Reflecting on 8 months of full-time self-study

I've been in an "involuntary" sabbatical. When I left the company I'd been at for over a quarter-century (mostly as a manager, but very technical), I immediately ran into "Go away, old man. Nobody wants you."

It was pretty jarring, insulting, and humiliating, but what really happened, was I got upset.

When I get upset, I get busy (paraphrased from "Back to School").

Fortunately, I have the means to set up my own company (I actually have 2), and I have spent the last couple of years ferociously focused on working full-time to write software, using the most modern and relevant techniques for my chosen direction (Apple tech -I've been writing Apple software since 1986).

It's working well. I haven't lost a thing, in over thirty years of software development. In fact, I seem to learn much faster, these days, than I ever did, when I was younger. I suspect that all the context I have makes picking up new stuff easier.

I've been building (actually, just organizing and adding to) a HUGE portfolio, with six figures of lines of code, in dozens of repos, spanning at least a decade (although I also reference my first engineering project, from 1987), hundreds of pages of documentation, dozens of articles and essays, and a number of deployed and shipping solutions.

I've learned to work alone very well, indeed (I spent my entire career in HUGE heterogenous teams; spread around the globe). That was one of the things I was afraid I wouldn't be able to master.

The difference in productivity is staggering. I often get more done by 8:30AM, than I used to get done all day as a corporate software developer (I get up early, and close my green ring by 6AM).

I tend to be all about "Get Stuff Done." I like theory and experimentation, but I've been writing shipping software my entire career, so that's the direction I've picked. I heard a guy once say "The #1 feature of the project is SHIPPING."

Working alone has forced me to keep the scope humble, which has worked out, after I learned to adjust my project plans. The biggest coefficient for me has always been quality. I like to think of myself as a craftsman. I get special joy from writing high-quality software.

One of the biggest lessons that I've taught myself was how to be very, very flexible (I call it "ultra-agile"). My corporate background was Victoria Falls (REAL Waterfall). I have been yearning to break free of that yoke for decades.

Working alone has allowed me to explore an evolutionary design and construction process that has, so far, worked fairly well.

The story is still very much unfolding, and we'll see how it goes. I still have a lot to learn, and I like it.

More Will Be Revealed...