I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. There are not enough words in the world to express how I hate you, stupid error message. I’ve never found any simple way to know which friggin’ column… Arrrgghh!!!!

p.s: Help. Please?

I suck really bad at managing, even if I have only one person to manage: me. Darn, I mostly think that this is due to my natural trait of not being aggressive enough. Man, I need to be more aggressive. I realize that, and in fact, I’ve made that one of my new year resolution. But no luck so far. I still suck. Then when it’s too late (O NOES!!), I’ll be running here and there trying to finish stuff (sounds familiar, college boy?).

Sucks to be me… From now on, my life motto will be confront and engage. Be afraid, be very afraid. If I asked you for something, and you agreed, and the favor is indeed within your responsibility, please do it. Or else, I’ll be marching on your face and bite your ear off.

Same goes to you, me.

p.s: How do you bite our own ear off?

Dari banyak-banyak benda yang kau belajar kat sekolah/universiti dulu, berapa banyak yang kau gunakan dalam kerja sehari-hari? Sikit kan? Jadi apa pentingnya masuk sekolah atau universiti?

Pentingnya, disitu kita bukan sahaja belajar, tapi juga belajar cara-cara untuk belajar, iaitu mendapatkan skill cara-cara mencari maklumat atau membuat research. Itu yang Jeff Atwood kata dalam Learning, or, Learning How To Learn.

I humbly considered myself as someone who enjoyed learning. Which luckily is a good thing, because a career in software development needs you to specifically be that, an avid learner. Sebab tu orang kata kalau tak minat belajar benda baru, jangan jadi programmer. “Continuous learning” ni, sebenarnya boleh diringankan jika kita tahu cara untuk “learn” yang betul.

Aku tertarik pada penghujung blog entry tu, Jeff menyebut, dalam software development, how lasts about five years, but why is forever.

Related post: Perfection vs Performance Oriented

I use RJS PopCalendar for pop up JavaScript calendars in my ASP.NET pages. It is quite awesome in a sense that it’s a web control and it’s easy to integrate with the aspx page. But I’ve been bitten by one of it’s bug (I guess) today. Client-side validations won’t work in Firefox, and in one case, it breaks the built-in ASP.NET JavaScripts altogether and prohibits you to even postback.

PopCalendar comes with it’s own custom validators, which I think is the culprit behind it. It adds null into Page_Validators which should contain an array of validators for the page (implementation is in ASP.NET JavaScripts, the one from WebResource.axd). The Page_Validators should not contain nulls, as there’s no null check done in the built-in JavaScript, as far as I can see in the Mozilla version.

On the other hand, it works in Internet Explorer. I’m not sure whether because the JavaScript for IE is different, or because that IE is a bit tolerant on that kind of error.

The solution that I’m doing right now is just to disable it’s client-side validations, by setting EnableClientScriptValidators="false".

p.s: The following words are to help other people find this post. I got into quite a trouble to find this solution.
[ ValidatorOnLoad val.isvalid Page_Validators == “undefined” bug ]

If you encounter some thing or some word that you don’t know or not sure the meaning of, in the Internet or in real-life, Google for it. There’s a reason why Google became a verb.

I totally forgot about this. Some days ago, my friend ask me to ask around if anybody is looking for a job. And yesterday, another friend is asking the same thing. So I’ll publish it here…

The first one is a job at a GLC company,

System Engineer
(Technology Park Malaysia - KL)

Responsibilities:

• Website plan, design, implementation, maintenance and documentation.
• Website enhancements or customization.
• Content Management System based website.
• Responsible develop and integrate Web portal, content and applications with Rational Tools.
• Second line technical support for content & service.
• Participates in software testing activity.
• Recommend actions or decisions that would ensure that services meet standards for availability, usability (ease of use) and profitability, which includes product enhancements and customization.

Requirements:

• Candidate must possess at least Bachelor’s Degree, Post Graduate Diploma or Professional Degree in Computer Science/Information Technology or equivalent.
• At least 2 years of working experience related to web and client-server programming.
• Experienced in one or more web programming technologies such as PHP, MySQL, HTML, XML, XHTML, CSS, Java Script, ActionScript 3.0, Flash and Web Services.
• Knowledge in JAVA will be added advantage.
• Knowledge of Adobe FLEX 2.0 scripting will be an added advantage.
• Must be able to work independently, but also in a team.
• Mature, trustworthy, a positive thinker, self motivated and independent with strong sense of responsibility and initiative.
• Excellent planning and organization skills and has the ability to prioritize work and follow up with the deadlines.
• Meticulous, detailed oriented with good analytical skills and effective multitasking abilities.
• Strong interpersonal skills and able to interact/communicate with all level of staff to get task completed.

My friends over there are mainly PHP guys, and really into rich web client with Ajax or Flex, etc. So if you are into this kind of thing, I think you’ll find it interesting working there. If you’re great with java, or .NET, or even Ruby, you can also try. I think they are a bit open on what platform to use.

If you are interested or have further enquiries, please contact En. Zakaria at mohd_zakaria{at}yahoo{dot}.com or mohdzakaria{at}gmail{dot}com or call 013-3512277.

And the second one is from a friend working at Vision Technology Consulting. The job would probably require you to be at their client’s site at TM Pantai Dalam. The job requires you to know Java. They’re working on a CRM solution, and also integration with existing system at the client’s place. She thrown me some word like SIEBEL, SeeBeyond, Eclipse and etc, which I don’t really know about ‘coz I’m not really a Java guy. So, maybe that can help you to create a picture on what’s going on over there.

Please send your enquiries or resume to wanti_az{at}yahoo{dot}com.

Hiring a good programmer is hard. One thing I noticed about good programmers is that they really are concern about what kind of tools and methodology people use there, and what kind of projects will they be working on. If they can see something like ORM, design pattern, object oriented design/analysis, agile methodology, Ajax, open-source or things like that in the job description, that would certainly be a good bait.

Scott Hanselman recommend 6 programming books, which are

1. “Code Complete” (Steve McConnell),
2. “The Pragmatic Programmer” (Andrew Hunt and Dave Thomas),
3. “Programming Pearls” (Jon Bentley),
4. “Refactoring” (Fowler, Beck, Brant, Opdyke, Roberts),
5. “Design of the UNIX Operating System”, and
6. “Design Patterns” (Gamma, Helm, Johnson, Vlissides).

Most of them are already on my list. I got “Code Complete” right here on my desk (not mine, En H’s). I’ve only skimmed it through. It’s thick, and with it’s high reputation, I think I need to allocate some serious time reading it. I’ve read the “The Pragmatic Programmer”, top-notch, highly-recommended.. Err, NO… I would saya, a MUST read for every programmer! The GoF “Design Pattern” book is the seminal text regarding design patterns. I’m trying to cheat a little here, but reading a slightly fun version of it, “Head First Design Pattern”. But until now, I’ve only manage to get 1/3 way through. “Refactoring” is near the top of my waiting list.

You can see a list of books I’ve read, and books I want to read, here.

*Update

Books above are “language agnostic”. Meaning they’re not about learning a certain language, but more on software development in general. At reddit today, there’s a thread about “language specific” books. Redditters comment on their recommended “killer” books for certain languages. Quite a good read.

By now, you might have realized, that I am just nuts about programming books.