SpencerBarron.com

or at least trying to. I’ve been busy expanding some ideas I have with internet technologies. As such, I haven’t been completely focused on writing much lately but I’m still here. I’ve been working on expanding my very limited programming background. I’ve been learning web development and have been trying to pick up as much as I can before it all changes. Outside of the classes I’ve been taking, I think I’ve actually made some progress. I don’t really enjoy formal classes. I find that it’s usually structured in such a way as to not teach you enough to move forward on your own. When it comes to technology, it seems a typical local college just doesn’t have the ability to keep up with what’s new. And of course, my biggest peeve: colleges like to separate crucial components in such a way so as to fill their 30-40 credit requirements for a certain program of study overcomplicating the learning process so they can sell you more classes. You would think you would go through a class that covered the subject broadly early on, perhaps building a web application without going into much detail of every little thing. That way, as you continue down the road, you’ll have a better grasp of where each technology comes in to play. Of course, if you knew that, you could probably just pick up a book on the subject.

So what have I learned so far? I’ve learned enough C++ to know that I hate when things become very tedious. That really helped with pushing me towards learning more about Ruby and Ruby on Rails. I was able to use C++ for an actual application though. I wrote a parser to convert an online directory of addresses to a comma delimited file so it could be used to create mailing labels. Pretty exciting stuff isn’t it.

I learned more HTML and CSS. No time wasted there. Besides all the CSS you come across playing around with blogs, you can also use it to help with designs of actual websites. Who knew? Hopefully, my site, ValueRents.com will be online sooner than later. That’s the website I’ve been working on in a round about manner for a couple of years. I dusted the concept off and developed a frontend for the site but still need to plug in some sort of backend. One day ValueRents.com will help landlords find the best properties then manage their rental properties from one location. I apparently have a few more things to figure out before it all comes together. I might make some attempts to redevelop the theme for this site. How hard could it be?

And to wrap it all up, a few classes in database design and SQL. I got to tell you, there’s nothing like bending raw data to your every whim. Hours of fun. I can’t even begin to explain how happy I am to finally stop using Excel to run calculations on the thousands of foreclosure records I have. Mysql and SQL Server are so much more fun. So maybe I can start using Excel for what it was intended–spreadsheets and quick and dirty charts.

So that’s what I’ve been up to while the real estate megalith cracks and crumbles. I’ll have more on that in coming posts. I can’t help but think though, where there are problems, there is an opportunity. I haven’t seen such great deals in Denver real estate since I moved here 8 years ago. Hopefully, the web development education I’m giving myself will help me take advantage of the dozens of opportunities I see every day. Time will tell.