- July 2008
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- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- Coding Horror
- Innova @ Flickr
- Joel on Software
- Lifehacker
- phpSprockets on Google Code
- Smashing Magazine
Productivity Being a Missionary
If you’ll excuse me for a few minutes, I’m gong to be a language missionary. I could apparently be a better programmer if I avoided this, but we all have our parts to play, and I like mine.
At Innova, our default language is PHP. We make this decision by default, it’s assumed that a new project is going to be done in PHP, because that’s what we use for everything else. And it’s certainly the lowest-common-denominator amongst our crew: Eddie enjoys C#, and Keith is in love with Python and Ruby, but we can all work and be productive (for varying levels of productive) in PHP.
Sometimes, a tool emerges that’s simply better. It maps 1:1 to your domain. For Innova, that’s writing kickass web apps, and the tool in question makes PHP look like an amateur rig. Imagine a major metropolitan newspaper that’s got a fleet of Xerox machines cranking out the Sunday edition, vs. the industrial printing machine they’ve actually got. That’s the difference. You can make some damn awesome things with PHP, for certain, but that doesn’t mean that you should overlook better tools when starting new projects.
Now, what do you do if you have an existing project that could benefit from ten tons of awesome framework, but you can’t just freeze the current codebase and begin porting? Do what I do: every time you’re spending time writing code to fix something that’s a non-issue if you’d only switch tools, mention it. Don’t get in anyone’s face, don’t do a victory dance, just point out that if you were using X, you’d be busy fixing real problems and not wrestling around with solved problems.
Then write blog posts with no less than five subtle links. Subliminal messaging is powerful stuff.
Being a missionary has its time and place, of course. Similarly, it goes without saying that there’s definitely a cost in switching languages and frameworks, and that sometimes that cost is too steep. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be taking every opportunity to point out places where improvement can be had. I care about the company I work for, and I want us to produce the best possible work we can. Suggesting fixes for common development problems we’ve experienced is part of that caring.
Culture Yes We Can… if you’re using Vista!
Barak Obama has motivated real change in the entire world today, four months before the general election! Vista and Server 2008 users were greeted by KB955020. To be fair, “Friendster” is included as well, along with a couple words auf Deutsch, but Obama did get his own Office 2003 hotfix last year.
General AT&T, seriously?
I’m not even a FireFox guy…
General Do you like drinking beer, playing pool, and coding web apps?
‘Cause that’s what we do here, and we’re hiring. To be more precise, we develop applications for a variety of clients, most in the healthcare sector. In addition to client work, we make imebase, a modern ajaxy software service for a healthcare market. So, you’ll get variety in our client work AND the satisfaction of contributing to a very polished product.
In addition to competitive wages, we also provide great perks:
- The company buys lunch for every employee, every day. We usually order in from a number of great Columbus restaurants, and dine out on Fridays.
- We’ve got a full 8-foot slate pool table right in the office. There’s nothing better after a hard day of work than enjoying a few games of pool.
- There’s a kegerator in the kitchen, so as you’re playing pool you can enjoy whatever beer we currently have on tap. Currently it’s a Hefeweizen brewed by the Elevator. We refill it with a new beer when it’s dry.
- $5 a month health insurance, along with a Health Savings Account.
- We pay for employee parking. Downtown parking can be a pain, so we just buy each employee a monthly pass to a lot right across the street from us.
- HTML/CSS — we try to be as standards-compliant as possible.
- Some server-side programming language. Innova is primarily a PHP shop, so great PHP programmers are welcome, but we can overlook it if you’re really good (and don’t mind learning PHP). Over the past few years, we’ve also started using Python and Ruby, so if you’re interested in working with something a little sexier than PHP, you can look forward to more of that down the road.
- SQL. We’ve got a fantastic DBA for the complicated stuff, but please know how to write a SELECT and a proper JOIN. We use MySQL and MS SQL Server.
As a final note, we’re OS agnostic. Most of us run OS X (on MacBook Pros with really big external monitors), but we have folks that work on Windows and Linux, so really its up to you. You’ll get to pick your rig if we hire you.
If you’re interested, check out the company blog, or browse around our Flickr group to see us in action. To apply, send your resume to jobs@innova-partners.com (mention Jon’s craigslist ad, so we know what’s working for us).
Productivity This Explains Everything
