40. (with egg)

Week one as a professional agile engineer is over and my head is hurting. Week 1 at any new job is going to be tiring but I think (hey, because it’s happening to me) that it’s even more so when working in an agile software development environment. Pair programming is an intimate thing regardless of how well people know each other, and the dynamics are particularly funky when you’re the new guy. There is definitely a “probing period” – which agile practices do these folks adhere to vigilantly? Which practices do they feel are less important? How do they align with my agile ideology? Do they like curry, and if so, how hot?

Actually, I wish I was an objective observer, watching my own interactions with people I don’t know, because I’m sure I’d be laughing. Agile people, because they want to work closely with others and recognize that interpersonal interactions are important, peculiar, and even fragile, tend to tread gentle steps when suggesting alternative solutions to problems. This tends not to be as much the case after the familiarity barrier is breached.

All in all it was a great week and I learned a lot about Web application design and development. I’m especially impressed by CSS and the flexibility it affords a developer, but I see a potential for a spaghetti mess if developers aren’t careful about reuse, refactoring, and cleanup.

Oh yeah, and the Google Maps API rocks. There are even some “undocumented features” that helps developers find the best map zoom and center point when working with multiple locations on the map. Good stuff.