Monthly Archives: October 2007

Simultaneously

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Incredible. I just came accross this blog called “One Month App”. The guys from Clear Function have been working on Pulse, a web-based application, more or less at the same time as I was working on Parking Friend (from the end of September to mid-October)! Their design is nicer than mine, though :)

It is also interesting to see that their toolset is more or less the same as mine (it’s a typical Rails stack, after all) but I’ve used Inkscape and Gimpshop instead of the Adobe Creative Suite applications (which I do not own). In any case, it is possible: you can create really complex applications in Rails, in a really small amount of time. This is not something that all development stacks allows you to do!

Congratulations for the release to the team of Clear Function!

Rethinking the Corporate World

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In Buenos Aires I’ve studied corporate management (I did, shame on me), and as part of that, I had to learn about all the different identified types of organizations: matrix-based, pyramidal, military, organic, etc. Afterwards, books like Peopleware made me rethink these concepts, particularly when seeing the pityful state of some software development companies here and there.

I mean, except some unusual exceptions, our work environments typically suck. Deeply. Nobody gives a damn about your ideas, and you’ll just have to sit there in crowdy and noisy open spaces, and do the stupid things that you’re told to do, and everything is a horrible command and conquer experience. Working in this free market, post-Berlin wall world, the only choice you’re left with is suck it up or leave.

Welcome to the free world. You’re free to starve or to choose who to submit your soul to during 40 hours per week.

In the software development field, changing jobs is a comparatively easy thing to do, with the few exceptions of the software crisis in the mid 70s, at the end of the 80s and between 2002 and 2004, but in any case those crisis happened during short periods of time. But in other industries, people, for many reasons (mortgage, family, etc) they have to stick with horrible workplaces, awful jobs, incredible amounts of stress and awesome levels of burnout. Why does it have to be this way?

And you know what? It doesn’t have to. Some company out there, in a more “brick and mortar” industry than software, thinks that the current way of doing things is wrong. If you haven’t heard about Ricardo Semler, go and watch this movie from the MIT. It is amazing. This guy, CEO of a industrial company in Brazil for the last 25 years, has totally changed the way things are done, and brought some extremely innovative ideas to his company, which has since sustained a 900% growth (!) with as little as 2% turnover (!!).

Now go watch it (it’s only 40 minutes long), and I hope, learn something. I think that the Swiss business environment really needs to change, and Semler’s approach might work. And by the way, the guy is really funny!

(Through 37signals’ blog)

Riding the Rails Again

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It feels soooooo good to :)

Let me introduce you to Parking Friend. This website, which I had the pleasure to design and develop, belongs to some friends of mine, currently starting their own valet parking service in Geneva. Located not far from the airport, Jake, Dieter and their team will take care of your car for a small daily fee, for as many days as needed, meeting you at the airport (or anywhere else, for that matter) when you leave and when you return, cleaning up your car and even doing some shopping for you if you need. Handy, easy, relaxing.

Technically speaking, this is my first public, mainstream Ruby on Rails application. What can I say? It has been a delight to create by all means. It took me two weeks to do it, working… on “rails” precisely :) in the morning and evening trains while going to and from work, as well as during the weekends. Continue reading →

Aguante el aguante

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Como diria Casero: “Que vas a hacer mulita! La vida es asi!”

Un dia te levantas, te lees un par de articulos en el Google Reader y hete aqui que tu nombre aparece en un post o mucho mas recientemente en otro de un amigo de Ginebra.

El articulo al que hace referencia Spindoctor (que en realidad es una reproduccion guasa y sin mas tramite de un articulo de mi amigo Adam) fue bastante popular, hasta Jens-Christian Fischer le hizo una referencia, varias personas me hablaron de ella y bueno, siempre es lindo ver que somos varios los que pensamos lo mismo.

Grande Spindoctor! A ver si un dia nos vamos a tomar un cafe, che?

Trenes y deporte

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Aguante los trenes suizos, carajo:

Al otro día nos espera otra ciudad suiza, Lucerna, y el tren que nos lleva, con vagones de dos pisos, es parte del sistema de transporte del país, STS. La noticia esta mañana es que la partida se demora 5 minutos, que la voz FM se encarga de comunicar. Entre tanta laptop, cámara digital y MP3 se dejan ver algunas caras de contrariedad, pero mucha gente se desplaza por trabajo y las butacas, mesas y el impecable carro que pasa ofreciendo café o sabrosos desayunos son una oportunidad para ganar esos 5 minutos. Lucerna está a sólo 45 minutos de viaje, que, a bordo, pasan demasiado rápido.

En otras noticias, los Pumas le ganaron 19 a 13 a Escocia, River Plate le gano 2 a cero a Boca Juniors, y el Barça le gano 3 a cero al Atletico de Madrid, y con gol de Messi. Que te puedo decir? Esta semana sera tremenda :)