develpreneur podcast
Posted on The Interviews Season

Mentor Relationships – Timothy Stratton Interview Part 5

The last part of the series in the Tim Stratton interview goes into how he got here and touches on mentor relationships.  While we stick to the specifics, there are some valuable generalizations to take away from it.  We saved the best for last as we wrap up our time with Tim. Mentor Relationships Change We briefly dropped the idea that Timothy has had multiple mentors throughout his life.  It is important to note that these have to do with the stage of life we are in.  I think most of us know that a childhood mentor is not going to necessarily help us as an adult.  However, it is important to remember that as we move through our careers. ... Read more

develpreneur podcast
Posted on The Interviews Season

A Better Manager – Tim Stratton Interview

This episode of our interview with Timothy Stratton delves into experiences and how to be a better manager.  We compare notes on what has worked for us and traits of those we seek to emulate.  While the focus is on developer managers, there are many general suggestions as well. The Better Manager Summary There are many traits of a good manager.  We hit on the more generalized of these in our discussion.  These come from our experience as a manager and being managed.  We started our careers as developers and think we have some good insights into managing developers because of that foundation.  It is easy to do the things that you found to be positives when the roles were... Read more

develpreneur podcast
Posted on The Interviews Season

Interview With Timothy Stratton – Continuing Education

We continue our discussion with Timothy Stratton with a dive into continuing education and how to keep up in the fast-moving world.  There are always job responsibilities to address that keep our time at a premium.  We talk about finding ways to stay up-to-date and the cost of this career path. The Cost of Continuing Education Let’s start with the bad news.  There are only so many hours in the day, and that means we have to trade off other pursuits for our careers.  However, it is not all bad.  The things that Timothy mentions as giving up can always be reviewed later.  You may not watch as much television or go to the movies, but you can do that... Read more

develpreneur podcast
Posted on The Interviews Season

Timothy Stratton Interview Part 2 – The Value of Higher Education

Part two of our series of interviews with Timothy Stratton looks at his early years.  He started with a focus on higher education.  That worked well for him, but not directly because of his studies.  We explore how the journey taught him more than the academic focus. A Little Background Timothy is a software development manager at XSolis with a strong development background.  He has a master’s degree and a love for learning.  We gave some details in part one, but dig deeper into how his career started and how those steps lead to success today. Higher Education Side Effects The value of a degree is often noted as coming from the work done more than the learning itself.  Timothy... Read more

develpreneur podcast
Posted on The Interviews Season

Timothy Stratton Interview Part 1 – Starting a New Project

We start the next interview with an introduction to Timothy Stratton.  He is an experienced developer moving into a role as a manager.  This episode focuses on starting a new project and how to ramp up to new technologies. A Little Background Timothy is a software development manager at XSolis with a strong development background.  He has a master’s degree and a love for learning.  We will cover those in the interview, so no spoilers here. Starting A New Project We often have a new project to start.  That can be a new job, a new product, or learning a new language.  In each of these cases, we must first plot a path to go from little or no knowledge... Read more

develpreneur podcast
Posted on The Interviews Season

Trevor Ewen Part 4 – Extending Code

We wrap up the Trevor Ewen interview series with a discussion of building libraries and extending code.  While this is often a necessity, there are different ways it can be done to help separate your code from the core or to safely build on it.  Your desired approach will vary by application and the customers involved. Extending Code Safely There is often a right way and a wrong way to extend code.  We need to do this in a way that allows us to incorporate updates to the foundational source and not break our extensions.  It is also helpful to refactor extensions into using core functionality as libraries evolve.  Every tool and platform handles these “hooks” differently.  Therefore, we need... Read more