Watched the first half here, a sponsored pavilion with bleechers. Pretty busy with crews, tourists and other airport staff.

This report covers my internship at JAARS, in Waxhaw, North Carolina. My project for the internship was to work with the team that works on “Translation Editor”, a program to input and edit scripture. The internship started off by writing a project plan, containing explanations of the process, the approach taken, products to be produced and a timeline for the different products. The team works with the Extreme Programming methodology, and has taken a year to refactor the code (refactoring is to review and improve code). The biggest change is this is an architecture change, where the old data layer is being replaced by new data objects, using the principles of “Domain Driven Design” (from the book by the same name by Eric Evans). Because of this, all the modules had to be rewritten or adjusted for this. Important in this process were pair programming and test driven development, which ensure that changes happened correctly and the complexity was kept at bay. In addition to an explanation of the project, the project plan also included a timeline to work on development tasks and produce three products. The development tasks happened in two distinct phases: work on refactoring and the new code, but also producing a bug fix release. In addition I was able to attend an internal “developers conference”. The three products produced were an implementation report, a design report and this final internship report.

The results of this internship can be seen in three different areas. Firstly, in the refactored code I was directly involved with about 30 tasks and in the bug-fix release I worked on fixing about 40 bugs. Secondly, I was able to develop my skills, especially in the areas of implementing code and self-discipline, but also in design aspects. The development of these skills is discussed in a separate reflective report which has been included with this report as an appendix (the report is in Dutch however). Thirdly, I have written an implementation report on a development task, a design report in English about a design issue, and also this final report. In these three areas I have achieved the goals as set in the project plan and therefore, at the end of this internship, I can look back on a productive, valuable and educational internship.

You've probably spotted the computers-pattern by now. Unfortunately, the field is so broad, I have no clue what exactly I wanna do, so for now I've picked something that's interests me. One day I'll find the perfect job, and the best part is that someone already knows what that is.

Injerra be wott! I could eat the stuff forever and still not have enough. Ok, almost. Why almost? Well, Injerra has the tendency to expand in your stomach, meaning afterwards you feel veeerrryyy full.
Other than that, I hope it’s what we eat in heaven: a sour pancake with sauces on top in lots of different tastes and colours. The best part: you eat with your hands! Now that does mean lots of clean hands, and then you get to eat eat eat. The best? Dorro wot: spicey chicken stew, and coming in second best tibs: fried spiced pieces of meat
And euh, it’s been a while since I had Injerra, so one day sometime soon

So why Addis Abeba? "What's in a name?" really does tell you a lot here, Addis Abeba means "new flower" and it really ain't that bad of a place. I lived there a couple of years, and maybe it's just childhood reminiscence, but the simplicity of life sometimes there really was wonderful. Plus, you could build yourself a palace there for really, not much money at all. It's good that I'm not going to be retiring for a while though: I really haven't started a career yet and there is soooo much I'd just really like to do.

So, really when I'd say I want to retire in Addis Abeba, maybe I really mean that I just wanna go back there some day. It'd be cool: but someday

This blog is both Dutch and English: de Dutch feed going to social network Hyves, and the English feed being replicated to Facebook. This site, joelhaasnoot.nl will contain all the posts. Some things I wanna talk about are (not necessarily in English tho )
- 2008 past and 2009 as the future
- New media and it’s impact on society, culture and the growing youth
- Life in general and the cool things that happen
- Trips I take and places I go
- Faith, the church and God in my life (should have listed that first…)

That’s right, all those dutchies, ik ga ook het een en ander in ‘t Nederlands hier schrijven omdat dit ook op hyves staat. Daarnaast wordt ik soms geinspireeerd door iets in het Nederlands (tuurlijk ook vaal genoeg in het Engels) en dan is het handiger/makkelijker/leuker.interessanter om in ‘t Nederlands te schrijven. het is ook een beetje stimulans om meer te gaan schrijven En euhh, bedankt voor ‘t lezen!

Right now, I sorta do PHP freelance work, when I find the time for it. Some weeks I’m so busy with school and other exciting things the projects get put off for weeks. I’m a pretty good PHP programmer right now, but I know it’s something I don’t want to do forever: the web industry is big and complicated. On the other hand I don’t know what I do want to do…

Regarding the technical information technology variety: that’s something I’ve not got too much experience in, but it’d be awesome to know more about… On the other hand, I’m not sure I’m that “low-level” type of programmer. I would likely find this interesting, but I have no clue where I would end up working or what I would be doing.

Then there’s my other option, the “Business Information Technology”, which is more focused on businesses and their information needs. My big fear against choosing this specialization is that I’d drift too far away from computers, and be too involved in processes to be doing “fun” stuff, and instead writing reports and analyses all day long. On the other hand, I could really see myself being put to good use, both in the business sector and in missions: there’s plenty of organizations that could use a system architect typish person. Backing this up is also my “business reputation” – two of my six exam / graduating classes in high school where Business & Management and Economics. Both classes (esp. the business one) I really enjoyed, and I also got top/highest marks there.

So, I really don’t know what I want to do, one thing I’m doing is emailing this post to some real wise people, and pfcourse God is with you everywhere with great advice: just look Finally, I’m, also going to take a look at the course guides and overviews to see which classes that make up each specialization interest me more.

Back in the old days in The Netherlands (ok, note quite since the beginning of rail, but say from 1945 onwards) there was one company to rule them all: Nederlandse Spoorwegen, or as it’s better known, the NS. They ran all trains: from passenger to freight, they were in charge of the infrastructure and of course, in charge of the train stations. However, in the 1990s, it was ‘privatised’ and several different business units were formed (still part of the NS Group), each in charge of a different section. Soon this was privatised: with NS Cargo becoming Railion, NS Infra (track and signalling, etc.) becoming Prorail and so on. The actual train stations are still part of an NS division called NS Poort (I think that’s the name) – which is the real estate side of the NS Group – as apposed to NS Reizigers which operates passenger services.

Now if you got all of that (likely you didn’t) then we now fast forward to the EU and the era of public tenders. The regional services are now slowly being given out to various smaller transport companies: we now have Veolia, Arriva and lastly Connexxion. This last one is really more of a bus company: that’s their core competence atleast. They do however also run a service between Amersfoort and Ede-Wageningen. Recently they’ve started services with new trainsets, named PROTOS. However, they’ve also had to return the sets they leased from the NS temporarily, as per the contract.

But, I’ll have to continue this fascinating story tomorrow…