A New Year

Yesterday, was the one year anniversary of starting my new job. So at this point, I guess I can stop calling it my 'new' job, and just call it my job.

Professionally, it's been a whirlwind of a year, and 2009 looks to be even more of a technical blizzard. When 2008 started, I was pretty proficient at C#, knew Informix pretty well, and knew a lot about the airline business. But when I made the jump from the IT division at an airline, to a position as a Senior Systems Analyst for a small software consulting firm, I viwed to learn some new skills, and to really put my nose to the grind stone for a few months to get 'caught up' on technology. Little did I know that it's pretty much impossible to get 'caught up'. But here's what I did get experience in during 2008. This isn't just 'I read the book', but real, systems to production experience.

1. Visual Studio 2008
2. Resharper 4
3. LINQ to SQL
4. Microsoft Component Application Blocks (Version 1 for VS 2005)
5. The Model - View - Controller Pattern
6. SQL Server 2000
7. SQL Server 2005
8. ASP.NET 3.5
9. VB.NET
10. ASP.NET AJAX
11. SQL Reporting Services

All of that before the beginning of November 2008. I draw the line there, because in November, I started a new project that currently has me buried in the following technologies

1. WPF
2. Silverlight 2.0
3. SQL Server 2008
4. Team Foundation Services
5. MS Test & Test Driven Development
6. Microsoft Azure
7. Microsoft SQL Data Services
8. Microsoft Sync Framework
9. Microsoft Unity Dependency Injection Framework
10. Rhino Mock
11. Geneva / Microsoft Data Access Control Service
12. SQL Server CE
13. Microsoft Entity Framework

By the end of the year, I hope to be proficient in all of these topics. Actually, hope isn't a strong enough word. I need to be proficient in all of these topics. Right now, my head is spining a bit, and the new stuff is coming faster than my brain can absorb it all. But a year ago I had no idea what LINQ was, now I can't work without it.

I just have to wonder though. If this is what I have planned, what else could possibly come along later in the year?