proud n00b

Q : Best Practices with Package Management?

Having been introduced to package management last week, I want to make sure I’m getting properly setup with node & projects in general. My workflow has been a bit chaotic up to this point. Basically it was, ‘If it worked, then run with it’ which obviously isn’t the right way to do things.

How do you have your projects organized on your local machine?

How do you start a new project? 

On my local machine, I have a directory, ‘Code,’ where I store all of my projects. It basically is a crazy mess of folders. When I start a new project, I create a new directory, and just throw everything in there. This seemed to work for GAE and Django projects.

However when using package management, how do you start a new project?

Funny enough, a week ago yesterday there was a Node.js Camp here in San Francisco. Doh! I missed it by one week! 

For the Camp, there was ‘Homework’ to get node running on your local machine.

• Install node
• Install npm (node package manager)
• Install socket.io

I was able to get all of this installed - but ran into a hickup when installing Socket.io. The first time, I used npm to grab the package, and install it.

npm install connect socket.io

It took me a few minutes to figure out where it had installed-

/usr/local/lib/node

But as I’m still inexperienced with packages, I didn’t know how to use it. :/  I went back to Github, and cloned a copy to my ‘Code’ directory.

git clone https://github.com/LearnBoost/Socket.IO.git

This worked, and I was able to run the Socket.io example, but I am still interested in learning the ‘best practice.’ How do you use the version that was installed through npm? Basically, what is the right way to use package management?

Thanks in advance! I think a lot of n00bs don’t know about package management, but it seems like a great tool that most should learn - sooner rather than later.

Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things. - Peter Drucker  

What’s Goin On

It has been a while since I made a post, and I’ve been getting pings -“Whats going on?” A lot!

1. I applied to some PM jobs, and still waiting to hear from everyone. To get more ideas on how to break through this PM barrier, I made this post on Quora - “How did you get your first Product Manager job?” 

If you have any thoughts or advice, please contribute to the discussion!

2. I’m also advising a friend on his startup, Splitgear.com- a site for renting photography equipment online. For a few months work, he’s doing an awesome job, so it will be exciting to see where he takes it over the next year.

3. During the day, I am heading over to Butchershop Creative, a creative agency in SF, where I get schooled by Sasha on the coding stuff I haven’t learned yet. Today I learned VIM through the vimtutor.

Last week, I got setup on their iMac I’m using. The installation steps were:

• Xcode
• Macports
• Python 2.6 + SQLite
• Git + Github
• Aptana Studio + Pydev plugin
• Virtualenv
• Buildout

I am working on some notes to fully break this down, and hopefully I can wrap that up later this week.

Even though I am still on the hunt for that PM job, I am still learning. The opportunity the guys at Butchershop have given me has opened my eyes to everything I still need to learn - much more to code than Python, HTML, CSS and JS. 

But I am grateful to Butchershop for letting me hangout at their office, and learn from those guys. I’ll make sure to write more blogposts about the experience!

I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.”- Jimmy Dean