I feel that one should start by learning the core basics of programming.  Get your mind thinking in a logical way that allows you to solve problems.  After all, that is essentially what programming is: You are solving a problem.  I am not sure that learning a script based language would fully accomplish this.  I ended up recommending .NET (C#) to start learning the fundamentals, then moving on from there. 

If someone asked you this question, what would your answer be?  I am very curious to hear the opinions of others on this topic, as I get asked this question more and more.

• If you claim to have been proficient in ColdFusion for 10+ years, then you should know the correct spelling of the product name.  It’s ColdFusion and NOT Cold Fusion.  You would think one would have noticed that after using it for 10 years!
• It’s the year 2009.  Do you really think it’s necessary to list on you resume you are proficient in Windows 3.1?  Seriously?
• So you know Pascal?  That will come in handy into today’s world wide web programming!  Pascal is most widely using a language to teach you the basics, not for programming web applications.
• I’m also glad to see that you know Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Notes.  You will be a better programmer just by knowing those two software applications.
• When I ask you if you have experience in programming custom e-commerce sites, you cannot reply by saying you use Magento and Miva as plug in play applications.  I am amazed by how many folks in this field have never created their own shopping cart, even in the jest of learning.
• I know the economy is not great at the moment, and lots of folks need jobs.  But please, do not send in your resume to every open job you see when you are  not qualified, or not even in that field of expertise.  I have spent hours reading through resumes of people in totally unrelated fields to what the job was requiring.
• So I see your resume shows you have knowledge of .NET right?  No, not really?  You have only read a book or blog post on it?  If you list out a language on your resume, you need to have real world experience in using it.  
• It’s really not cool to list EVERY current industry buzzword in your resume, some of which you do not know the meaning of!
• If you email or upload you resume, do not name it resume.pdf or resume.doc.  Name the file with your name, so it does not get overwritten by the next person who sends in resume.pdf.

Update: After receiving some emails on this topic,  I just wanted to add that a lot of these are tips.  I am not saying that if I saw this on a resume I would immediately deem you unfit for the job.  Some are more of a courtesy, like naming your resume first_last.pdf instead of resume.pdf for example.  If candidate A and candidate B are equal skill wise, maybe the fact that one candidate was a little more truthful in their resume would lead them to land a job.  Last of all, these are strictly my opinion!  They are not right or wrong for everyone.

Over the next couple of weeks I’ll be able to spend a little more time again on the blog.  My next post will cover some pet peeves of interviews.  We have been interviewing folks to take over my old position, and this has brought to light some of the types of things you see and hear during interviews.

I do agree that employers should have some form of a policy on social media.  In my opinion, this should state common sense items, such as not bad mouthing your employer or coworkers, not giving away company secrets, or not destroying the company’s brand image.  You do represent your company in more ways than you realize.  To me those are common sense guidelines to most people, but since some people may not think like everybody else they need to be included in a policy.  Personal social media accounts can greatly benefit your employer as well.  You can announce new projects, new brands, etc… from your personal account that benefit your employer.  It’s also a great networking avenue, which helps to keep you informed of all the latest happenings in your industry.

With that said, I do believe ESPN is missing the point with some of their policy guidelines.  The sports information industry is ultra competitive, with every outlet trying to break the next big story.  What faster way is there to announce breaking news than Twitter?  You can grab your smartphone and post a Tweet in under minute.  With this policy ESPN will need to wait for a story to be posted to break the same news item?  While they wait other outlets have already broken the same item using Twitter.  Why not allow this?  I do agree with most parts of the policy, but it’s surprising to see them take away an outlet that provides the fastest output of news available.

On a personal note on this story, it does bum me out a bit.  I have enjoyed following some of the ESPN employees Twitter accounts.  They provide some great insight on their respective sports in 140 characters.

The interesting piece of this news is the OS will be built in a way that most of the user experience will take place over the web. So according to Google your apps that run on the new OS will also be able to be used on any of standards compliant web browsers. I was surprised at this news as I am sure some other makers out there were as well.

You can read the full post from Google on their blog.

Dear Madam: I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom. Yours very sincerely and respectfully, Abraham Lincoln.

Below are a few video clips, the first from a PBS show where you will hear the last few paragraphs of the Lt. Col. Strobl’s article. The second and third are from the movie.

It is a well written post that will leave most people stunned once they consider the “what if” scenarios. I totally agree with Cringely that any conflict in the modern era will have a cyber warfare component. I would also argue that the first “shots” fired in a conflict could very well happen in the cyber world.

I will go ahead and say right off the top that I am in the camp of believers who say you get exactly what you pay for with web hosting. If are paying $5 a month to host a site, you are going to get $5 of service and performance. Believe me, I know this from past experience! When I first started developing web applications I would look for the cheapest place around and give them a go. Over the years I have used a great number of these lower end web hosts, especially in the ColdFusion arena. I was never 100% happy with the performance or the level of support. I then began diving into the system administration world at my job some and began to learn everything that goes into maintaining web and database servers. I quickly saw the value of paying for a good web host.

The cheap shared hosting plans can have numerous problems if you to choose to go this route. Your site will be sitting on a server with hundreds or even thousands of other sites. So your site’s performance is dependent of a number of factors ranging from hardware issues to bad code written by other developers. If one site is hacked into on the server your site could also be at risk. Support is another drawback to most cheap shared web hosts. They have thousands of customers who are paying in the cheap, so your wait time for customer service can be painfully long in some cases.

I run across clients quite often that have some rather large web applications they spent good money on, but still choose to go the cheapest route for their web hosting. If they care about their applications, it’s not too long before they see the light and are forced to look elsewhere.

Not too long after my experience with shared web hosting and my increase in system admin knowledge I decided to bite the bullet and set up a high end VPS account with a top level web host. I could then use the knowledge I had gained over the years to tune my VPS to my desired settings. If I needed to change something in the ColdFusion Administrator, no problem. Need to upgrade my .NET framework level? No problem there either. The level of support I currently receive is off the charts. The hosting company has dedicated staff who deal only with VPS customers, so help is only minutes away. And best of all, my applications perform great and the up time is not reliant on having hundreds of other sites on my server. Now, with these added benefits it does come with an increased cost. The cost is worth it to me to have good performance and high availability for my clients.