Almost four years ago, in 2020, I joined Alan Page for a podcast episode, ABT 343 – Danny Faught, which was part of a series where he would interview some of the listeners of the AB Testing podcast. I was recently asked whether I still stand behind what I said. I had to go back and listen to the episode to answer that question. My answer is, pretty much, “yes”, except I might end up not taking my own advice. Here’s my followup on the interview.

First of all, I was talking about how I was happy about working as a software developer and I did not recommend being a testing specialist. I find myself between jobs right now, and I’m considering various jobs openings where I could help developers get more directly involved in building test automation for the code they’re developing. Perhaps that would get me back into the business of being a testing specialist? I’m not going to overthink it. Strike that, yes, I am going to overthink it.

Another thing we talked about was being a software generalist. I’ve been asking around trying to learn how to market myself as a generalist. After not getting any help with that, I found this help: “A Career Guide for the Recovering Software Generalist” (along with several other great posts on that site, and a book). I’ve taken “generalist” out of my LinkedIn headline and decided to take more of a stand on what types of things I like to do.

We talked about my attempts to write a biography of Jerry Weinberg. I’ve only posted two more installments since then, but I was recently at a writer’s meetup working on the next one, so I’m still plugging along on it very slowly.

I mentioned having discussions on Twitter. I haven’t tweeted for about a year and a half. I miss it, but I just can’t support it any more. Instead, I’ve been getting to know Mastodon (I’m @swalchemist@fosstodon.org). I’ve found that I’m getting better engagement on LinkedIn, actually, so I’ve been more active there too.

Listening to that episode again, I like to hear how much we also learn about Alan. I hope you’ve tried DuoLingo again, Alan, or if you’ve used another language learning app, I’m curious which one. My DuoLingo streak is 1,704 days now. (Join me! I’m @swalchemist.)