Location: Roseburg, Oregon
Comparison to Hawaii (-5: much worse, 0: toss-up, +5: much better):
Weather: -3
Scenery: 0
Humidity: +2
Coackroach/Centipede/Ant frequency: +5
Prices: +2
Cosmopolitan atmosphere: -3
Places to drive: +3
Snorkelling/kayaking/surfing: -5
CSDL lunch frequency: -5
Professional life: I'm still working for Great Valley Technologies, now as a project manager for a team re-architecting a huge medical application using Progress OpenEdge (www.progress.com). Our team is spread from Philadelphia to Fiji in 5 locations, so there are the obvious logistical challenges, much eased by the use of Central Desktop (www.centraldesktop.com). There have been technical challenges: maintaining legacy code while separating application layers, interfacing with Word, Excel, scanning drivers, ActiveX controls, etc. and faxing without fax machines (www.faxage.com). These have actually been a lot of fun, but one of my biggest accomplishments is developing a team of people who are consistently producing high-quality software in a truly collaborative way. I don't think there's a single program module which hasn't been worked on by at least 6 people. We've used a lot of techniques taken from Extreme Programming (extremeprogramming.org) with great success: our application is solid, even though only about 1/2 of the team members have any formal training in computer science. Three of my best programmers had just graduated high school when I took them on, but this was really an advantage since the only way they've ever known to do things is the right (AKA "Disney") way!
Personal life: My husband and I have our 20th wedding anniversary coming up in February, and we have 4 daughters aged 11, 14, 16, and 20, all adopted from Russia, and the younger two home-schooled. Also ... a dog, two cats, and a rotating population of turtles, snakes, chipmunks, mice, guinea pigs, injured birds, rats, and rabbits. Very little free time, but I play racquetball, read too much, and hope to visit Norway one day.
