Everyone is a programmer

After reading this article I wrote this article with one mouse click I realised that the requirement for writing code is becoming more and more important to professions other than software development. 

This idea is slowly permuatating  through the world of systems engineering with more and more systems administrators choosing to write and maintain scripts to keep their servers up-to-date, backed up and running efficiently. However, the above article reminded me that many other professions could benefit from their staff

1. knowing about the power of scripting/development
2. knowing how to write/use scripting languages
3. be allowed to automate their repetitive tasks by their employer

A quick search of the Internet doesn't reveal any courses targeted to non-technical employers/employees about an introduction to scripting & automating repetitive tasks. If I had the skills to develop training programs I would seriously consider developing something.

Of course, there also aren't any simple and affordable tools available to make this type of scripting accessible to your average non-programmer. Sure, every business machine has J/VBScript & VBA however, both these languages are pretty low-level when it comes to getting things done.

Any thoughts, training programs or tools available that I have missed out there?

Xero is greater than the rest

Well, that title definitely sounds like a marketing introduction but I swear, I have no affiliation with Xero apart from thinking that they have some of the best SME accounting software that I've come across.

Being web-based, getting transaction feeds directly from banks, having multi-currency support, simple expense claims, fixed-asset register and most importantly, an API for developers; Xero is highly integrated and, most importantly (and rarely), is actually fun to use.

For the last week or so I have been hacking away at the Ruby xero_gateway library project started by Tim Connor and have been having quite a lot of fun. It's great to take a break from customer-facing software for a while and developing code that will be used by other developers.

If you want to check out Xero, head on over to their main site or their developer's site.

Now, shameless plug, if you are an SME and looking to get some extra efficiency by integrating your current business processes/software with your accounting package, give me a shout and I'm sure to be able to help you get more (time/information/money) from less.