{"id":151,"date":"2008-01-07T12:02:44","date_gmt":"2008-01-07T18:02:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pchristensen.com\/blog\/articles\/from-stagnant-to-scholar-to-startupper\/"},"modified":"2008-01-09T14:25:57","modified_gmt":"2008-01-09T20:25:57","slug":"from-stagnant-to-scholar-to-startupper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pchristensen.com\/blog\/articles\/from-stagnant-to-scholar-to-startupper\/","title":{"rendered":"From Stagnant to Scholar to Startupper"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of my problems with blogging (and honestly, just about everything I do) is that I have a big, grandiose vision of what I want as an end result. Then, when I start to work on it, I directly extrapolate the time my first few steps take over the whole project, and end up thinking that the big vision will just take too long. For instance, I have several draft posts with nothing but a title and a link I want to discuss, but since writing is harder than reading, I leave them as drafts. Because of this, I end up sticking with things I know how to do well because I can start quickly, make predictable progress, and work towards a finished product. Two things where this works well: reading books (I read tons, 1-2 a week of all sorts) and programming in C#. I found .Net when it came out in 2001. I was in college programming in C++ and biting back swear words after every SEGFAULT, and I was completely tickled at the thought of a language where you didn’t have to manage memory. I started programming C# in my spare time and every job I’ve had since I graduated has been .Net related.<\/p>\n

Fast forward to 2006 when I interviewed for a job, completely<\/em> bombed and realized that I just wasn’t that good of a programmer. There was no question that I was smart and could figure anything out, but I had only worked on little problems. Some of my jobs dealt with big systems but I worked on a small, self contained part of them. My side projects hadn’t been anything significant so they didn’t stretch my capabilities much either. So I realized that not only had I not learned any Computer Science theory since I left college, but I was actually regressing as a coder (no more writing web crawlers, chess programs, programming languages, or operating systems)! I realized that this was a first class ticket to unhappiness and out of the computer profession and I decided to change.<\/p>\n

It was about this time that I discovered that the Internet is full of people who write well about lots of stuff. (It’s also full of crappy writers but that’s beside the point.) Among others, I found Joel Spolsky<\/a>, Paul Graham<\/a>, Jeff Atwood<\/a> and .Net Rocks!<\/a> (among others). I quickly realized that this was a valuable resource. Since I grew up, went to school, and started working outside of traditional tech hotbeds, I didn’t have a good network of peers and mentors, and I read as much as I could to make up for that. Everything was great, I was learning and improving, and I was very up-to-date on current happenings in the tech world. But I fell into a trap. (Can you spot it?)<\/p>\n

I was reading<\/em> about software development instead of doing it<\/em>!<\/p>\n

Since reading was one of those predictable, scheduleable activities, I was choosing it over the unpredictability of learning to code better. I became like Intellisense – I knew everything that was going on and could point you to anything you needed, but I wasn’t actually doing any of it myself! None of this reading led to new, more complicated projects, and it got to the point where I was reading blogs, articles, and news sites for an hour or two a day. This might not sounds like a lot to some people, but if you take 24 hours, subtract commute, day job, sleep, meals, family time, and household chores (harder to be a slob when you’re married and have kids), spending 1-2 hours reading left me with no chunk of time big enough to take on a programming project.<\/p>\n

Once I realized that, I decided to refactor my life and habits to move towards my goals (why not, it worked like a charm for starting a family!). I cut 50 or more feeds from Google Reader, cut back on the non-technical books, and discussed my goals with my wife. I now have 1-2 hours a day that I can program, experiment, try new things, and improve my skills. I decided to use a web startup as the vehicle for doing this, which has some pros and cons:<\/p>\n

Pros:<\/p>\n