When I set on to this all it was merely a strange idea to change the focus of my company and my own way to conduct work.
Now I’m wondering whether I am on a Grand Tour like the nobles from the 19th century or if it’s more like a “Walz” – which can roughly be translated as the journeyman year(s).
To sharpen the picture for myself a bit I tried to set up a small set of rules for this journey borrowed mostly from the concept of the medieval german walz – which is somehow fitting.
- Not closer than 50 kilometers (I kept to 50 miles btw.) to home
- No town twice (exempting harbors, train stations and airports)
- Only carry on luggage
- Performing my craft on the journey
- An uneven number of crossings of the date line (this one actually is not from medieval times, but ensures that I really go completely around the world)
[A very nice summary of this german tradition has been brought to my attention by Stefan Tilkov]
So why is this journey like the journeyman’s years from medieval times?
For the last couple of years I’ve been exclusively on the consulting side of the business – mainly concerned with processes and architecture.
Now I intend to (re-)learn the craft of software development. And with my current experience and depth of knowledge in the fields I plan to venture into – namely Objective-C and Ruby – journeyman seems to fit the bill for me.
status 307: the "temporary redirects" of my life 