Today is a small check-in day. Time to share my thoughts a bit

Where I was

Well, I was in DBC, in case you did not know. I published today this letter to the people I met there.

In short, I was a technical support guy, playing with development, not really sure about anything he was doing. Then I went to Dev Bootcamp, learned a lot about code and about life in general. At the end, I did not find a company that would be willing to work with me on immigration stuff so I could not stay in the US.

I had played with PHP, Android Development, Java (it does go with Android Dev, doesn’t it?), Python, and some simple Javascript. In DBC I then played with more (and MUCH better) Js, with Ruby, and with frameworks like Sinatra, Rails, Backbone, Flask (In order of how much I used them there).

Where I am

I could not stay so … I am back in France. I have been around for a bit more than a month now.

I decided to spend a lot of time studying/coding while I was looking for opportunities in countries I could go more easily than the US, or a very very good opportunity in France.

The project I spend most of my time on is : Server Admin, a server management page for TV shows/movies downloading servers (for us that are far from getting any good show from the US under license in our country, of course…). I decided to go hard or go home (I am home already anyway), and so I use more or less only technologies that I did not know before.

We have a backend in NodeJS with tests in Mocha and automation with Grunt. The frontend is built with a couple of Backbone and React. Right now I am working on passing the pseudo database that I had before (= a json file loaded by JQuery… I am very very ashamed right now…) into a real DB. I use TingoDB. It is an alternative to MongoDB for a NoSQL database. Basically, instead of having to install some kind of service and secure it, it saves all the stuff in a file. I figured it was a better fit for an app I can just send as a package and people can install easily.

Apart from coding, I got some interviews that mostly went well, but with the wrong companies (Companies that found their new recruits right before my interview, others that actually did not have the money to recruit, or others who are looking for seniors). Being far away is probably not helping either…

I also got a new dog, hang around on Facebook for the pictures ;)

I would say I spend almost 100% of my time in my house, speaking to … my family, and maybe one or 2 friends in the week (yes, Thuy is my family). That feels weird, especially when you are usually working much better with others, in teams, etc…
But with a lot of breathing, a bit of meditation, and a lot of hard work, I’m making things happen so that’s cool ;)

Where I am going

Unless I get a very good opportunity in here, my goal is still to go back to my friends on the other side of the world. My primary focus is on Vancouver and Toronto right now. If you know anybody around there, please let me know!

I touched a bit of iOS development today, as a break from that Server Admin development, so I will probably try some stuff with that once the server-admin MVP is out. I am also planning on porting Craft Me A Pass! on iOS and as a simple JS web app when I get time.

I am still wondering if I will not just take some money that I saved and go to one of these cities to search from there directly… I just want to finish a few things before I go. This would feel like an “All-in” and … I am not a fan of no-backup-plan ideas hehe.

And where I am going is in a blogging world. I did not blog enough recently, which is stupid since it’s my main way to get in contact with people I miss but well, I did it anyway. Now I will, I’m giving you my word! (And people who’ve known me for a while know that it means a lot ;)) Also, I realized I know a bit about technologies that are not necessarily well-documented all around, so I might as well share. So expect a few blog posts on fancy React tricks, maybe how to test node backend, and funny stuff like that!

Anyway, see you in a few guys, and don’t hesitate to comment or … just even get in contact haha