Contracting. FO.
Actually got some stuff done at work today. Amazing how they actually found some things for me to do once I told them I was leaving. Hrmph.
Actually most of what I was doing today was passing information off to coworkers so that they wouldn't be completely lost once I was gone. Which I really didn't have to do, honestly, because my boss (and his boss, actually) told me that they'd love to have me do some contract work on the side after I leave if I'm interested. Now, my two primary complaints that drove me to leave were a) there was rarely anything for me to do, and b) my boss really needed to not be my direct manager. Neither of these is an issue if I'm doing contract work because a) with contract work they'll (presumably) only contact me if they have a fairly concrete task for me to accomplish, and b) while I may take some sort of direction from the former boss, he's no longer my supervisor, which is really where I had trouble with him.
So I figure, sure, I could use the extra money. I've got bills to pay. Savings to bolster. Computer parts to write off as office expenses. And honestly, I've sorta been wondering how to break into contracting anyway. Being able to pick my own hours sounds really nice, and I think I'm responsible enough to manage it. And the possibility of having some variety in contract jobs has a certain brain-appeal. It'll certainly keep my on my toes and learning new things, which I always like. The disadvantage, of course, is that with a full-time job and some part-time contracting on the side, I will have remarkably little time of my own. We'll see how that works out.
So anyway, one friend directed me to The Contract Employee's Handbook, which I've been reading and learning from. (Thanks bheansidhe via shaddragon!) If anyone else has any other pointers for a beginning contract-worker, I'd love to hear 'em. In particular, I'm going to need to start keeping much more careful track of my finances, so if anyone can recommend (or warn against!) some Linux-based financial tracking software, I'd be much obliged.
Of course, it's also possible that he'll never call me. We'll see.
Anyway, so the last thing I was playing with at work today was XSL. Specifically, some weeks ago I noticed that there was no bug tracking. At all. None. I didn't have time to get a formal tracking database up and running, so I filled the gap with a simple XML file in subversion (which they also weren't using when I got there). But you can't really present a raw XML bug database to Important People, so a week or two ago I went ahead and wrote an XSLT stylesheet to transform the bug XML to XHTML. I already know both reasonably well, so this wasn't a major chore. To fill time recently, I've been writing another stylesheet, this time to convert the buglist to XSL-FO.
That one I don't know so well. I wrestled with it a month or two ago to get my resume in happy, printable form. I can't really say I won per se, but it was at least a tie. I won the field, but the war was still a stalemate: I had something printable, but didn't really completely understand how I'd gotten it. We recapped with a smaller battle when I wrote my resignation letter. That one I actually wrote directly in raw FO. And it worked. And I understood it. Sure it was a simple document, but it was a clear victory for me.
So the past day or two I've been working under the excuse of improving the PDF report (using apache fop to convert from FO to PDF), and I've been reading the XSL-FO spec. Carefully. There's some crazy-deep shit in there. It gets very abstract. Multi-language text layout is infinitely more complex than anybody ever thinks it is at first. And most of it really is essential complexity. Which (trying to stay on-topic here) makes for a very difficult spec. But I've been slogging through it, building up my supply lines and refining my strategy for future battles against this Great Enemy. And I think I'm making progress. Now that I've been through not only some bashing my head against the wall but also some actual success, the previously obtuse-seeming spec is starting to make some sense. Things are starting to fall into place. So I'm happy.
And who knows. Maybe soon the former employer will pay me exorbitant contracting fees to update and extend the XSL-driven PDF reports for the buglist. That'd be pretty nifty. I wonder if he'll have corrected his misspelling of "vender" (sic) by then.
Last day as a permanent employee there tomorrow. Then it's on to play with the big boys at ISS/IBM. Wish me luck!
(LJ Spellchecker Genius of the Day: XSLT -> SLUT)
Actually most of what I was doing today was passing information off to coworkers so that they wouldn't be completely lost once I was gone. Which I really didn't have to do, honestly, because my boss (and his boss, actually) told me that they'd love to have me do some contract work on the side after I leave if I'm interested. Now, my two primary complaints that drove me to leave were a) there was rarely anything for me to do, and b) my boss really needed to not be my direct manager. Neither of these is an issue if I'm doing contract work because a) with contract work they'll (presumably) only contact me if they have a fairly concrete task for me to accomplish, and b) while I may take some sort of direction from the former boss, he's no longer my supervisor, which is really where I had trouble with him.
So I figure, sure, I could use the extra money. I've got bills to pay. Savings to bolster. Computer parts to write off as office expenses. And honestly, I've sorta been wondering how to break into contracting anyway. Being able to pick my own hours sounds really nice, and I think I'm responsible enough to manage it. And the possibility of having some variety in contract jobs has a certain brain-appeal. It'll certainly keep my on my toes and learning new things, which I always like. The disadvantage, of course, is that with a full-time job and some part-time contracting on the side, I will have remarkably little time of my own. We'll see how that works out.
So anyway, one friend directed me to The Contract Employee's Handbook, which I've been reading and learning from. (Thanks bheansidhe via shaddragon!) If anyone else has any other pointers for a beginning contract-worker, I'd love to hear 'em. In particular, I'm going to need to start keeping much more careful track of my finances, so if anyone can recommend (or warn against!) some Linux-based financial tracking software, I'd be much obliged.
Of course, it's also possible that he'll never call me. We'll see.
Anyway, so the last thing I was playing with at work today was XSL. Specifically, some weeks ago I noticed that there was no bug tracking. At all. None. I didn't have time to get a formal tracking database up and running, so I filled the gap with a simple XML file in subversion (which they also weren't using when I got there). But you can't really present a raw XML bug database to Important People, so a week or two ago I went ahead and wrote an XSLT stylesheet to transform the bug XML to XHTML. I already know both reasonably well, so this wasn't a major chore. To fill time recently, I've been writing another stylesheet, this time to convert the buglist to XSL-FO.
That one I don't know so well. I wrestled with it a month or two ago to get my resume in happy, printable form. I can't really say I won per se, but it was at least a tie. I won the field, but the war was still a stalemate: I had something printable, but didn't really completely understand how I'd gotten it. We recapped with a smaller battle when I wrote my resignation letter. That one I actually wrote directly in raw FO. And it worked. And I understood it. Sure it was a simple document, but it was a clear victory for me.
So the past day or two I've been working under the excuse of improving the PDF report (using apache fop to convert from FO to PDF), and I've been reading the XSL-FO spec. Carefully. There's some crazy-deep shit in there. It gets very abstract. Multi-language text layout is infinitely more complex than anybody ever thinks it is at first. And most of it really is essential complexity. Which (trying to stay on-topic here) makes for a very difficult spec. But I've been slogging through it, building up my supply lines and refining my strategy for future battles against this Great Enemy. And I think I'm making progress. Now that I've been through not only some bashing my head against the wall but also some actual success, the previously obtuse-seeming spec is starting to make some sense. Things are starting to fall into place. So I'm happy.
And who knows. Maybe soon the former employer will pay me exorbitant contracting fees to update and extend the XSL-driven PDF reports for the buglist. That'd be pretty nifty. I wonder if he'll have corrected his misspelling of "vender" (sic) by then.
Last day as a permanent employee there tomorrow. Then it's on to play with the big boys at ISS/IBM. Wish me luck!
(LJ Spellchecker Genius of the Day: XSLT -> SLUT)