Hello 2012

Forgive me, but this is my cheesy new year post.

I’m jazzed up about a number of cool things ahead.  Below is a few of the one I’m most pumped about.

Hello Baby Girl #2

My wife and I had our second girl on December 4th, 2011.  Having two in diapers is a challenge, but she’s an angel and I can’t imagine life before her.  Watching our first daughter go from zero to one year old was fascinating.  I’m looking forward to doing that again with another special little gal.

Return to Chicago (kinda)

A reorganization by my employer and end of year promotion will mean I’ll be traveling to Chicago mostly in 2012 instead of Omaha.  I’ll still be working primarily from home in Michigan, but I should be able to regularly return to the great city of Chicago and spend time with some great friends and coworkers in our Chicago office.

No diss to Omaha, but it’s just too hard for me to get there and Chicago will always be home to me.  Thanks for a fun 2011.

Fresh Material

This year appears to have many new technical challenges ahead.  With my new role I’ll be in a position to evangelize to a wider and more interested audience.  I’m hoping to share a lot of the lessons I’ve learned in 2010 and 2011 in terms of architecture and design to help teams delivery more with less.  I’ll be preaching a lot of NHibernate and test automation.

2012 looks like it will be saturated with JavaScript development.  I spent 2010 neck deep in Silverlight, and 2012 looks like it will be a return to the traditional web.  I’ve been reading JavaScript The Good Parts, JavaScript Patterns, and REST in Practice.  I’m looking forward to working heavily with JQuery, KnockoutJS, BackboneJS, Wijmo, KendoUI, ASP.NET MVC, and Web API.

Interesting Year for the Mothership

I think 2012 is going to be a interesting and pivotal year for Microsoft.

Windows Phone

I received the HTC Titan for Christmas and LOVE it.  I was skeptical, but am no more.  This is a phenomenal OS and I think the rest of the world is going to realize it in 2012.  I think it’s well positioned to have a big year.  It will be interesting to see how that plays out, but I think a Jobs’less Apple and Android in version hell as well as the Android Developer Community fed up with building apps they can’t charge money for will make room for strong growth by WP7.  The Windows Phone Marketplace is growing steadily, and if Microsoft knows how to do something well it’s make a comfy developer ecosystem.

BTW, If you happen to be one of those turd throwing I-hate-everything-Microsoft monkeys and feel like leaving some bile on my comments… I’d rather you not.  If you haven’t used a WP device for at least an entire day as your primary phone, I’m probably not interested in your opinions.

Windows 8

Windows 7 was great.  I think they finally get it in terms of what users want from the OS.  I expect Windows 8 will be very successful and will firmly establish MetroUI.  Having it on tablet form factors should come in 2012.

HTML5/JavaScript Tooling vNext

If you look and what Microsoft has done in support for the HTML5/JavaScript movement in WinRT, it feels like something big is brewing on this front.  They seem to have unofficial ties CoffeeScript and Script#.  I’m hoping to see a Google Web Toolkit (GWT) like offering from Microsoft this year.

 

Learn, Learn, Learn

With two kids in diapers I have less personal time than I’ve ever had in my life, but I have renewed vigor to make this another year of learning.  I intend to be a JavaScript guru by this time new year.  I have an annual subscription of TekPub and I intend to watch at least half of the productions available in their catalog.  At a minimum:  GitHub, Mastering Mercurial, Linux for Softies, Mastering JQuery, Mastering LINQ, and Mastering Windows Phone 7.