Code Improvement

2010 will be a great year and I’m sure that my life will change dramatically. I have a whole bunch of ideas and things I want to do.  Here is a list of my “professional goals”.

Become an expert with ASP.NET MVC.

Ever since I first heard of ASP.NET MVC, I knew I should become proficient in it. But I can’t control the type of project I’m working on, so I neglected to do my homework and stay up to date.

Get some more experience with web design (CSS, XHTML)

A big gap to fill. I’ve made some progress but still not able to do it efficiently. I will probably pick up some books and try to design web site from scratch just for gun.

Write a jQuery plugin.

I have some ideas of plugins that haven’t made it to general release. This year, I will definitely launch one to have a real experience with launching an open source project and responding to feedback.

One contribution to an open-source project.

Something else than the jQuery plugin mentioned earlier. I have made some “improvement” to BlogEngine.Net and maybe I will submit them some changes I’ve made.

At least 100 blog posts and 100 feed reader.

95 posts to go and around 50 more readers. Completely feasible. I also picked some tips while I had a complete lack of posts for some month and I am now ready to apply them.

GTD

I need to finish Getting Things Done and try it for some months. A goal that I really need to complete this year.

Get back into the shape of my life.

I took some weight since the wedding in October 2009 and I can now see how it affect my health. So I am ready to take care of this again. It may not looks like a professional goal but I’m sure It will have a big impact in the end.

I was thinking about this for a while. If I have to choose five peoples who have influenced me the most concerning my career, who would that be?

1. My first supervisor when I was a wielder.

This guy once said to me that I would never do anything more than wielding in my life and if it wasn't for my father, he would have fired me for nothing. I promised him that It will not happen. Four years later, I was the leader of a small team in the company. Take that...

2. Bernard Voyer.

A famous explorator that I met when I was in school. He believed in his dream and have conquered the Everest, South Pole, North Pole and a lot of hard to reach places. He his just a normal person who gave everything he had to make his dream true.

3. The ASP.NET guy.

I don't remember his name , but it's shortly after I finished school. He had just completed a Microsoft Certification in ASP.NET. This is where I first heard the term MCSD and I promised myself I would be one (even though I had no idea what it was at that time). 2 years later, February 7 2006 at almost 9:00 PM, I was one. I learned all by myself with the help of some books and the requirement list on MSDN. It just felt incredible. Even if I'm no longer in the world of certification, I'm still very proud of it.

4. Scott Hanselman.

First blog ever that I have put in my RSS aggregator. I'm following him since a long time and he inspired me a lot. It's because of him that I am a blogger. He's coming to the .NET User Group of Québec next week and I can't wait to meet him.

5. Jean-Paul Boodhoo

Never met the man. I first heard of him in an episode on DnrTv about design patterns. It seem he has a lot passion... If you have never heard of him, head here. I wish I was as passionate as him. I am, but he his more :).

This was my top 5 of the peoples who had the most impact on me. But I want to talk about a 6th person. He probably don't want me to talk about him so I will not give any name. Before meeting him, I was already into Agile development. But he taught me a lot about other aspect of the methodology. Everything that can't be learn in a book to be more precise. But thing haven't got very well at some point and after a lot of different events we lost touch. Anyway, I am very recognizing to have worked with him.

Last week, I have left my job at bxsystems. I had an opportunity that I could not refuse. I have worked for 3 years and 8 months with the most talented peoples I ever encountered. They are great professionals and I am sure they will continue to be successful in their careers. This is where all started for me, where I started to get passionate about programming. I had a lot of freedom and a lot of learning opportunities.

I am very grateful for everything. For a beginner, it could not be a better place. Thank you!