Project managers seem to have a myth that the human brain works like a computer – where it can align priorities in a list and work on the issues in that order. Adding more developers to the project should work like parallel processors – they all respect the priority list and work on issues in parallel in order of importance.

The problem is that the human brain does not work that way. It decides what it wants to work on, makes it’s own judgement of it’s value, and makes it’s own decision. Realistically – this falls into one of two categories: needs to be done, can wait. This is why Getting Things Done (GTD) systems have a concept of things that need to be done today, and things that need to be done next.

Read more over at Hoth

Now that I’ve left my agency — I don’t really have any peers to teach any more. No more weekly status meetings or large teams of junior developers. But I’d still love to keep teaching — and so I’m writing this post in the hopes that I can get back into that. My colleagues and I over at entp are looking to start up some small training sessions for people — anything ranging from general design principles to the internals of how Rails works.

Topic Areas

We’ve got some seriously smart people working at ENTP, so the topics we cover are pretty broad. We’ve got Ruby experts. We’ve got Rails experts. We’ve got Cocoa experts. We’ve got Javascript experts — we love what we do, and so we’re always working with new technologies. We’ve also got core committers on the team — the actual people who have written code for Rails & Prototype. Who better to teach you than the people who wrote the code? Right now on our list of topics are the following:

• Ruby and Rails end-to-end
• Javascript, DOM Scripting, AJAX
• Web Application design principles
• (X)HTML, CSS & Standards-based development
• Distributed version control (Git)

Credentials

Between the dozen or so employees of ENTP, we’ve got people who have written books, published magazines, spoken at conferences and even organized a few conferences (and unconferences!) too. We’ve been working with the web for over a decade, and have been hacking on Rails since it was originally open sourced. You’d struggle to find a more qualified group of people to teach your team application design & development.

Great, where do I start?

Just head on over to the training page or get in touch with us with any questions you might have. Of course you’re always free to get in touch with me personally as well (kneath@gmail.com).

OS X Leopard comes with just about everything you need to get going on a local development environment. Apache is already installed and ready to go. Just add in your flavor of mods (mod_rails, mod_php, mod_python, etc) and you’ve got a nice local development environment setup. But for me, 90% of the time I want just a quick way to test out an HTML site — something Apache is just fine at. Instead of going overboard with apps like Headdress, MAMP, etc — I just whipped up a quick shell script.

Throw this puppy into somewhere like /usr/local/bin/vhostit and you can setup virtual hosts in no time flat (remember to use sudo when executing this command). Go to the directory with your html, type in vhostit sample.dev, then go to your browser and type in http://sample.dev and you’ll see your site. Nice and simple. No extra applications. Just Apache and some good old shell scripting.

Aside: if you’re looking for a painless rails environment I really cannot recommend Passenger PrefPane enough. Seriously — if you develop with rails and aren’t using this, you’re adding unnecessary pain into your workflow.

1. It forces you to write code

Going back to my my amazing CSS tip, in order to best improve your skills in anything you must do. Contributing to open source forces you to do instead of talking about doing.

2. It forces you to write code for other people

It’s easy to write bad code. I see it happen every day. Deadlines, conflicting syntactical styles, and the idea that no one else will really look at the code results in ugly hacky code. When you don’t think anyone else is going to look at your code, it’s easy to think “It doesn’t need to look good, it just needs to work.” But when contributing to open source, people will be looking at your code — and that thought is always in the back of your head. It’s just like cleaning your room while your mom is watching you — you have to do it right, without any shortcuts.

4. It forces you to document your code

I’ve found that documenting your code is a very hard thing to do in a work environment. I’m not talking about code comments — I’m talking about practical, day-to-day how to use this piece of code documentation. But when you’re dealing with open source software, you have to document your code if you expect others to actually use it.

5. It allows your peers to review your work and offer suggestions

Code reviews are a great thing. It’s why so many “agile” development companies are increasingly moving wards Pair Programming. However, in most development firms, most code goes completely unreviewed (unless someone else needs to fix a bug in your code). But when you release Open Source code, you’re implicitly asking everyone to review your changes and comment on them.

You can see this in public now that we have the awesome Github. Just take a look at the activity stream for a popular project like Prototype or Rails and you’ll see people weighing their opinions in on almost every commit — just like this one. Many times these comments end up producing better code in later versions. Small bugs or performance gains that the original author overlooked.

Why aren’t you contributing?

So why aren’t you contributing to Open Source already? I know that I am. There’s no requirements — you don’t even need to fill a need or come up with a better solution than someone else — just a solution you’d like to explore. Who knows, maybe your ideas can be applied to someone else’s project, or it’ll take off and become wildly popular. Go fork something today

Introducing Select Autocompleter

So I decided to polish off some old code I had, package it up as a nice MooTools plugin. A few hours later, I pushed Select Autocompleter to github. You can see a working example here.

Examples of Select Autocompleter in action

Basically, SelectAutocompleter is a way to handle the problem of having many items in a <select>. It also allows you a way to cheaply have rich combo boxes (say you want to show a user’s avatar next to their name).

Everything good about HTML

SelectAutocompleter is everything that I think is good about HTML. It embraces custom attributes for meta data (check out the rich list example). It degrades back to a regular <select> in the case users don’t have Javascript. And it submits forms just as if there was a <select> still on the page.

Everything good about Javascript

SelectAutocompelter is also everything that I think rocks about Javascript. It’s pretty well tested using JSSpec. It uses MooTools. It publishes events (using the MooTools Event class mixin) on focus and on blur so you can extend it nicely. It uses an extremely flexible templating language that allows you to not only pass in arbitrary data for templating, but pass in arbitrary HTML markup as well. it also doesn’t force any styles on you — that’s what CSS is for.

It listens to the keyboard and the mouse wisely and feels just like a native OS widget should. You can use your arrow keys, your letter keys, and move the mouse around all at the same time. Thanks to MooTools extremely flexible event system, this is all pretty well tested as well.

Anyways — hope you have fun playing with it. It’s not 100% tested yet, and I know the CSS has some issues in IE6 still that I need to iron out — but the functionality should work in IE6, IE7, Firefox 2/3, Safari 2/3.

Example Page | Download | Browse Source

But I am sorely disappointed in the quality of the rendering engine. Almost every site I visited had problems in Chrome. Which for as many good ideas Chrome brings to the table — is equivalent to about 50 huge steps backwards.

We’ve come to a point in browser maturity that passing 99% of layout tests just isn’t that impressive any longer. That 1% will still be broken. And you’ll inevitably run into that 1% over and over again (good old Murphy’s Law in action). As a web developer who makes websites every day, I am more frustrated with real-world rendering problems (such as rendering border-radii accurately) than engineering-world problems like the Acid3 test.

But Chrome is just in beta, right? Calling a browser ‘beta’ is great for fielding “It doesn’t work right…” questions from people. But it doesn’t stop the fact that people will download and use the browser. Gmail is still in beta. But thousands of people use it daily. If it breaks, people complain. Any (rendering) bugs that exist will be blamed on the websites, not the browser. People use the internet, not browsers.

And the scary part to me is that there’s enough compelling reasons for the Average Joe to use Chrome that it may actually have a chance at eating away some market share.

So, here I am, web developer. I’ve now got yet another browser to test things on. What it signals to me is the return of This site is best viewed on… statements that were so popular back in the day. Am I really going to test all my sites in Firefox 2, Firefox 3, Safari 2, Safari 3, IE6, IE7, IE8, and Google Chrome next year?

Magic 8-ball says very doubtful

I don’t care

Generally speaking, if I am not interested in your letter. If I’m unhappy with my job situation I am looking elsewhere. I’m not sitting around waiting for a recruiter to hit me up. So know this. Realize I’m probably not lured by generic empty promises. If you want me to care about something I don’t — make it sound interesting! Also make it short and to the point. Three paragraphs of bullshit will just make me click delete that much faster.

Competitive salaries

Everyone has competitive salaries. Just ask them. Give me a range or don’t say anything at all.

Such an awesome company I can’t tell you

About 90% of recruitment letters fail to mention the company. They do mention how amazing the company is, what kind of innovative work they do, etc. But never any names! What gives guys? It’s going to be one of the first questions if I ever talk to you, so why not just tell me? Not like you’ll be able to hide it until the interview.

Also note that start-up stock is worthless. “Actively looking to be acquired” doesn’t mean anything. All start-ups are looking to be acquired. Employees have to judge a pre-IPO’s stock for themselves. You can’t tell them how valuable it is.

Fail and win

Here’s a failed letter:

I am working with an up and coming company, backed by top tier VC’s looking to add talented actionscript and javascript programmers to their team. They are the leader in their space and in a prime position to be bought or acquired, making their pre-IPO stock very valuable. Their engineering team is immensely talented and they offer a great working environment with full benefits and future growth opportunities.

Why don’t I like it?

• The letter reeks of bullshit. Top-tier VCs. Leaders in space. Prime position. Growth opportunies. Bullshit.
• What company? Such a leader they can’t tell me?
• Full benefits is such a lie in this modern world. Health? Dental? Vision? Life Insurance? 401k matching? Maternity leave? Paternity Leave? What benefits?
• I don’t even know if this company is in my state, let alone what city.

And here’s a winning letter:

Hi Kyle,

Would you know of any one with advanced javascript skills particulary object oriented javascript who might consider a contract position with Yahoo in the bay area, CA?

Why do I like it?

• They tell me what they’re looking for
• They tell me where they want
• They don’t actually ask me (since I have a job), but rather ask if I know anyone. (Great tactic to keep uninterested people interested)

Recruiting people is hard

The lesson I’ve learned is that recruiting people is hard. But most recruiters seem to think it’s as easy as casting a few lines of bait into the water and wait for the fish to bite. The most successful recruitment tactics I’ve seen have been from people who slowly massage the subjects. Don’t jump right in, try some foreplay. Show them some cool stuff your company has been working on. Get to know them. See how their current employment situation is and see what you can do to improve upon it.

Remember that the best recruitment subjects are happy at their current jobs. The ones that are desperate enough to reply to your form letter are probably lacking in some form. Smart recruitment gets you smart employees. Dumb recruitment gets you dumb employees.

1. Take as many AP classes as you can in High School

Who needs those dumb ass lower-level classes anyway? It’s all your friends talk about. Blah blah blah, something stupid happened in English today. Blah blah blah, I totally got this chick’s phone number in Math. Blah blah blah… you did the right decision though, you skipped out on all these lower level classes. Sure, none of your Physics or Chemistry classes carried over, and it took three AP English classes to counter-act one college English class, and your AP History and Political Science classes only counted for half of college-level classes… but you did the right thing. Right?

I mean, you passed elven AP exams. And for that you were able to skip out on three and a half of the easiest classes of your college career. Those easy classes where you get time to meet people and study with the cute girl on the other side of the dorm. Totally lame.

2. Take only the classes required for your degree

College is all about getting through as fast as you possibly can. That means no extra classes that you might think are interesting. It’s best to just focus solely on classes that will get you your degree, then get out as fast as possible. You laugh as you graduate a year ahead of schedule and move out to LA where you don’t know anyone. All your loser friends are still stuck back at college, learning things and killing brain cells.

3. Choose a career in your original major at all costs

When you first applied to colleges your Senior year of High School, they made you choose a major right then and there. You studied the descriptions of majors, told yourself you knew what it was like and that was it. Done. Finito. Therefore you should keep going with that major no matter the cost. Furthermore, even if you are offered a great job that you enjoy doing outside your major after graduation, you should definitely turn it down. A single decision made by your seventeen year old self should definitely shape your entire life.

4. Get straight A’s

All companies care about is GPA. In fact, I’ve heard that 93.2% of companies use your GPA as a salary multiplier in hiring negotiations. That’s why you have to try so hard to get nothing but A’s in all of your classes. One B will in fact ruin your entire career for the rest of your life.

5. Move off-campus by yourself as fast as possible

Roommates suck. Noise sucks. People suck. That’s why the best plan of action is to move off campus as fast as you possibly can, and definitely find a studio by yourself in some quiet neighborhood. It’s the practical thing to do. You need quiet for your studies and you can’t be bothered by your drunk friend knocking on your door at 10pm. You’ll still socialize, sure. People will call you all the time and come over and pick you up. But on your schedule, not theirs.

6. Spend $40,000 a year on tuition, but $1,000 a year on personal expenses

Loans suck. That’s why you’ve got to save every dime. Forget going to dinner with your friends. (That’ll cost at least $10!). That $40k/year on tution? That’s fine. But it’s those dime-by-dime expenses you’ve got to skimp out on. Over the course of your entire college career you could end up increasing the amount of your loans by like 5%! Not having fun at all is totally worth that extra savings.

What’s yours might not be yours

Let’s imagine for a moment: A few years ago you graduated college and landed an awesome job at some slick agency as a copywriter. Upon getting hired, you immediately spent your first day filling out more paperwork than a congressman’s intern. In the midst of this paperwork was some page about inventions or some such, but you didn’t really think it mattered. You signed it.

Last year you started writing down your thoughts about copywriting on your own blog after hours. On your own computers. On your own internet. By some miracle, a well-off pacific islander approached you last month and offered a total of $300 million for your blog.

Unfortunately, it all fell through because he found out that your agency owns your work, not you. That includes this blog. That’s what that inventions page was all about. Shit.

What’s yours might not be yours. Many employers have completely unreasonable non-compete & IP ownership contracts. Some go so far as to claim any rights to any creative works you come up with during your employment. In a sense, they actively discourage you from broadening your skillset or enjoying what you do. (Fearful employees make good employees).

But it really is

Okay, I’ll scale back on that last example. Keep in mind that US courts actually do try and serve justice. There is little chance that any court would actually grant your agency rights to your blog if it indeed had little to do with your job. Additionally, most contract wording can be beat if a “reasonable person” wouldn’t have read, understood, and agreed to such a thing. US Law is a tricky thing. It’s all about precedents and arguments. Not exactly black & white.

But relying on those kind of assumptions is a little like putting on a bullet proof jacket and having your friend shoot you with a blindfold on. It’s far from foolproof.

Wouldn’t it be nice

• Wouldn’t it be nice if you could post every piece of creative work you’ve done to your portfolio?
• Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just make things for yourself without worry who owns it?
• Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just create and not worry?

These are things I constantly think about. The programmer who goes home and hacks on his own social network is far more likely to be more productive and educated at his 9-5 job than the programmer who goes home to a case full of Miller High-Life. But the way IP law is setup right now, if his social network ever became profitable, he’d most likely run into all kinds of problems. The law discourages initiative and personal development for creative professionals (yes, programmers are creative professionals as well).

Ramble on

Intellectual Property. We’re talking about ideas here. How can you put a price on a thought? On a an idea? How can you put a price on knowledge itself? Only lawmakers seem to be able to answer these questions. They package ideas up like a plate of brownies, ready to split up and devour during the next Board of Directors meeting.