They get it, my new company "gets it". Granted, I have only been here a couple of days, but that has proven to be enough time to determine that Quest has a much better understanding of "correct" software development than most of the companies I have worked for in the past, especially recent past. The code that I have been reviewing is pretty darn good, has comments, is formatted consistently, and has unit and functional tests written for it. The style is not my own of course, but it is consitent and easy to read and follow.
My manager, like me, very much believes in Test Driven Development. That is developing code using this simple principle to create much less buggy software, giving the end-user a much better experience with the program. It takes a little bit longer initially to create the code, but the end result is high quality code that ultimately took less time to write because it was bug-free to begin with. It is nice to have a manager that see's things this way, instead of one that I have to do constant battle with because he doesn't "get it".
I am just getting going here, but it appears I will soon be able to contribute a lot to the team and add significant value to the product. And the best part is, I don't have to do any web development, ever! I am perfectly fine not creating boring old web pages and "web applications". Give me the low-level grunt code any day and I will be happy.
On the personal front, it's been a while since I have written about finances. I have just been so busy lately, my little hobbies tend to take a back seat. Missy and I did find a nice little gem on the Internet last night, a site called CreditKarma. It allows you to see your credit score and has a FICO simulator. It is not perfect, but it is still a very nice tool. The price is right too, 100% free, paid for my targetted advertising on the site. I highly recommend it.
We are hoping to refinance our house. Yes, already. The rates are nearly 2% lower now than when we purchased the home in July, and we can lower our payments by $250 every month! We are submitting the paperwork tonight and hopefully will have this wrapped up the first part of February, which would give us 2 months without a house payment!
The credit cards are, once again, completely paid off. I know I have said this before, but we (all of us) need to stop using them. However, CreditKarma also did some research that showed people that used 10-19% of their available credit had up to 60 point higher credit scores than people that had 0 credit utilization, literally the difference between a 720 FICO score and 660, which is huge. I think that should be illegal, but it appears that that is exactly how the credit scoring system works. So what is more evil here, having 0 credit card debt and a lower FICO score, or a little credit card debt and feeding those monsters? I don't have an answer, though the new iMac and iLife suite from Apple is looking very appealing! :-)
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
They Get It!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Re: utilization, it's important to note that your utilization is a point-in-time snapshot of your credit card balance.
I pay my credit card statement balance in full every month, so I never pay any interest, and I use my card every single day because of the cash back features. By the time I actually receive the statement and pay it in full (a couple of weeks), another half month's usage has accumulated on the card.
The credit card company could report my balance to the bureau at any time during this process. Even if they report right when they receive my payment, there will be a balance on the card (but not a past due one).
So, my card utilization is usually somewhere in the 5%-15% range at all times. This is how you should use credit cards - leverage them to earn some extra cash on your purchases and raise your credit score, but don't carry a balance.
If you choose your credit card wisely, this is free money for you and will help your credit score. My score has gone up quite a bit on Credit Karma since I began using my credit cards more efficiently. I use an AMEX Blue Cash card (link) that I found there. After the AMEX fine print (there's always loads of fine print), I end up getting around 1.9% cash back on that card when everything is said and done.
Post a Comment