I made it through a week without getting fired

My first week of work at the new job is over with. I didn't get fired, which means I have accomplished my first goal.

It's a really strange place, especially when compared to my last job. Just a month ago I ran the risk of being called a "Baby Diaper Programmer", answered phone calls most of the day, and programmed in an inefficient (though workable) system for the rest of the day. Here I am, in a quiet workplace with intelligent people and what seems to be an extremely efficient system for designing, coding and testing applications.

Today I learned about the existence of templates, hereafter accompanied in my head with a chorus of hallellujah. These templates were revealed to me by a 120 year old Indian man named Ishtar... well, ok, by the guy who's training me. I learned that we use a program that generates basic templates (there it went again) for forms based on a specific database layout. It was amazing. Instead of repeating the creation of the same code by hand (copying and pasting old code, but replacing the database names, field names, etc.) this program applies the template to the table you select and generates the VB code. It was splendiforous.

I'm learning about CVS (Code Versioning Systems), stored procedures, differences between Visual Studio 2003 & 2005, and picking up a new software package. It's been great.

I really hope my new employers are as impressed with me as I am with the way they work. On a related note, the people in other parts of the "campus" call the floor where I work "the promised land"... which makes Kristina Moses. I think it may actually be the land of milk and honey. There are hardly any phone calls, and those phone calls that do make it through are usually from other departments or programmers. We're pretty much left to do what we went to school for - code and design. It's really amazing the level of freedom and respect that the company gives their employees.

Here's hoping for another week without getting fired...