Another Delphi Contract

I should mention something about my last adventure in programming. (Oh why do these things always have to be an adventure?) I moved to Edmonton and the job only lasted three month for some strange reason!
The end client of the contract was 5D Solutions... at least that is what they still call it on their web site even though they officially changed their name when they were bought out by a big American company.

In the interest of one day getting another software job I won't go deep into what was wrong at the company. But I must say that they really knew how to spend money. It helps when you have the US government as one of your big customers!

I am still surprised at how companies end relationships. I know that they are afraid of getting sued but when they break things off with no explanation it really leaves a bad taste. I do note that they are always looking for software developers and managers. They seem to have some trouble keeping people for some reason.

One of the strange things at that contract was all the money that they wasted on my training. There was weeks and weeks of testing and online courses and then I was terminated without explanation. Hardly seems a smart way to spend money. The 5D software is used to control and document blood collection and blood product testing. (I found that especially interesting with my own medical history). Because of the nature of their software the US FDA was involved. The software package was considered a "medical device". Someone somewhere neglected to document the software the first time around so 5D was spending millions on getting it certified after the fact. The only small problem was the incredibly bad software decisions that had been made early in the project. So know, because so much time and effort had been spent trying to get the darn thing FDA certified everyone was afraid to throw the darn crap out and start over even though that would have created much better software on a much shorter schedule. GIGO to the max was okay as long as everything was well documented.

Of course I was only hired as a lowly software developer even though they called all their employees "analysts". Sort of like when a big hotel makes all their front desk employees "Assistant Managers" after their first week on the job. I know that I was not actually an Analyst because in three months there was little opportunity to actually analyse anything and provide input for improvement.

Anyways I am not bitter. I got out of the Vancouver rat race for a while and I am enjoying my rental apartment in Edmonton. It has a great view to the south and is the largest space that I have ever had all to myself. (It is 20% larger than my mobile home that I recently sold in Surrey, BC). Since I have money in the bank -- another story that I have not yet written about -- I took the occasion to become a student for a while. Since April I have been a full-time Athabasca University student. It is all by "distance learning", either online or by the mail. I was trying for a Bachelor of Arts but I keep ratcheting back my expectations and will happy to get what they call a University Diploma in the Arts. It all depends on how many credits they give me for previous education. Athabasca University is taking their time getting back to me on that one.

Analysis of Geographic distribution for operating systems and databases

I have long noticed that some kinds of software, some operating systems and some databases are more popular in certain regions than in others. I have wondered if this was the truth or just my opinion. I tried, without much success, to find some statistics on these regional differences. There is a web site that I like from TIOBE Software which scans the Internet to see what programming languages people are currently talking about. TIOBE illustrates the buzz with a monthly scan created with the Google search engine. I looked for something similar that would show the geographic distribution of software and databases. Not much success in my searching, so I gave it a limited try on my own. My favourite web site for software jobs searching -- at least for American jobs -- is DICE.com. Originally it was strictly for software contract positions. Now it includes a lot of more permanent jobs. It still has a preponderance of serious real jobs. Some other software job web sites include a lot of part-time jobs and low-paid stay-at-home employment. In my search today I looked at some languages and computer systems that I use myself. These include some of my personal skills sets. This gave me some hints as to where I should concentrate on for my software skill upgrades and sales promotion efforts. I concentrated on both West Coast states and several large states where I expected to find software contracts. Click Here to see my Results Table[Now deleted]. 

Some Conclusions I was reminded today how good I am at general data analysis. Too bad that I can't get a job doing just that. (Hint. Hint. If anyone is hiring). The key to looking at the data in this table is comparing the percentage that the states are of the entire US population to the percentage of that state's software jobs are to the whole. The population percentages are in the bottom row. The first thing that I noticed is just how few jobs are in the states close to my Vancouver, BC home. For example, while Washington is a major software centre, it has just 2% of the US population. In this one time sample there are less than 2% of the total jobs for some of my best skills such as Delphi, Visual Basic and PL/SQL. So where are the jobs? In Illinois and California the percentage of open jobs is higher than the population percentage in almost every category. This might be because it is harder to get people to move to San Francisco and Chicago for work; or it might simply be because there is more actual work there or it might be because the employers there have greater need for these particular skills. I also see that there is very little demand for some of skills that I know well. It is amazing just how few jobs there are for Delphi programmers. I see a lot of Java and Oracle PL/SQL jobs and I should concentrate my training there. Another surprise was the approximately 3 to 1 ratio of COBOL to RPG jobs. I do like doing AS/400 (iSeries) RPG but there are darn few jobs out there. It would be nice to create a system to automatically update a database like this and put it on the web each month. It could be more general and have more states. (Let me know if there is any demand for this). 

  The Canadian Picture I did a similar analysis for BC, Alberta and Ontario using data from the Canadian site Workopolis.com. The conclusions are similar when looking at the number of RPG vs Delphi vs Java positions. (I had better brush up on my COBOL and Java knowledge). It was a bit of a surprise just how many software jobs there are in Ontario. For example there were 32 'SQL Server' jobs in BC, 56 in Alberta (which has a smaller population) and 247 positions in Ontario which has less than 3 times the population of BC. Today's analysis brings more strong incentive to hit the road if I don't find a good job soon. There is so much more demand in Alberta and Ontario.

Current Contract Work

Most of my work in the last ten years has been contract employment. Some of these have been short term but they have also lasted as long as 2 years. I like long term employment but the regular jobs that come my way always seem have some glaring problem. Among other things, I have had great luck in picking companies soon before they either go under or get swallowed up.
That has put huge holes in my resume.
 It is always a toss-up whether to include an interesting computer experience or to leave off yet another short term job. Some of those short term jobs have been great learning experiences but it is hard to explain that in 20 words or less on a resume.
 Even my formal education has been somewhat ill-fated. In 2003 I spent three months of the summer learning Internet Programming at a place in Vancouver named Corporate Communications Training College (CCTC). Apparently though they were fiddling with the books and a couple years later they closed their doors without notice.
 Contract work has its upside and downside. The money is good and it has given me a degree of freedom. I can take a holiday when I want and I set my own hours. But that supposed freedom has some big costs. When I take that holiday I am not paid for my days off. And when one contract ends one never knows when the next one will start.
 Most years it is almost as hard work to look for employment than it is to actually put in 8 hours in an office.
Contracts have taken me to a lot strange situations from here to Mississippi. That is my biggest strength on the job market. There are plenty of software employees who have done the same thing for a decade or two. When things are chaotic or ill-designed or ill-fated I have had lot of experience in just those sorts of situations. I ask lots of questions, I learn fast and I get along with a wide variety of people. That is one of my strengths.

Data is what I do

I am a software contractor. I am currently working on a 6-month contract scheduled to end in January 2007. I have Oracle SQL, IBM RPG, Delphi Oracle and other skills.

My Software Summary

Oracle PL/SQL programming -- at least years experience plus Oracle education

Have completed 3 Oracle Education SQL and PL/SQL courses with programming exams

Have programmed procedures, functions and triggers

Other SQL experience includes IBM's DB2/400, Microsoft SQL Server and Access SQL

Experienced with Toad for Oracle development tools

Borland Delphi versions 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 and 2006 -- 10+ years experience.

Expertise using QuickReports, ReportBuilder, Rave, InfoPower and FirstChoice components

Have developed front end applications for several Oracle SQL and SQL Server projects

An 18 month contract involved production control software for truck / auto assembly

My 2003 year-end job involved Delphi / SQL Server development and extensive travel

2005 contract was with console batch applications in a mixed environment

Currently learning and working with Borland Developer Suite 2006

Internet programming and development -- 10 years experience

HTML, Active Server Pages (ASP), VB.Net, VBScript, JavaScript, Macromedia

Designed, developed and maintain several web sites that rate high in Google searches

Microsoft SQL Server:

2003 to 2005 SQL programming and database design -- 1 year experience

IBM iSeries / System i / AS/400 mid-range computers: RPG, COBOL, SQL, DDS, Embedded Queries, DB2 and CL programming -- 3 years experience

Up to date RPG and CL skills. Worked on current V5R3 version in mid-2006.

Maintained IBM System/36: RPG II programs -- 1 year experience

Borland Paradox for Windows versions 4, 5 and 7 -- 2+ years experience

Year 2000 (Y2K) Conversion Analysis and programming -- 3 years experience

C Programming: VMS C, Pro C and Borland C Builder -- 1 year experience

dBase versions: II, III, III+, IV and dBXL -- 3 years experience

PICK Basic, Revelation and Advanced Revelation -- 2 years experience

Microsoft Office Applications and Tools

Have worked with several versions in last 10 years. Did a lot of VBA and Access development. Skilled with macros, scripts and batch programming. Have done Excel automation using OLE and Activex.