A gentleman, Paul Schuster, was in town to train the church financial staff on his product 'Church Helpmate 2004', a church management system written in Access. My wife and I joined him for dinner on Saturday evening, and the church IT manager and I had breakfast with him the next morning. He is basically a one person firm, a EE that 'wound up' building a program that turned in to a product that turned in to a company and a career direction.
He's found himself in a position now where he's a developer and a manager, neither of which are things he set out to be, but both of which are part of the direction he's moving in.
Browsing the office bookshelf before I left the house Sunday morning, I grabbed 'The Pragmatic Programmer' and 'Secrets of Consulting' to lend to Paul, thinking they might be useful books for helping him think through development and managerial issues. I spent 1.5 years working for myself, and it seemed that he and I had run in to many of the same kinds of issues. I sincerely hope that the books help, and that he is successful with the business.
At one point the 'virtual pragmatics' phrase became a meme for me, the idea that individual developers and small groups of them can form an ecology, cooperating on projects, training, marketing, and the other elements of software development. I need to dig up my old notes on this and post them. Our interaction this weekend was a step toward the path on which I want to be.
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