Slides: http://www.slideshare.net/jnunemaker/glrb-i-have-no-talent
John Nunemaker Ordered List @jnunemaker [email protected]
The rant that struck a nerve (blog post)
Someone said “I wish I had your talent” John said “I don’t have talent, I have practice.”
The Gods
In Ruby/Rails culture, there’s a belief that some people are “blessed” (Yehuda)
The Mortals
The laymen who have not been “blessed” with the talent (They were encouraged by John’s post.)
We are all on it (at different points)
There are things we can do to get better, improve…
Remember from whence you came
Remember that you can do more
Started with PHP, Ruby, to identitymap, etc.
“What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing” - Aristotle
40+ oss projects that led to growth 100+ websites/applications 470+ blog posts a LOT of code github graveyard (these are the projects he’d make excuses about if anyone saw them.)
Yourself, against your past self
Johns Path: 2K3 - HTML, CSS, Flash, Photoshop, FTP johnnunemaker.com, oakprariefarms.com
2K4 - College Grad, PHP, MySQL, JS, Standards a lot of php/mysql admin stuff
2K5 - Ajax, ColdFusion, Oracle, Prototype, Scriptaculous addictedtonew.com, mysql table wrapper, addicted to feedburner and flicker libs
2K6 - Rails, Ruby, Terminal, HTTP Requests, Parsing XML… first rails site, railstips.org, nortredame forum (against the grain!)
When you are stuck, and feel like you’re too stupid to do something (parsing XML…) keep reading, keep learning, find your way through it.
2K7 - Deployment, Delegration, ActionScript conductor, nd.edu, snitch, lorem, scrobbler (last.fm), mirrored (for magnolia), web services
2K8 - jQuery, merb, git(hub), pythong googlebase, googlereader, statwhore, httparty, user_stamp, happymapper
2K9 - oath, mongodb, single page apps, include/extend, inheritance, /t|b/dd columbus, google-weather, crack, mongomapper, harmony
2K10 - proxies, identity map, composition, design patterns, refactoring, sinatra mongotips.com, wand, canable, joint, gemwhois
to work hard, and practice <b>deliberately</b>
“Greatness is not a function of circumstances… it is larely a matter of conscious choice” - Jim Collins (Good to Great)
Malcom Gladwell - Outliers (book about mathematics.)
Work on specific things. Making a conscious decision to struggle.
The Art of Learning - Josh Waitzkin (book)
“Great companies… [focused on] what not to do, and what to stop doing.” - Jim Collins (Good to Great)
There is not enough time in the day to get everything done. Consciously decide what to stop doing. Wrote down goals, decided what would give the most value for the time. Identified obvious commitments (feed the family, and the commitments that he made - nortre dame.)
Short tail: client work Long tail: recurring income
The Changelog (podcast)
If you’re not using something, give it away.
Geoffrey Colvin - What It Takes To Be Great
Observing and measuring results Making appropriate adjustments Deliberately choosing what to get better at
is not intelligence is not motivation
is freely available to you and to everyone (What It Takes To Be Great article)
That which gets measured gets improved