Dystopian Paradise

I attended Gary Hoover’s presentation on the “History of Retail” last night and there was one thought he expressed that really jumped out at me. He said something to the effect of

“There are no new ideas anymore, only new combinations of existing thoughts.”

His examples were rooted in the retail world for this presentation, looking at how Sears, JC Penneys, and so many others had built on the backs of giants by doing what was in affect a social experiment.

“What would happen if we allowed shoppers to come in and look around, with no recourse if they didn’t purchase anything today?” “Could we sell just a few items, at a low margin, in small one-man stores and be profitable?” “What if we included public restrooms in our stores?”

These are just a few of the types of thoughts some of the titans of 20th century industry had along the way. So, I’ve been mulling that over in my head since last night and it occurred to me that in programming there’s a strong correlation. There are very rarely new ideas for how to create software, only the application of existing principles in new combinations.

So now it’s got me thinking…where else does this theory apply?

Tonight, for the first night since Saturday, the day “Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows” arrived I’ll be in bed before midnight. Not much before midnight mind you, but still, it’s progress.  In previous years when I received the latest installment of the Potter franchise I would be known to read until the ultra-wee hours of the morning and cram as much in as possible over the weekend it dropped.  This year has been a bit different of course, what with the new baby & new job.  I’m not quite through with the book yet, but I have definitely crossed the 50% threshold, and there was never any choice of turning back.  I’ve added Harry Potter to my now reading list, with the full intention that I will probably finish the book by the end of the week.
For a quick update on the new job, things couldn’t be better.  I’ve been given some time to come up to speed on their version control, build, and other processes, meanwhile having a project that would give me the ability to inspect a large amount of code, and change relatively little.  I feel pretty comfortable with the tool now, and I’m looking forward to some more challenging work.  Tomorrow (Wednesday) is code freeze, so I’ll be pushing a bit tomorrow afternoon to make sure one last, very small tweak (changing some user permissions), makes the cut, but shouldn’t have to burn the midnight oil by any means.  That is a far cry from every other release I’ve worked over the past year, and from what I can make of the process the testing and move to production should be similarly controlled and orderly.

Leaving a stable job, and setting out into uncharted waters is quite daunting. After four years of (more or less) the same commute, turning the other direction onto the highway yesterday morning seemed as if I was defiantly choosing to go somewhere besides work.  As I walked up to the entrance, it felt like I had taken a day off and was going to run an errand, a doctors visit, or something of the like.  It’s been strange to learn new build, & deployment processes, when I had known the others so well.  It feels odd to be in a position where I need others to help me do the most basic of things, when I had been on the other side of the wall for so terribly long.  To be fair, it’s only been two days, and the truth of the matter is this feels great.  It’s all at once disconcerting and exhilirating.  I’m learning so much and there’s still so much left to learn.

I’ve told many people in person, but a week ago today I gave my two week notice that I’ll be leaving National Instruments.  I’ll miss NI as I’ve had a very good time these past four years there.  I have learned a lot about programming, but I have learned even more about business and I look forward to learning even more at my new job.

Later this month I’ll be starting as a Senior Java Developer at Bazaarvoice, a small startup in the advertising industry.  They are headquartered here in Austin.  Actually their current office is even closer to my house than NI is.  I’m excited about the opportunities.  I’ll be getting to learn several new technology stacks to go along with Java, specificially Spring and Hibernate.  Additionally, I’ll be working with several programmers who are clearly very skilled and practiced, and I have a lot I feel I can learn from them.  Additionally, I have several friends who are already working at Bazaarvoice, and it will be very fun to reconnect with them in this new environment.