A flowing discussion with Neil about the life of a contractor, before during and after, with some important mental health lessons hard learned along the way. Neil shares advice for people at every stage in the contracting journey, from tentative first steps to options for going beyond contracting, along with his own journey.

• Neil: https://www.neilmillard.com/
  • LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/neilmillard/
  • Youtube https://www.youtube.com/@confidentcontractor
• The new book: https://www.confident-contractor.co.uk/ - book out 24th July 2024
  • https://www.amazon.co.uk/Confident-Contractor-Thriving-Contracting-beyond-ebook/dp/B0D8QFHBZ1 - preorder now - early bird kindle price of 99p
• https://www.theministryofinspiration.com/
• https://rethinkpress.com/books/how-to-write-your-book-without-the-fuss/

Share this episode: https://share.transistor.fm/s/26ea1cb5

Also in the episode:

• Self publishing a book with ReThink press - the backstory
• The varied journeys into IT and contracting
• Impostor syndrome for permies and contractors alike.
• CapEx vs OpEx

David kindly had me on as a guest on his wonderful "just 5 mins" show to talk a bit more about outside-in-testing and answer some of his questions after my last episode on this show on the matter.

- Just Five Mins! Episode 78 - Outside in Testing with Tim

A follow up to my blog post on test automation - with an angle that I think is missing in so much of the software industry - outside in fully automated tests from the perspective of the user is THE most important thing - plus don't let your tests see your internals, not even for setup and teardown.

• (01:53) - automated tests blog
• (05:20) - axiom 1 - user perspective
• (07:50) - axiom 2 - the 99th feature
• (21:00) - you are the expert
• (27:40) - no internals knowledge
• (41:00) - don't flex the rules
• (46:00) - but how to set up state?

• timwise.co.uk/2024/01/13/new-tool-sln-items-sync-for-visual-studio-solution-folders/
• justfivemins.com (David's podcast)
• buttondown.email
• timwise.co.uk/subscribe

• https://timwise.co.uk/2023/10/20/use-kdiff3-for-merge-conflict-resolution/
• https://timwise.co.uk/2023/10/20/git-what-do-'base'-'local'-'remote'-mean/
• https://timwise.co.uk/2023/09/28/what-is-hexagonal-architecture/
• https://timwise.co.uk/2019/10/14/merge-vs-rebase/
• https://timwise.co.uk/subscribe/
• https://github.com/rustworkshop/gitopolis/tree/3a8eb6e868a4e42370e8f4d587ad0e8525e9da2e/tests

- beware fast talkers, as Ray Dalio says in Principles https://www.principles.com/ (as a tweet: https://twitter.com/RayDalio/status/1599056902637248514 )
- beware pattern obsessives (any pattern, architecture, SOLID, CQRS, Event Sourcing, Outside-in testing, you name it, someone wears it as a badge)
- evolve your architecture - YAGNI, but do think ahead
- currently available for c# contracts
- building rustworkshop.co

• Morning journaling
• Sunsama daily planning app
• Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule by Paul Graham
• Right to represent idea
• Airtable for making forms and surveys
• Send me a voice message (may be included in the next show)

Let me know you listened!

* Read "Working Identity" for career change https://www.amazon.co.uk/Working-Identity-Unconventional-Strategies-Reinventing-ebook/dp/B004OEIQ7C
* Maybe not an agency business...
* The contract market is recovering
* Yak Shaving - https://seths.blog/2005/03/dont_shave_that/
* Trying to build a SaaS in one evening with NoCode (fail)
* What's [not very] new in ES6
* Why should software be free? - Cloud vs local compute.
* Syncthing - https://syncthing.net/

Excuse the coughing, I've edited out a few but I am genuinely fighting a bloomin' cold.