

Journeyman Project Trip 1 United Kingdom - ivancdg
http://jacquesmattheij.com/journeyman-project-trip-1-united-kingdom

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tikhonj
That's a pretty brilliant idea!

Sounds like something I'd love to try some day. Of course, two days—or even
fourteen days—at a single company isn't enough to get much programming done.
So I suspect just trying to do normal programming would not really be in the
interest of the companies or me.

However, it sounds like a great chance to share some of my more specialized,
esoteric knowledge, like functional programming, FRP, verification or
synthesis: things which might be useful for a startup or project, but tend to
languish away in research labs or deep inside large corporations.

In the future, if I'm ever in a real position to try this—I guess if I get
better known and learn more interesting things to share—I'll definitely
consider trying something like this.

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Nanzikambe
Actually you can get an amazing amount done in two days.

For example:

    
    
      * A company looking for a prototype of something that they wouldn't otherwise have the capacity to do
      * Refactors
      * Code audits
      * Four eyes or rapid/agile development partner for a staff member
      * Junior dev mentoring/training on a specifc aspect
      * Presentation of a technology that might be relevant for which they lack inhouse expertise
      * And of course simple app dev. Many inhouse tools can be written in just a few hours.
    

And so on.

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robfitz
Any of the host companies willing to share details of the projects that were
worked on? Quite curious!

Edit: Also wondering about the general experience of getting good work done
with someone new to the team/project in just a couple days.

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phpnode
if you've ever met Jacques you'll know that he's one of those people who can
jump into just about anything and be productive straight away

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robfitz
Any sense of what makes him that way? Is it something you've seen in other
people as well? Is it a skill thing or a communication thing?

~~~
phpnode
I think it's a combination of having a broad range of skills, experience and
not being _at all_ afraid to call bullshit bullshit. He's polite but focusses
on getting stuff done and not the minutiae. If you have the opportunity to
work with him, take it!

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iamwithnail
Haha, I'm gratified to be described as a 'young person' in the Granttree
section... TERRIBLE photo of Swombat, though. :D

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darklajid
Thank you for that comment. It would be amazing to see the connections between
his hosts and their HN accounts (if any).

Although swombat's account lists his real name, I would never have made the
connection. Putting a face on some of the more notorious (in a good way! ;-p)
accounts on this site would be .. interesting.

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innertracks
Once again you've inspired me! (First time was your posts about getting
started in consulting. Very helpful!) What a great idea.

Edit: Whoa, brain is spinning, ideas are mixing. James Altucher (Choose
Yourself, author) gives away ideas to network, create value, and ultimately
generates business as a result. Something is coming alive in my head. Cool.

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DanAndersen
I have to admit I'm a little sad this article wasn't referring to the
adventure game series The Journeyman Project:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Journeyman_Project](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Journeyman_Project)

~~~
GrantS
My first thought as well. I'm pretty sure that was the first CD-ROM we bought
for our Mac IIvx.

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jeremyjarvis
Great idea. Kudos for going through with it, and then taking the time to write
it up!

