And They Tell Me I Can’t Work With Others

I’ve been worried about getting down-sized next year, so when a friend and coworker suggested that I start networking in the developer groups around town — I didn’t quite jump in, but I did cautiously dip my toe in the water.

As I already had conflicting plans for an after-work meeting, I decided to attend a “full day” exploration of a JavaScript package. Several caveats here: “full day” is quoted because you don’t have to stay for the entire session, I’m familiar enough with JavaScript to know that I never want more to do with it, and I knew going in that it would involve paired programming. Paired programming is exhausting for me at the best of times, as it takes me conscious effort to be social. At worst, it’s a great way to make me dream of a locked office with a pizza slot in the door.

Fortunately, this was one of the better experiences I’ve had. Everyone was agreeable and we more or less fluidly moved around our table offering input as needed.

The package (Angular, for those who care about such things) was interesting, and by noon I’d started to get my head around its particular elven incantations. The exercises we did were too simple to really demonstrate the usefulness, but a good programmer has imagination, and I think I’m decent enough at it to see the applications.

It won’t make me jump into a JavaScript project willingly, but it’s nice to know that there’s something to help make the script less cumbersome.

I left early, because we’d gotten bogged down in a configuration nightmare on my laptop, but I’d still say that it was a good experience. I’ll definitely try the after-work meeting though. I don’t particularly enjoy having to wear pants on a Saturday.

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