Why blog?

So this is my first post. By the name of this blog, it should be clear that I'm a relatively new developer. I'll let you take a guess how many years I've been a software developer. I've decided to start blogging for two reasons.

Number one, I like being part of engineering communities and I like getting feedback and advice from other people. Number two, I think I have something to share in terms on my experience as a developer at a smaller software company just outside of Washington, D.C.

My background in college was in physics and astronomy. I went the research route in college (here is a paper I wrote for that research), but despite the fact that everyone I met was very smart and cool to work with, I felt like I needed to work on something a little more hands on. So, I took a few CS classes my junior year and liked those, so I tried out an internship at Microsoft. Needless to say, the intern program at Microsoft is top notch. I really recommend it -- although I don't have much to compare it against.

My senior year, I knew what I wanted to do when I graduated. I wanted to work at a software company. After looking at a bunch of places it was down to returning to Microsoft and a smaller company called Applied Predictive Technologies or APT for short. At this point, I think you can guess where I went. It was a tough decision, but I went with APT. I've really enjoyed it since I started in September of '08, but I'm also confident I would've enjoyed Microsoft.

So, I'm relatively new to software. I've never taken a class on compilers or data structures, although I now wish I had done both. However, I love playing with new technologies and also trying to better understand the ones I use every day. I'm going to focus my writings on the new things I learn as I go along that will hopefully provide a reference for other people going forward. For instance, I'm working on rewriting a friend's website in PHP and MySQL just so I can better understand how those technologies work again. I'll also throw in some random comments about computers and technology as well as some observations on what I love or dislike about my software company and just software practices in general.

Hope it's fun and interesting.

For those on Twitter, my handle is abialecki. I can't believe someone else got "bialecki". I know I haven't gotten into a service or whatever fast enough if "bialecki" is taken.