Fresh Code

PyCon 2016 just ended….well for me anyway. Sprints are taking place over the next four days but I have a job I love and miss and can’t wait to get back to. This was my third PyCon having gone to the last two in Montreal. It was interesting to attend in my home city of Portland. We typically travel for conferences so we end up eating out usually with people we’ve just met and doing some touristy things each day after the talks. Attending in our own city means we can just go home and sleep in our own bed which is really nice but also kind of weird. This year we convinced our two oldest children to attend because they have never been to a conference and are both new Python programmers hoping to find a job in the tech industry.

Both of them were nervous and unsure of themselves. I repeatedly tried to reassure them that they were absolutely worthy to be among all of these other awesome Pythonistas but I could see they were still unsure. I was pretty much watching myself at my first PyCon and it made me reflect on various experiences, thoughts and emotions that I struggled with.

I had attended many conferences prior to PyCon 2014 but this was the first one intended for me. All of the others were conferences relating to Andrew’s interests. I enjoyed tagging along but rarely understood anything. Now we were at a conference for me and I sure didn’t feel like I belonged. I was a total imposter. Yeah I’d done many tutorials, finished a boot camp, created my own Django project, deployed it on Heroku, implemented continuous integration but what did I know? Surely everyone else knew a LOT more than me. I bet they all had awesome jobs programming in Python all day and were confident and sure of themselves. I wasn’t there yet. Not even close. I didn’t belong.

We showed up at our hotel and there was a lobby full of Python attendees hanging out, laughing, chatting, playing board games. I honestly don’t even remember how it came about but before I knew it people were talking to us. When someone would ask about us Andrew would defer to me saying, “She’s a Python programmer.” and I would immediately say that I was just learning and really didn’t know much about anything. I didn’t want people assuming I knew more than I did. I really didn’t want to look dumb in front of these smart people. They were all SO nice though. I felt incredibly welcomed and so did Andrew even after he divulged that he was a Perl developer!

We had an amazing time at the conference, loved so many of the talks and met a ton of great people. One late evening as Andrew and I were hanging out in the lobby a couple of really nice guys struck up a conversation. They asked me if I was staying for the sprints. I had heard mention of these sprint things but had no idea what they were and I said as much. They explained what the sprints were, pretty much implying they were as good if not better than the actual conference. One of the guys was even running one. I explained that I had no experience and wouldn’t be a good person to join one of these sprints even though they sounded amazing. “Oh but that’s great! I can help you! How would you like to fix a security bug?” encouraged my new friend. Well, wow that sounds cool and important. “I could do that?” I asked.  “Of course! Meet after closing remarks tomorrow and I’ll help you get started.” Well this was fantastic. I was going to work on a thing. A real thing. I was ridiculously excited.

The job fair was also the next day. I was definitely looking for a job but I knew there was no way any of these companies would want someone like me with no experience. I had an awful time working up the nerve to even talk to someone at a table and I walked away from each experience feeling even worse about myself. The whole thing was so awkward for me. Oh well, I had a security bug to fix during the sprints!

We went to a few more talks and then sat through the closing. I don’t know if it was my unfortunate experiences during the job fair or what but as I sat there I replayed the Security Bug Fix Invitation conversation over and over in my head. “Did he smile when he asked me if I wanted to fix a security bug? I think he may have. Of course he was smiling. He was just joking when he asked you that. What kind of beginner could possibly be trusted with, let alone fix, a security bug? Gah, Lisa how could you not see he was joking?! He probably thought you were smart enough to catch on to his joke but when you weren’t, he felt bad for you and was probably embarrassed and now he’ll want avoid you so he doesn’t have to let you down with the truth. You should probably just leave as soon as possible so you don’t have to cause any further embarrassment.”

Yeah I got WAY in my head on this one. It was ridiculous. I told Andrew we should probably just head back to the hotel but he was so excited about me trying out a sprint. I explained my worries to him and he was just as patient as always with me. He told me I was probably incorrect but that we could just go check out a different project if I really felt uncomfortable about the other. This seemed like an ok compromise so we wandered into a different room and I sat around having no idea what I was doing……and along came my friend. He’ll see me and avoid eye contact until he can escape. It’s cool. I unders..”Hey! I was looking for you! I thought you were going to come and work on this security bug I have picked out.” Oh, why yes, Yes I am!

And this year I watched my daughter get in that same head space. It’s not enough that I try and talk her out of it. She knows I go there too. She and her brother are off to the sprints tomorrow without Andrew and I and of course I worry that things won’t fall into place like they did for me. I worry that as unlikely as it is, nobody will take them under their wing. I worry but in reality I know that they will be in great hands. I’m excited for them!

I still love my job. I love my office, my desk by the window, my boss, coworkers, everything. It’s such a great place to be. I don’t love when I don’t know what the hell I’m doing though and wow, there are sure days like that. I’m getting used to it more and more since that’s just kind of the nature of programming.

Last week I was asked to add a feature to a product but I was not really familiar with the code base nor the workings of the technology I was working with. I floundered and struggled, spent a ton of time searching the internet for answers and asking for help. I was so lost but I learned SO much. It just took me days when I’m sure my boss could have had it done in a couple of hours. I got it done though!

Yesterday I had to add a feature to the code base I’ve been pretty much working in since I started here and what a difference! I knew what I needed to do, where I needed to make the changes/additions and how it would all work. I got it done super fast, my first PR was approved and it was deployed to staging by the end of the day. It felt SO good to know how to do something and it reminded me that I really do know stuff. Sure I’m going to struggle and be a bit slow with things that are new but I eventually figure them out and I learn something while I struggle. It’s all good.

Wow, time sure flies when one is ridiculously busy trying to get up to speed at a new job. I definitely won’t be getting back to daily blogging any time soon but I’d like to blog more than every four months.

I’ve been at Urban Airship since the beginning of June and I absolutely love it. I feel like the luckiest person ever. I have an excellent boss who seems to believe in me even when I’m doubting myself. He’s helpful but gives me plenty of time to figure stuff out on my own and there is a lot for me to figure out. I’ve broken a few things and learned a ton from fixing my errors. One day I completely took out our production servers and watched helplessly as the Ops team tried to figure out how to fix it. I have to say, watching them struggle a bit made me feel a lot better about myself. It reminded me that we are all just figuring stuff out.

We get to work on some really interesting projects. We build solutions to help our customers quickly and easily integrate with UA so we never really know what we may be doing from project to project. I’ve done some code refactoring, adding integration of one product with another, database backfill (to fix a mistake I made), code reviews and many small bug fixes. I’ve learned how to deploy changes to staging and production, how to customize my development environment for various tasks, and how to use a Python debugger to effectively track down errors. I’ve touched on regular expressions and test mocking. I love how much I get to learn. My job is the best!

Today I learned how dedicated Portland parents are. It’s dumping rain and we’ve had more trick-or-treaters than ever.

And it ended up being my daily blog! But that’s ok because I’m busy, busy learning so freakin’ much at work. Some days I feel like I jump around from one thing to another and some days I feel like I get in some good, solid time working through a particular project. There are just so many things to know and digging into one thing often leads to digging into many other things that first thing touches. Good thing I love learning!

Last Thursday Amanda came and sat next to me and helped me get started on some logs training. As one can imagine UA monitors and logs pretty much everything. If something goes sideways it would be nice if I knew how to track down the issue. They have some cool internal tools to make this job a bit easier but I also need to know what I’m looking at once I find it. It’s pretty fascinating. I hope this is a skill I’ll be needing. I’m still winging it since my boss is still on vacation. He’s back on Monday though and hopefully he’s happy with my progress. We’ll see!

Today I learned that scientists have created a hologram that a person can touch!

 

I was working away this morning trying to finally work on a ticket. I would love to actually accomplish something while John is gone. I was reading about Named Users and trying to figure out how I add that audience type to the Uploader app. The day went along and it was getting well past lunchtime so Wayne and I decided to walk down to Market Square and see what we could eat. We were going to walk to a place about a mile and a half away but I didn’t want lunch to take too long.

We ended up at Chipotle since it’s quick and it’s good. Wayne ordered while I talked to Lauren for a bit. I noticed everyone’s phones making emergency notices though so when I hung up I checked mine and it said there was a flash flood warning for our area. Well we weren’t driving and we were in the middle of the city so no worries. It did not however occur to me that this most definitely meant rain. Yeah. While we were eating I got a message in Slack about an issue with the Uploader app. I am so new that I have no idea how to fix anything but I said I would take a look at it as soon as I got back from lunch. What the heck was I going to do? I guess try not to panic.

Now it was starting to rain so Wayne and I finished up as fast as we could and ran the several blocks back to our hotel and we were drenched! It was awful! I was even having an ok hair day. So much for that. But we made it back, I changed into PJs, grabbed my hot tea and settled in to work some more and try and figure out why Uploader reports weren’t being generated. I sent a test push and sure enough no reports. Had I understood how things completely worked before I would have noticed the lack of reports a lot sooner. There haven’t been any since June 17th. Meanwhile Misty figured out that the pushes had been scheduled and sent in spite of no report so that part is good at least. Now to figure out how to figure this out!

Andrew showed up at around 18:00 and it was time to go to the employee social at the new office space. Grant Street has leased the entire 14th floor including the rooftop patio areas and this would be most people’s first time seeing it. It’s SO nice! So, so nice. We mingled and had a really nice time and then headed to Proper Brick Oven with Daniel, Mary, Nolan and Brett. The pizza was fantastic as always and we had a nice time talking with everyone.

Today I learned that we have some really strange names for things at work.

Today I was up and at it since I’m working from the hotel this week. I wanted to destroy and rebuild the automated reports environments and make sure I had all of the file paths set up properly. I didn’t. I worked on that for a while and finally figured out how things should be. Yay! I did a lot of reading and exploring for the rest of the day.

Wayne and I did meet Mary for lunch. First we did the Allegheny Jail Tour that I have been trying to do for three years now. If not today it would be another year before I had a chance again. It was…underwhelming. But I can cross that off my list! We headed down to the Strip District to eat at our favorite Vietnamese place and of course they were closed. Mary suggested a Thai place she had heard about and it was nearby so we headed there and I am glad we did. It was great. Lots of vegan options. I even got a Thai tea with coconut milk. Yum!

We met John and Josh for dinner and decided on an Italian place nearby. The food was pretty good and we had a nice time. We all walked back to the hotel. John was meeting someone and Josh was going to call his family. We went up to the room and our friends Daniel and Mary let Andrew know they were on the rooftop of the place we had just left! They have a nice bar up there I guess. The three of us headed back down and hung out with them for a while.

I finished reading The Martian and it was great!

Today I learned that way back in the day the warden’s wife helped two murderer’s escape the jail. She was in love with one of them and they were to be hanged. I bet the warden wasn’t very happy about that. Apparently a movie was made about it.

Well I did it! I’ve worked a full week at Urban Airship and managed to survive without my boss. There weren’t any fires to put out though so It’s not a huge accomplishment. Will was out today so I couldn’t tell him what I was able to do with Vagrant and automated reports but that would keep. I had a nice lunch with Lisa and Julia. We went to a yummy place I hadn’t heard of before called Verde Cocina. It was great! I had to get home as soon as possible though because Wayne, Andrew, and I are catching a plane to Pittsburgh tomorrow for the summer picnic/work week. I hadn’t packed at all.

Today I learned a bit more about Redis

I did not want to get up this morning but at the same time I was excited and nervous to go back to work. How would it be with my boss on vacation for three weeks? Would I be able to be productive all on my own?

I decided to take the Max so packed up my stuff and headed out the door. It was a beautiful morning. I love looking at our city as the train winds its way downtown. The 10ish block walk from the train to my office was really nice as well. I got all set back up at my desk and got to work on some paperwork I needed to finish for HR, signed up for the 401k plan and got my login working for the online paycheck site. Once I was logged in I saw that I had been paid. Nice! So far this job is surreal. I can’t wait to do a kick ass job for them. Right now I needed to get busy reading and learning though.

I don’t even know everything I read through during the day. Lots of things. I had forgotten how distracting Slack can be. It’s like a fancy version of IRC with all sorts of other features. I’m going to have to figure out how it fits in my workflow without completely sidetracking me. There are also a bajillion places to log in to and a butt-ton of documentation to read. Email is coming in all the while. Let’s see if I can remember most of the things I have to log in to or keep track of so far. Email, calendar, paycheck site, 401k site, box.net with multiple directories, Jive with tons of documentation – TONS, Jenkins tickets, Stash, github with over 800 repos, IRC, Slack, PagerDuty, JIRA, Chef, Vagrant, Redis, Celery, VPN, LDAP, the location of my desk, the location of the bathroom from said desk, all the people and the names and what they do at UA…..So many things. And it’s fucking amazing! I love, love, love all of the information I’m having to cram into my brain. It’s the best feeling.

I screwed around trying to get Vagrant up and running like John showed me on Friday but I kept getting some dumb error. I had been worried about deleting everything and starting over though. It was not working as is so finally I figured it couldn’t really make things worse so I deleted everything and started from the beginning. It all went really well until I needed to start the celery tasks. I keep getting some “connection refused by host” error on a certain port. I happened to be riding the Max home with someone from my pod so I asked him, Joe, about it. He said he hadn’t used Vagrant in a while though but told me who to ask in the morning. That’s progress I suppose.

Today I learned that I got my first paycheck! This might be real 🙂

I spent the first half of the day attending talks with Andrew and the second half of the day helping Lauren with Python. She’s doing a fantastic job on her lessons and is really picking it up. I also read through a lot of stuff for Urban Airship. I have so much to learn!

Today I learned that Salt Lake City is a lot more vegan friendly than I had anticipated.

Today was spent traveling from PDX to Salt Lake City. The flight was uneventful. Salt Lake is really beautiful and clean and the weather is perfect. It’s not Portland but I will enjoy the visit for sure.

We took the light rail which is a LOT like our light rail at home. It took us from the airport pretty much to the front of our hotel. Nice! We were staying at the Little America Hotel so I had zero expectations but holy cow it’s nice! Our room is giant and beautiful and we have a balcony. We got our stuff unpacked and decided to find some food. I found a vegan sandwich shop, Bud’s about a mile away. I didn’t want to walk so we waited for the train, got on the wrong one and ended up walking there anyway. Oh well 🙂

The sandwiches were bomb! I had a vegan chicken pesto and Andrew had a vegan barbacoa. Mine was the best 🙂

After lunch we stopped at the store and got the things we always forget, body wash and a shower poof. We also got bandaids because of course wearing a new pair of shoes on a trip where I will be walking a lot is a great idea.

We hung out in our room for a while. I set up more stuff for work and read over various documents and it was time for dinner before I knew it. We picked a vegan dinner place that looked pretty good. I had plenty of bandaids so we walked. Of course we went the wrong way for a few blocks and let me tell you, Salt Lake has the biggest blocks in the US and the most confusing street names. I’m not even kidding. We got back on track and found Zest Kitchen and Bar. Our food was fantastic. I had stuffed baked mushrooms and some grilled brussels sprouts. Andrew had some sort of curry with sticky rice. It was great but I’d definitely pick the sandwich shop over this place. We finished dinner and headed to the door only to see that the skies had opened and all of the water was falling down. Wow, it was a LOT. Too much to walk the short distance back so we summoned a Lyft. They showed up right away and got us quickly back to the hotel. We were done and ready for bed.

Today I learned that it’s Utah Pride this weekend. Yay!