I’m just starting out learning Scala and the Play 2.0 framework and the experience isn’t half of what I got from learning Ruby and Ruby-on-Rails. I think that this is, in part, due to the lack of decent tutorials for the Play 2.0 framework, which I appreciate is new, and the frustration that comes from not being able to find information. So, I hope that the next few posts will document my journey and help you on yours.

What I’ve learned this week:

• I have no free time because I work too much
• tmux and vim are a powerful combination
• Scala is hard to write after working in Ruby for so long

It would be remiss of me not to do a look back over 2011 and to gaze into the future of 2012, seeing as that’s what people are supposed to do at this time of year.

Following on from my previous disagreement, here’s the second one I’ve been having:

You should code to the language and the environment you are in. That means taking advantage of the features of the languages and the frameworks that you use.

Work has been a little stressful over the last few months, which is a whole other blog post at some point, but during the course of this I’ve had several disagreements with people that I’ve not been able to argue a reason why either option is better. I’ve had gut feelings but, without being able to rely on the trusted “gut”, it’s hard to convince people that your opinion is in any way as valid as theirs.

I think the ability to see others view points is something important, especially in an environment such as software development, but when those individuals have strong views, or a stubborn attachment to them, then you appear weak them. I personally don’t think of myself as weak, in that respect, but it bothers me that I can’t convince people to even consider my opinion in some cases, and that worries me that we, as a team, will over look something.

What I’ve learned this week:

• Scrivener is an absolutely awesome writing tool
• DevOps is all about small changes for big gains
• People will always assume it’s your fault once they have lost faith
• Subaru Imprezza’s are cheaper than I expected

What I’ve learned this week:

• Ignoring rumours about your future is hard
• I suck at chess
• Apple Keynote is way better than Microsoft PowerPoint
• Neo4j is pretty cool
• I appear to have missed about 2 seasons of Farscape

What I’ve learned this week:

• Vibram make the weirdest shoes, but damn they’re comfy!
• Javascript is far more powerful than I gave it credit for
• IT hasn’t changed: it’s still about the money
• If you can’t laugh at life it’s going to see a lot longer
• Ginger Tea, with lemon, really helps with colds

I thought it might be fun to keep track of things I’ve learned every week:

• Ask “Where is the data?” not “Do we have the data?”
• Dr Who is ideal for graph databases
• People will bitch about the performance of Ruby just to get a rise out of you
• There is absolutely no way on Earth I’d ever watch Twilight (I won’t even link to it)
• Mandarin Chinese comes from techies (and DBAs have far too much time on their hands)
• It’s important to take time to play

I’ve been wanting to try node.js for a while and, given today was Whyday, I thought I’d give it, and MongoDB, a go. Turns out it hasn’t been the most pleasant experience I’ve had.

TR;DR: MongoDB just worked; asynchronous code looks crap; callbacks should be objects, not functions; and documentation could be better.