with the user are through an intermediate protocol/interface, such as HTML over HTTP for websites, XML over HTTP for web services, or various other formats and protocols used to exchange information between servers and clients or other servers.

There are certainly some applications developed for servers in native code.  Database servers are the most common example, but LDAP servers, webservers (Apache), and others are compiled to native code.  However, there are WORA versions of each of these examples, and many of the native applications were first written before WORA languages took off.

There is no denying that WORA is a huge success on the server side.

Client

Which brings us to No.

Client application development has struggled on the client side.  The biggest challenge is User/Human Interface Guidelines (HIG).  User or Human interface guidelines are published by various Operating System vendors (Microsoft, Apple) that define a set of recommendations on how an application should look and interact with the user.  Applications that follow these look like 'Windows' or 'Mac' applications.

With WORA, application developers have two choices.  Follow the guidelines of a specific platform, and ignore the others, or compromise between the various target platforms, creating an application that doesn't match any platform. 

Early Java desktop applications looked like Java applications.  They were obviously different from the other applications that users were used to interacting with, and were often shunned.  This has led to a negative view of WORA applications in general, as John Gruber comments on a Jason Kincaid article:

Jason Kincaid nails it: “write once, run everywhere” has never worked out. It’s a pipe dream.

In the context of client applications, I have to (mostly) agree.

There are exceptions.  In the Java world, nearly every developer uses an Integrated Development Environment written in Java, whether it is Eclipse, IntelliJ IDEA, or NetBeans.  But developers are a very different target audience than general computer users.

Another example is Flash and Flex applications.  Often delivered in the web browser, there are no real Human Interface Guideline that govern their interactions, other than the expected HTML experience.  This can work, but it can also be horribly painful, as many people have discovered trying to find a menu on a Restaurant's website. 

Mobile

There is a third act to this story.  Mobile.

Apple has take the mobile market by storm with its iPhone and App Store.   With over 100,000 applications written for the iPhone, the iPhone has become THE mobile development platform.  And every one of these applications was compiled to native code.

A consistent user experience is even more important on a mobile device with a limited display and user input capability.  Apple's success is in part due to its consistent device design.  Every iPod/iPod Touch/iPad version has a single home button, and a touch screen.  There are two screen sizes, the iPod size, and the iPad size.  While individual phone capabilities do very (memory, speed, GPS, Compas, etc.) the primary interface components are all the same.   By using a software keyboard on the devices, the keyboard is the same across all devices and applications.  All of this makes developing applications for the platform much more predictable and enjoyable.

The Windows Mobile and Android platforms both share a wide variety of device form factors, screen sizes, physical buttons, and device features.  This makes it much more difficult to build an application that is easy and intuitive to use across the platform.  And I think the quality and quantity of applications on the Windows Mobile and Android platforms demonstrate this point.

Solution

There is a solution, of sorts.  HTML in the browser is the most successful WORA language and runtime for client applications since the ANSI/VT100 terminal.  By creating a common language and interface, applications could be written for all operating systems easily, without the pain of violating their human interface guidelines.  The browser itself conformed to the local guidelines, and users expected the experience in the browser to be different from a native application.

It is time to evolve this paradigm to the next level.  HTML 5 is a good first step.  It provide the ability to display video, store data locally, and draw 2D graphics in a standardized way.  But to be successful, these features and more need to be implemented consistently across browsers, enabling developers to truly develop great WORA client applications.

As an intermediate step, frameworks and libraries that abstract the browser differences away is a short term solution.  JavaScript libraries such as Prototype and jQuery abstract the browser implementation differences while frameworks like Google's Web Toolkit (GWT) provide a platform to develop client applications that just happen to run in the browser.

Realistically, I think tools like GWT are the future.  As a Flex developer, I enjoy the ability to quickly and easily create rich applications that will render the same on ever user's machine.  But I would prefer that the Flex applications would compile to HTML and JavaScript, so they could be run native in the browser.

In the future, we will be developing using various language and platforms, but they will all compile down to code that runs native in the browser.  Or so I hope.

admin originally posted this on EricDaugherty.com.

iTunes Export exports playlists defined in your iTunes Music Library to standard .m3u, .wpl (Windows Media), .zpl (Zune), or .mpl (Centrafuse) playlists. iTunes Export also supports copying the original music files with the playlist to facilitate exporting to other devices. iTunes Export is open source and freely available for use.

The 2.2.1 release features updates and bug fixes to the console and GUI versions

In both versions:

• Enhanced the playlist name filter to include characters from the Latin 1 Supplement Block.
• Added(Console)/Changed(GUI) 'addIndex' logic. Now uses incrementing index instead of iTunes Song Index. Index is in the order iTunes has the songs in for each playlist.

For the Console version:

• Replaced ad-hoc URL decoding of file paths with URLDecode class. Now non-ASCII characters are handled correctly in file names.

If you find any issues or have questions please email me (eric@ericdaugherty.com). Please include which application and version (GUI or Console, 2.2.1 etc.) of iTunes Export and the operating system you are using.

admin originally posted this on EricDaugherty.com.

Both GraniteDS and BlazeDS provide support for remote calls and messaging using Adobe's AMF protocol. However, when it comes to integrating them with a Spring application that already uses Spring's DispatchServlet, the projects start to show some differences.

In a previous post, I outlined the steps to getting GraniteDS 2.0 setup with Spring. However, this approach results in two separate Spring contexts, so my Spring Service with the 'singleton' scope was being loaded twice. Not good.

I found that GraniteDS 2.1 did support better Spring integration. You can see a blog post here that describes the process, or their updated documentation.  Note that the blog post seems to be somewhat out of date.  One issue is the schema URL: 
http://www.graniteds.org/config/granite-config-2.1.xsd in the blog instead of http://www.graniteds.org/public/dtd/2.1.0/granite-config-2.1.xsd.

The BlazeDS approach has a good overview here, and the documentation is pretty good too.  In my case, I used the @RemotingDestination annotation on my service beans instead of adding:

<flex:remoting-destination />

to the Spring config as I'm using auto-wiring for most of my beans.

There are a couple of things that bothered me about the GraniteDS approach as opposed to the BlazeDS approach.

First, the BlazeDS approach retains a (simplified) services-config.xml file, so the traditional configuration options are still available, and the integration with Flex/Flash Builder works as well.  Not a big deal, but it stays closer to the existing conventions.

Secondly, I was able to get BlazeDS working much faster. The project simply seems to be more mature, and the documentation and examples are clearer. The Granite documentation notes that they are working to achieve parity with the BlazeDS Spring integration, so it is likely that they will be able to close this gap. But for now, it seems to be a work in progress.  It is only available in the 2.1 version, which is currently at RC2.  I also had to use the 2.x version of spring-security-core instead of the 3.0 version, as Spring seems to have refactored the location of the BadCredentialsException class.

All that said, GraniteDS does provide more features than BlazeDS, so the comparison may not be entirely fair. I found the Granite ActionScript code generator (gas3) to work well, although it seemed to miss some import statements before it would compile in Flex 4.  However, the community around BlazeDS seems larger at this point, with the expected increase in polish.  However, competition is good, so hopefully the future versions of GraniteDS continue to improve.

Either way, it is good to see both of these projects working to provide easy integration with an existing SpringWebMVC project. Adding new Flex functionality to existing Flex applications should be very painless.

admin originally posted this on EricDaugherty.com.

Up until today, my blog was hosted at http://www.ericdaugherty.com/blog using Blogger's FTP publishing service. This service uploaded html files to my GoDaddy hosting account whenever a new post was created. While it worked reasonably well, and I liked the control it provided (since I had a backup copy of my entire blog on my hosting site), it did have a few issues. While I was not excited about moving my blog, I understood Google's reasoning.

Google provides a 'Custom Domain' publishing option, allowing Google to host the blog using a DNS name that you own. In my case, I chose http://blog.ericdaugherty.com as my new custom domain name. I could not keep my current address because Custom Domain publishing does not support publishing to subdirectories.

My first step was to create the blog.ericdaugherty.com CNAME and point it to Google's hosting DNS name, ghs.google.com. I use GoDaddy as my registrar and DNS Server and the changes took effect almost immediately. To test, I opened the new address in the browser, and was greeted with a Google hosted page that stated 'Not Found'. Good so far.



Step two was to update my blogger configuration to use Custom Domain publishing with the blog.ericdaugherty.com CNAME. I also used the 'missing files' host option to host all of the pictures I'd uploaded previously. I used my existing host at www.ericdaugherty.com to host the missing files. I hit save and reloaded the site. It immediately loaded, but was missing all of the formatting and images. My template assumed it was being loaded from www.ericdaugherty.com, so the links to my images and style sheets were broken.

I also used some PHP includes to generate the common navigation blocks on my site, so I had to copy that code into my template as they were no longer hosted within the same server. After I made the appropriate changes to the template, the blog displayed correctly. However, the Blogger NavBar now appeared at the top of the blog. I followed the instructions I found at here, which boil down to adding this to my css file:

#navbar-iframe {
display: none !important;
}

I also noticed that my favicon was no longer showing. I added the following to my Blogger template to direct requests back to my main site:

<link href='http://www.ericdaugherty.com/favicon.ico' rel='shortcut icon'/>
<link href='http://www.ericdaugherty.com/favicon.ico' rel='icon'/<

I use FeedBurner to track my RSS subscribers, so I updated my FeedBurner settings to point to the new URL. If I had not used FeedBurner, I would have needed to add a redirect to my .htaccess file (see below).

Finally, I needed to add redirects from the existing site to the new location. I already had an .htaccess file for my existing site, so I edited the file to include new redirects. I already had my RewriteEngine turned on with:

RewriteEngine on

So I just needed to add the new rewrite rules using a 301 (permanent) redirect to notify any requesting agents (including search engines) that the content has been permanently moved. I also included a redirect for my old rss.xml file to the FeedBurner URL, to make sure anyone who had directly subscribed to the feed was instead using the FeedBurner version. Finally, I excluded the uploaded_images directory, as the hosted blogger site will still reference those images for the old blog posts.

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /blog/rss.xml [nc]
RewriteRule ^(.*) http://feeds.feedburner.com/EricDaugherty [r=301,nc]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/blog/uploaded_images/.*$
RewriteRule ^blog/(.*) http://blog.ericdaugherty.com/$1 [r=301,NC]

That's it. It took a bit of effort but wasn't too bad. If you are reading this post you, then the new settings are working. Let me know if you see any errors!

admin originally posted this on EricDaugherty.com.

A while ago I blogged about my frustration with my inability to exclude certain URLs from a url-pattern mapping. In short, I wanted to map everything except /static/* to a dispatch servlet.

There is a way to do this, in some servlet servers. Many (most, all?) servlet containers define a default servlet to handle static content. Be default, any unmapped URLs will be handled by the default servlet. However, you can explicitly map certain URLs to this default servlet, achieving a de-facto url-exclude pattern.

Here is an example:

<servlet-mapping>
 <servlet-name>default</servlet-name>
 <url-pattern>/static/*</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>

<servlet-mapping>
 <servlet-name>SpringMVCServlet</servlet-name>
 <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>

Where in this case, you have SpringMVCServlet defined in your web.xml, but not default. The default servlet definition is inherited from the servlet container.

The order shouldn't matter, as long as your mapping for the default servlet is more specific.

This is known to work in at least Jetty and Tomcat.

admin originally posted this on EricDaugherty.com.

Inventing a new device category is hard. If it wasn't, the category would probably already exist. So there should be no surprise that Apple's iPad announcement has yielded wildly different responses. Here is my take.

First, as the happy owner of a Kindle 2, buying a $499 media pad is something I can contemplate. The Kindle DX at $489 with the same sized screen becomes a very tough sell versus the entry level $499 iPad. I love my 6" Kindle, and while it is in a different league at $259, I would have to stop and think about whether I'd buy it again today. Now, about that iPad...

The iPad is not a mobile device in the same sense as your phone. You will not carry the device around in your pocket. It is not a big phone. Instead, it is something new. I see three usage scenarios for it.

1. It is a device you use at home to access media, and play games. Videos, Pictures, Books, and the web. It is a couch device, a bed device, a kitchen table device. When you get home from work, you can leave your laptop in your bag, and just use the iPad.

2. It is a laptop replacement on trips. Headed on a short business trip, or on vacation? Don't want to take your laptop, but don't want to be stuck reading your iPhone for a few days? The iPad is a great alternative. You can take a keyboard with and catch up on emails from your hotel, but have a small device to carry in your bag during the day to spend 15-30 minutes checking in throughout the day.

3. Business/Education - Developing specialized applications and using the iPad as a computing platform. Whether it is kids in schools reading their textbooks and doing homework or sales associates at the local retail outlet showing you color alternatives, there are tons of special purpose applications that can leverage a device in this category. And the rate of development of iPhone applications to date certainly makes this seem reasonable.

Personally, I think the non-3G versions are great alternatives, as I don't envision myself using a device like this out of Wi-Fi range. So the base model is actually very appealing, and at $499 is still somewhat reasonable. That said, I'm not going to run out and buy one on day one. But I can see the second version as a great replacement for my Kindle.

admin originally posted this on EricDaugherty.com.

Apple finally announced the Jesus Tablet iPad, launching what they believe to be a new device category. It remains to be seen whether they are correct (although I have my guesses), but the launch of the iPad has rekindled an existing fight between Apple and Adobe.

Apple refused to implement (or allow others to implement) Flash on the iPhone. John Gruber has written about this topic extensively over the past two years. He correctly (though not surprisingly) predicted that the iPad would not support Flash. I say not surprisingly, because all the reasons they had for not supporting Flash on the iPhone still exist for the iPad. OK, one reason: CONTROL. I won't rehash John's arguments, but the summary is, Apple wants to control the experience (and commerce) on the iPhone (iTouch, iPad, etc.), and Flash bypasses that control.

As a newer Apple 'fanboy' (I apprecited Gruber's take: 'There’s a whole class of recent switchers who define “Apple fanboy” as “anyone who’s been an enthusiastic Mac user since before I switched to the Mac”.'), I long avoided Apple because of their demand for control. But after dipping my toe in with iTunes and an Airport Express, I finally gave in and switched to a MacBook Pro and iPhone 3GS (and love them).

I've seen two very different points of view in the past 24 hours regarding Flash on the iPad. When my wife and I were talking about the iPad, I suggested that it could be an alternative to her 13" MacBook, as it does nearly everything she needs. She quickly pointed out that without Flash, it was unappealing to her. (The keyboard is also an issue, but that's a topic for another post).

The second point of view was a post on the Adobe blog by Adrian Ludwig. He pointed out the iPad's lack of Flash, some of the sites that will be unavailable to the iPad users, and that "50 of our partners in the Open Screen Project are working to enable developers and content publishers to deliver to any device". I thought it was a pretty good post from Adobe, pointing out their frustration in a reasonably neutral tone (given their obvious interests). I was a bit surprised by the comments. I didn't do a full tally, but I'd say 90% of the comments were anti-Flash. They complained about the state of Flash on the Mac, and already run Flash blockers on their desktop.

So I see two camps, the general users, who just want the websites to work, and the super users (blog readers) who have a negative perception of Flash and just want it to die. As someone who has built Flash applications, and enjoyed the process and results, I have a biased viewpoint. However, I also have the debug version of the Flash Player installed, so I see first hand how many uncaught exceptions there are in nearly every Flash application I see. There are tons of poorly written Flash applications deployed on the web.

In the end, Apple made the right choice for Apple. I have yet to see a major group of users who are likely iPad buyers in the next 12 months that are upset by the exclusion of Flash. The broader population who may eventually adopt the devices are simply not likely buyers in the short term anyway.

Apple is in a race against Flash. They are gaining huge marketshare in the mobile space, and pushing HTML 5 and the iPhone SDK as the chosen mobile development platforms. As the marketshare continues to grow, the 'Flash Only' sites will be forced to provide mobile or iPhone optimized versions to gain access to growing mobile user base.

We've seen this before. There was a point when web developers optimized their sites for IE 6 exclusively. Now there are websites that actively reject IE6 users, and focus their primary support on Firefox, Safari, and Chrome. This shift occurred because the users demanded it. They were fed up with IE and switched to alternative browsers, and the websites had to adjust or lose the traffic. Apple is attempting to do the same thing with Flash. If they can successfully build a mobile audience without Flash support, websites must respond.

I think HTML 5 and rich applications via plugins (Java FX, Silverlight, Flex) both have their place. Consumer facing high traffic sites should be HTML. The accessibility and SEO trade-offs are simply to great to justify using a plug-in RIA. For applications, whether they are corporate applications, games, or utilities, Flex, Java FX and Silverlight are great alternatives. They provide the benefits of the web deployment model with the power and speed of development of traditional languages.

Looking forward, high level rich languages (Java FX, Silverlight, and Flex) will merge with the increasing functionality of the underlying platform (JavaScript and HTML 5) to create high level languages that 'compile to the browser'. Google's GWT is a first generation example of this, but I believe there is much more to come. Eventually the debate over plug-in architectures will become moot.

The only question is, will it happen fast enough for Apple to avoid a user backlash?

Update: Gruber and Scoble appear to be making the same analogy to the changes Firefox forced on web developers.

admin originally posted this on EricDaugherty.com.

The Software Development profession is still a relatively immature profession. There are few real certifications and no real licensing processes that provide any realistic guide to an individual's competency. The landscape evolves quickly and covers a very broad spectrum of skills. These reasons make it difficult to map out a career path that will lead to the development of a complete Software Developer. In this article, I intend to lay out what I feel is a solid career outline for a Software Developer, and why each step is important.

It is important to note that this is not the path to be a competent developer, but to be an outstanding developer. The tools and resources available today make it possible for someone to achieve reasonable levels of successes with minimal levels of skill and education. Instead, this is a roadmap to become what I consider to be a complete developer. This includes more than just pure technical skills, but someone who can work with others to solve problems.

Education

A favorite movie quote of mine is from 'Die Hard':

"'And when Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer.' Benefits of a classical education." - Hans Gruber

While a Computer Science or Computer Engineering degree is not required to develop software, it can provide an understanding of the foundational elements on which everything else is built. Understanding both how a computer actually works, and the fundamentals of algorithms, data structures, and operating system design will provide a solid theoretical foundation for an entire career. I also believe it is important that the degree focuses on theory more than practice. A Computer Science degree that spends time teaching how to use Visual Studio or Eclipse may produce students who can be more effective in year 1, but does them a disservice in years 2-n.

The only other degree I've seen with some regularity provide individuals with a solid understanding is Physics. Even so, they have had to learn the fundamentals along the way. I guess with the Physics background, they probably understand everything at a much deeper level anyway.

Consulting

I believe that every new college graduate's first job should be with a consulting company. Not just any consulting company, but one large enough and experienced enough that it provides real training on how to be a Consultant, in addition to how to develop software. Consulting is a skill, and it is one that will pay dividends through an entire career.

Working at a consulting company will expose new Software Developers to a variety of technologies, business domains, and cultures. Ideally, the consulting company works in a variety of technologies and new consultants get an opportunity to work on projects across multiple languages/technologies/platforms.

Travel is not a requirement, but can provide some added benefits. From the simple worldly benefits of seeing different parts of the country, to business dinners with clients, where new developers can gain a real insight into how business gets done. You may also get to eat some great meals along the way as well.

Consulting also helps new developers learn to market themselves. Since consulting companies really sell the competency of their staff, and their 'unique process', developers will learn how to position their skills and experiences to demonstrate competence and credibility. After consulting for a while, every future job interviews will be much less stressful.

Ideally, spend 2-3 years broken up into six month projects across at least two different platforms (Java, .Net, etc.), and with at least one project in a different city.

This experience will do several things. First, it will teach new developers how to be a consultant. This includes everything from dressing professionally, to presenting ideas and concepts to non-technical customers, to understanding the business of selling services. Second, it provides a broad experience base while new developers are still young and impressionable. There are many different technologies and platforms out there, all taking different paths to solve problems. Seeing this diversity early insures that new developers do not become assimilated into the group think of a single platform or pattern. It is hard to work in different platforms like .Net and Ruby on Rails without developing a knowledge about how the underlying technologies work. Finally, new developers will also see the rich diversity of business and cultures across companies. It is an opportunity to learn the trade-offs of different business models and cultures, and how they impact the ability for software development teams to be effective.

Support

After spending some time in Consulting, it is time to move into a role where you can own and support a product. This can either be within an internal IT department, or for a Software as a Service company. A packaged software vendor provides many of these benefits but I believe that a critical part of this experience is 'carrying the pager', which packaged software usually avoids.

The key learning here is to own and support a system across several major releases. Building version 1.0 of an application as a consultant is very different from enhancing and maintaining an application across several minor and major releases. Being responsible (indirectly, if not directly) for the support and success of a production application is a critical learning experience.

Ownership is an important concept. This experience provides the ability for a new developer to really work on something over a long period and 'own' it. A developer can see the payoff of a bit of foresight or extra effort they put in 12 months ago. They can also feel the pain of taking shortcuts that were ill-advised. They can learn how those trade-offs work and begin to get a sense of when they are worthwhile.

In the end, working in IT or Engineering provides a different set of goals and drivers for Software Developers than Consulting can provide. These different goals force new developers to see software development through a different lens.

Performance and Scaling

The opportunities within most consulting and traditional IT/Engineering roles to really focus on high performance code and application scaling are limited. Within consulting, it is often a non-factor, as performance and scaling issues often do not appear until long after the initial deployment. Within IT/Engineering roles, there is often an opportunity to address issues, but only within the context of a single application and infrastructure.

Therefore, the next stop on the career path is Professional Services or other specialized consulting. Professional Service organizations often focus on providing extremely skilled resources for short periods to address critical issues. These can often focus on performance or scaling issues, and provide a great opportunity to gain exposure to a broad set of problems, architectures, technologies, and infrastructures. To be successful in this role, an individual needs both a deep understanding of the product they are supporting but also an understanding of how it fits into the greater ecosystem.

In a Professional Service or specialized consulting role, individuals often interact with very senior members of the customer's staff, allowing developers to gain experience and exposure to a individuals they may not traditionally interact with.

This type of experience provides an opportunity to solve a large number of very intense problems over a relatively short period of time. This provides a breadth of knowledge about how the different types of major systems in production, and the problems that they face. It also allows developers to build an impressive network of contacts across a broad range of companies.

What's Missing?

As a career outline, I believe this is a great start, but it is probably incomplete. There are many other valuable experiences that an aspiring Software Developer should experience. Some of these can be done in parallel with the above outline, others may be additional steps.

• Build a product - Whether it is an Open Source application, shareware, or a commercial application, build something from scratch that other people will use. Interact with your user base and understand the challenges that product managers face.
• Manage a team - Lead a team. Learn the interpersonal skills necessary to manage a team, and learn the leadership skills and qualities necessary to rally a disparate group of individuals into a team.
• Work for a startup - As a side project or part of your career path, understand how a small company can often achieve more than a much larger firm.
• Work for a Fortune 500 Company - In a consulting role or as an employee, understand how the right decision for an organization isn't always the right decision for an individual team or group, and the political and interpersonal issues that this can create.
• Learn - Learn a new language every year, at least. Learn a new framework, pattern or approach ever quarter, at least. Understand how things work on the other side of the fence, you'll be amazed at how it can change your perspective.
• Mentor - Learn to help others grow. If you can't teach someone else how to do it, you probably don't understand it well yourself.
• Build your Network - It is a small world. You will run into folks again and again. The impression you make on them as a junior developer may be important a decade later.
  
• Maintain your Network - Keep in touch with as many people as you can. Reach out to them and help them as much as possible. It will pay off.
  

Go Forth and Create

Now, focus on your passion. You have the background necessary to learn any new technology, solve any problem, and effectively communicate with others. It is time to focus on what you are passionate about, and become a leader in your chosen field.