Waldo Smeets .com

Holidays are coming, time to study? In the past, before I joined Macromedia, I had some more time during the holiday season compared to the rest of the year. Simply because university was closed, customers called less and because less projects had to be started or finished.

Very often I used this period to specialise myself a bit more in a certain technology. I remember that this is how I studied HTML (’97), Flash 3 (I think it was back in ’98), JavaScript (’99), UltraDev/ASP (2000) and more advanced JavaScript / DOM / HTC development (’01).

Last summer (’02) was consumed completely by learning everything that had to do with my work at Macromedia. I’m not sure what this summer will bring me (if I have spare time at all!). Things that are still in my wishlist are getting ColdFusion Certified, getting more familiar with Java coding, learning more about design patterns and building an advanced Rich Internet Application for my personal use (and as case study). As you can read… that’s more than I will ever be able to learn in one summer!

So I am wondering, do you plan to use the extra time (if any) to specialise yourself in a certain area? And if so, what will you be focussing on this year?