Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Early warning for the end of the contract

My contract was extended, yet I received a taste of the true end of the contract.

The contracting company uses a web site to report hours. They entered the initial (un-extended) termination date of the contract (October 5th) and did not update it when the contract was extended. After the 5th, the web site refused to let me enter hours. (Actually, it refused to let me sign on at all, which is another issue. I would expect the ability to sign in and review hours.)

A few e-mails to the right people got the problem solved. But it did get me thinking: what will I do when the contract ends? What would I do if the contract were to end early?

The opportunity was a welcome one. It forced me to evaluate my situation, which I think is pretty good.

  • I have some savings, so I can live without a paycheck for some time
  • My expenses are predictable and steady
  • I have a good set of contacts in the technical and recruiting worlds
  • I have a set of marketable skills

I can ponder the situation and I know that I can cope with it. That's a good place to be.

And a lesson: When the end of the contract approaches, reach out to people and ensure that everyone has the same understanding.

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

CMAP meeting: ASP.NET MVC4

I attended the CMAP (Central Maryland Association of .NET Professionals) tonight. The topic was "ASP.NET MVC4", a new version of Microsoft's web development framework.

Impressions of the meeting: Well attended. Every chair in the room was filled, with more attendees than planned. There were more attendees than the 'after meeting survey' forms, yet enough pizza for all attendees (at least those who desired pizza). It's nice to see interest in technical knowledge.

Impressions of the tech: This new version has some nice features. I'm not qualified to list them; I don't work with earlier versions and cannot compare them. Yet the tech follows in Microsoft's tradition of Visual Studio tools: wizards to built 'empty' projects (with varying degrees of non-emptiness) and a steep learning curve to accomplish anything meaningful. The .NET framework is large. It does a lot, and it demands a lot. The biggest challenge is knowing the classes available; even the presenter tonight stumbled on some class names. (A case of knowing that classes to perform specific chores do exist, but not remembering the name.)