You're looking for a job. You're considering a company that
has a web-hosted service or application. Basically, they have servers
running Linux or Unix and the application you'd be (using Ruby,
Java, PHP...) to work on is hosted on those servers. You know how to build a
Web application. At least the presentation and business layers.
And, now that you've got a family(!), you want to knock your potential
employer's socks off once you get there. Here's my advice. Use your Eclipse knowledge, but please, move outside of Eclipse and research and
spend significant time learning what it takes to actually deploy and
run that Web application!
Why? Because while your colleagues sit there, staring at their
Eclipse window, spinning on a nasty bug that's steadily becoming the
show-stopper it's likely to become, and mutter, "Geez, I've looked at
everything I can," you can show them how you sadly dependent they are
on desktop tools and do the following. Use ssh to log into your
server and ...
- Use your knowledge of the vi editor (because we're talking Linux)
to view key resources and search for possible issues. Other tools
you've learned to take advantage of including df (to make sure
there's sufficient file system space and that an NFS mount hasn't been
lost) and find
to locate files created in the past couple of days that that are larger
or smaller than usual).
- Read the logger.xml file in your application's configuration
directory to locate the application log files that are likely to have a
stacktrace and source code file and line# that you can then use back in
Eclipse, or, just as likely,
- Use the log file's stacktrace to locate the resource that that
has been corrupted and is no longer readable.
It's not that it's really something you couldn't do with Eclipse.
You could have. But maybe because you're used to using the
find command and because you're used to it, you've learned many of its
amazing attributes and, more importantly, you've learned more about how
your application is layed out on the server and the run-time
environment (scripts, file systems, cron tasks, etc.) that are required
to deploy, test and support it.
So why is this an advantage to you and why would it wow anybody,
espeically your boss? While your colleagues sit there and spin on
issues they're dealing with in Eclipse, you...
- know how to find resources that are tripping up the application,
such as an unreadable XML file on the file system, and you
- know how to use find to find files (out of hundreds of thousands)
that are newer than 3 days old (when the problem start) and you know
how to limit the search to two directories of depth, not the 5 levels
of directories that would take your query forever to search. But
most importantly,
- you are comfortable with the operating environment of the
bread-winning application of your company and when stuff happens, you
are a go-to person because people know you can magically, calmly weed
your way through the areas of the server and find the source of trouble
(e.g., badly formatted XML document, mysteriously restrictive file
permission, missing file, improperly updated configuration and, gee, a
missing NFS file mount (because you simply knew to type "df -f").
I was going to call this entry "On Being a Web Application Developer
- No Microsoft
Certifications please," but I didn't want visitors to think this entry
is a political statement. It's really a suggestion that you need
to consider making yourself more impervious to getting your job
off-shored. Step 1 is "get out of your IDE and learn about what
it takes to actually deploy, run and maintain your application (even if
you only own a small part of it), because
- Increase your breadth of knowledge of the application you're
responsible for. If you're the GUI guy, find ways to learn about
the data layer, the integration layer, where business rules are kept.
- Get comfortable with the server environment. Learn how to
navigate around so you're no longer paranoid about moving around the
server. When you no longer regard the server folks as "priests",
you've accomplished this task.
- Most importantly, especially as it relates to doing what you can
to keep your position from getting off-shored, understand the business
you're in. The more you internalize your company's domain
knowledge and how the web application supports that domain, the more
indispensable you become. Start with having lunch with a sales
person, the product manager and ask them about who the customer is, why
do they buy the service,
How do you know if this applies to you? Ask yourself, "do I
really feel comfortable looking for things in a Linux terminal window?"
If the answer is yes, then you can skip to #3 above. If
not, start learning.
With all of this said, the best outcome of all is that you're in a
much better position to have more fun, and when the time comes, have
many more choices when it comes to future employment options, including
self-employment.
