It’s official — I need more work.
I left O’Reilly a year ago to pursue technical writing, lose weight and generally goof off. I’m happy to report unprecedented success at that last goal. I did lose all the weight I set out to (put a ‘W’ in that column, but I didn’t do much technical writing. The fun of technical writing for is in helping other people learn what I think is an interesting technology or application. I confess that not much in this past year has seemed all that interesting.
Web Services were somewhat of a bust. Although XML-RPC/SOAP are good tools to know, but there isn’t much there there yet. This will change, I’m sure. For instance, I finally got around to creating a system that lets me write my blogs from emacs using Perl and SOAP. This is a case of scratching an itch. Generally, I fear lisp. I don’t know that it does that much for a resume either. So I didn’t do a lot with Web Services this year.
P2P? I have hear of P3P, but I think the acronyms are driving the technology again. There seems to be a lot of security work available, but of course if I told you about it, I’d have to kill you. MacOS X has made a bit splash this year and that’s pretty cool. Most of the discussion about MacOS X involves explaining standard Unix hacks to macheads. Of course, there are some interesting network hacks from MacOS X like Rendezvous. I need to look at Rendezvous more closely. Wireless tech is fun, but I have no use for it nor do I have the skillz to pull off a wireless hack. WiFi is just another link layer to me. Let the hardware guys wet themselves over it.
There’s no need to comment on .Net.
I doubt I’m the only one who feels underwhelmed with the state of technology today. The industry feels like it’s 1989 all over again. I still enjoy working with computers and I want to continue programming, but it appears that I will have to fight harder than ever to remain in this industry and that sort of makes me laugh. Sagging economy or no, IT is here to stay. Most companies still need to improve and streamline their information infrastructure because that will improve their bottom lines. But for today, I feel like a ship in doldrums — rocking listlessly back and forth with no perceptible forward movement.
Heave way, boys.