I recently changed jobs, going from a web developer position to programming. I had been at a consulting company where I did a lot of web design with a bit of WordPress and Drupal customization. Now I’m at a local Ruby on Rails company as a programmer, and I’m super happy to be back in Rails. I hadn’t used Rails regularly since an intern position I had years ago, back when Rails was on maybe at version 1. I forgot how awesome a language Ruby is, too; I hadn’t used Ruby since I finished my Master’s project last year. Now I get to use Capybara, CoffeeScript, Sunspot, SASS, Arel, and experience all the new stuff Rails 3 has to offer.

We use Git with Github, too, which has been great–no more Rational Team Concert or Team Foundation System! I’m enjoying getting to work with a team of developers, something that didn’t often happen with consulting work. I make a branch in Git to develop a feature or fix a bug, then make a pull request for my coworkers to review my code and see if it’s ready to be merged back into master. When enough people agree that it’s worthy, we let Github auto-merge it to our production branch. The process has worked well so far. I’ve used Github for a while now for my personal projects, but this is the first time I’ve gotten to use it for work, and I love it.

Besides the new job, I’ve gotten into the Mass Effect series, or at least Mass Effect 2. I had tried several times to play Mass Effect but couldn’t get into it, so I finally just skipped to ME2. I have now beaten ME2 once and am in the process of replaying it as a good character, since I was evil last time. I actually went back after I beat ME2 and tried to play the first game again, but it’s just painful. The interface is clunky and it makes me do things I’m not interested in, like manage an inventory of crap. My friend Mark tells me the second game is the best in the series, but I’m looking forward to playing Mass Effect 3 once I finish this playthrough of ME2. I know a lot of people complain about the third game, though I can’t imagine what it could do that would piss me off. Maybe if it reverted the interface back to that of the first game, but I get the feeling it’s some plot point that people take issue with. I’ve tried to avoid spoilers, so I really don’t know. I have to finish my current playthrough so I can import my character. I’m trying hard not to let anyone die this time around, since I lost three of my teammates in my first playthrough; I can’t start Mass Effect 3 like that!