June Rose Games

Wow, it has been a really, really, really long time since my last post. In my defense, I have been very busy. Since my last post, my wife and I had our first child, and are now expected our second this April. It is amazing how much you lose track of time once you have children. Plus, work has been crazy busy.

Oh, and there is one more reason why I have not had much time for blogging (which brings me to the point of this post), I have launched a side business – June Rose Games.

Our first game – Photo Challenge is now available in the Windows Phone marketplace. If you have a Windows Phone, check it out. It is free, so what do you have to lose? :-) If you do not have a Windows Phone, no need to worry, the game will also be available for other devices in the near future. The game is of the photo difference finding genre, here is a teaser screen shot.

Quantity leads to Quality…

A few days ago Jeff Atwood wrote a blog post about the parallels between software development and the advice for artists in the book “Art & fear”. This quote sums up the basic idea:

“When it comes to software, the same rule applies. If you aren't building, you aren't learning. Rather than agonizing over whether you're building the right thing, just build it. And if that one doesn't work, keep building until you get one that does.”

I found this to be an interesting post because I had recently came to the same conclusion. At my current employer there is a senior developer who is effectively my mentor (we’ll just call him Frank). He insists that all code should follow his standards, which is ok because they are typically good standards; but the whole thing can be a little intimidating. During my first few weeks at the employer, I had a difficult time completing any work because I was constantly worrying about “how would Frank handle this task?”. Once I overcame this, and just let the code flow, I have been much more productive and have learned more by writing the code as opposed to trying to over-analyze the existing code base.

Jeff suggests that the same idea of “Quantity always trumps quality” applies to blogging as well. As an aspiring blogger, I guess I should take that message to heart….