Dean Michael Berris

If you're reading the title and thinking whether pigs are flying
because I'm now using a runtime dynamic programming language instead
of C++ for a project then you might want to think again. Yes folks I'm
doing web development with Python and I'm leveling up and learning
about the cool tricks/idioms that makes Python programming really fun.
Of course I'm talking about runtime introspection and I'm still
working on reducing the amount of boilerplate I write. At some point
in time I'll be writing more about some cool patterns that are
emerging in the application I'm working on that might be interesting
to other Python developers too. Admittedly I have only been using
Python seriously for a year but now I'm going to ramp up and try to
get to an advanced level of Python programming as I go along.

Posted via email from Dean Berris' Brain Dump

Who says designing web sites is easy? Well I certainly don't. I will
also be the first one to tell you that I can't design anything visual
to save my life. I think I'm creative in other ways than visual
design.

But every so often I see great design that works and I'll be the first
to point it out. I just checked UFC's site (http://www.ufc.com) and
all I can say is that the design of the splash page definitely works.
It does its job by conveying the message without using clutter and by
helping the user navigate to the right place they want to go.

Even if you're not a fan of the UFC, learn from the design technique
and I hope I see more sites doing this. Yes, I'm talking to you NBA.
:D

Posted via email from Dean Berris' Brain Dump

It's been a while since I've done any hands-on development with web
applications and now I'm diving head-first into a couple of projects
that will involve web development from end-to-end. This means, from
the front-end CSS+HTML+JavaScript back into the backend code that is
going to be written in a myriad other programming languages. Although
I'm personally working with Python with a personal project, I'm
looking forward to other development languages as soon as we encounter
pieces that need to be written in more powerful programming languages.

I'm actually excited to get my hands dirty again with web
technologies. For a personal project I'm currently already working
with HTML5 on the front-end and Python (currently trying out web.py)
on the backend. I am prototyping a project idea that I'm going to call
"venture 2" from now on. I'll shed a little more details as soon as I
get something up and running.

From the get go I can say though that the product I'm working on is
not a consumer-facing product. So let's get that out of the way -- I'm
not going to be designing any user interfaces because I can't do that
to save my life. However, what I can do is implement services that are
meant to scale and are meant to be used in an easy and familiar
manner. Being a C++ developer myself, I know how easy it is to make
mistakes early on in the API of a module -- and that's why I'm not
using C++ right away. At this stage I'm more interested in getting
something out and running.

So right now there's nothing for me to announce but I can say I am
psyched -- because so far, everyone I've talked to about this idea has
already liked it. Now it's all about delivering the first prototype
and get the ball rolling. The vision is grand and the project simple,
but then like in any endeavor execution and delivery matter most.
Hopefully I can make a big enough splash to make a difference.

Aside from being married for one year, I'm now fulfilling one of my
new year's resolutions which is to go do a web project where I get
involved in all levels. Now it's just one project, I have to work on
two.

More to come later... wish me luck!

Posted via email from Dean Berris' Brain Dump

So yeah, my wife and I were married one year ago from tomorrow. :D My bad.

Posted via email from Dean Berris' Brain Dump