Doing commercial consulting, you're given a really huge toolbox...and a Sears credit card. See a new and shiny tool that's perfect for the job you're trying to accomplish? Super! Go out to Sears and buy one! (But not everyone needs a cherry stoner.)

Doing DoD consulting is a bit different. Our toolbox is roughly the size of a shoe box, and consists of a hammer, a few screw drivers, a couple of Vice Grips, and if you're real lucky, some spackle. Every once in a while we get the opportunity to buy a new tool, but we don't have a Sears credit card, we have a WalMart gift card that is usually delivered at about this time of year. What do we usually buy? Stickers to put on our hammer.

Is it possible we are to comfortable with that hammer? It feels so good in our hands. It is such a versatile tool. Not only can I hammer nails like the tool was designed to do, but if I'm real creative, I can screw in a screw...or hammer in a screw, or pound the crap out of the square peg until it fits into the round hole.

People love their hammers. Just try to take one away and see what happens. They'll kick and scream and tell you, "All I need is a hammer!"

Ok, I'll admit that the hammer is a very versatile tool, and you really can accomplish almost any job with that hammer. But when you start to try to paint a fence with that hammer, it's time to pull out that WalMart gift card and buy yourself a power sprayer.

The sessions I attended were heavy into dynamic programming languages, and agile software development. The dynamic programming languages that we got deepest into were Groovy and Ruby. Both of these languages make the job of the developer exponentially easier, and are ideal for rapid application development. This in and of itself should be enough to convince developers to use it, but it gets better. Through the magic of dynamic programming, things become possible that were not possible before, which opens up a whole new world of possibilities that blow my mind.

The agile discussions focused on what's right, and wrong, with various agile processes. There were a lot of really great tips, and it was as good to hear about what we are doing wrong as it was to hear about what we are doing wrong.

So the fascination part should be pretty clear. By the end of the weekend I had soaked in so much great information, and had learned so much, that I had that partially numb, partially tingly feeling that is fairly unique to such an experience. There is no question that I will be attending as many NFJS conferences as I can manage. At least one a year. The knowledge exchange, and networking, were absolutely invaluable.

What was frustrating for me is coming to the realization that I have lost (or more likely misplaced) my edge. I find it exceedingly important to select the technologies that are best to solve a given problem. Choosing the right technology can make the difference between a good solution, and a great solution, or even between a failed project and a raging success. Despite my strong feelings on this, I find myself settling on technologies that I am comfortable with. This is clearly not the way I want to develop my career, and not fair to those that count on my technical expertise to solve their problems.

So this stagnant period in my technological development is frustrating. It is certainly possible that I am being too hard on myself, and that always sticking with Java has been the right decision, but I seriously doubt it. The project I am currently working on, for example, could clearly benefit from the dynamic nature of Groovy, and would also likely have been well served by Grails, and had I been paying more attention, I could have offered that guidance early in the project's lifecycle. We're almost to the point where it's too late to bring something like this in, so convincing those I work with that, "I was wrong before...but I'm right now!" is going to be nearly impossible.

On a positive note, like they say, the first step in dealing with a problem is recognizing that there is a problem, so keep checking back here to follow me in my quest to find my place in this techno-world again.