:: MIS Insights ::

I’m thankful to God. My family. My teachers. My friends. For what I have and what I don’t have.

Two weekends ago, I was complaining about how bored I was. After having lived la vida loca in Ateneo, getting stuck with two or three small projects at a time got me restless. It wasn’t enough to while away my time. Sure, it gave me lots of time to do what I wanted to do - watch movies, exercise, play games, read, etc. However, such lifestyle left me feeling empty and unfulfilled at the end of the day. It made me miss the sleepless nights that the relentless assault of overlapping deadlines that academic and non-academic commitments brought.

That was two weekends ago though. Fast-forward to today and I’m head up to my arse with projects that aren’t small and aren’t few. It’s not bothering me though. The sheer thrill of having so much to do with so little time makes my blood tingle with anticipation for the exciting months to come.

I don’t know what’s with me and MIS, but these are the moments that make me feel alive. These are the times that make me grow as a professional and as a person. For instance:

• Pipboy as a construction worker. In the beginning, I was all for writing code manually for every project that I got. Nothing gives me more pleasure than writing new software code that addresses the client’s needs. It’s like balancing an accounting problem in an exam on the first try - but better!
• Pipboy as a foreman. After a while though, my projects became repetitive. To avoid copy-pasting code which was effective but crude, I started compiling my functions into libraries. This allowed me to reuse code in my projects. It cut down development time and this allowed me to take in more projects at the same time.
• Pipboy as an architect. Even though most solutions to the scenarios that I encountered were within reach of my function libraries, no two projects are exactly alike. For every project, there was always a little tweaking and customization needed by the client. This forced me to improvise. Since last summer, I’ve been working on a meta-program. I call it The Regurtitator 2000. It’s a program that writes my PHP and MySQL code for me. It’s not yet complete, but i think it will all be worth the effort and just in time for the upcoming deluge of projects coming my way.
• Pipboy as a visionary. Up Next? My own IDE.

I don’t claim to be the most elegant coder or the brightest programmer out there though. There are a hell lot of people who are smarter, experienced and more knowledgeable than I am. From where I stand though, I guarantee results aligned with a company’s business objectives. It’s not enough to create a database that can keep a company’s data. There must also be a way to harness such data into information that will be useful to different types of people. This is just a sample of what I bring in to the table.

If you’re a subordinate to a fellow programmer in the field, chances are, elegant code and A+ algorithms are a must. However, if you’re like me who’s dealing mostly with Small and Medium Enterprise Company Owners or Management-level IT heads, they won’t be looking at your code. They’ll be looking for business results. And in this e-business-enabled economy that we have, it’s not the e that brings home the bacon - it’s the business.