tips
The story is a familiar one. An excellent idea, simple but valuable. A fresh codebase, like a world of possibilities. A side project is born. A weekend of delivered pizza and whirlwind coding lays the foundation of something wonderful. But then the novelty fades. Productivity slows. Eventually, between work and
growth
College didn't teach me what i needed to know. It taught me how to learn what i needed to know. I read this quote on a pamphlet in RIT's Software Engineering office one day. I didn't understand it at the time, but it has
process
I find myself asking the question, "How would this work in a perfect world? What is the ideal here?" more and more lately. It seems to fit in so many discussions, from architecture to process to meeting formats to feature development. Each time i ask it, i am
growth
I skipped my yearly trip to optometrist last year. This was not entirely by choice. Like many in the early stage startup world, "benefits" including "insurance" are a sort of distant goal somewhere between "keep the lights on" and "ramen profitability". I,
growth
We each have memories of our best times reading. The great book with the fascinating characters. The couch with the perfect cushions to rest our heads. A time when we were lost in the story while being supported comfortably by the world around us. This sort of literary paradise is
growth
If i had to hire engineers on their answer to a single question, that question would be "tell me about your personal projects". That may sound silly, but i haven't found a question whose answer better correlates to ability of the interviewee. This shouldn't
Team
Programmers are a curious bunch. I mean this literally: we are curious by nature. That is a good thing given how rapidly the tech world evolves. That curiosity keeps our skills relevant for our companies and clients. This curiosity is on display anytime a group of programmers go to lunch
tech
Rails has been very prominent in web development the last 5-7 years, and for good reason. It is relatively easy to learn and its abstractions make it easy to build features quickly. An unfortunate side effect of this has been that Rails developers have learned web development through Rails. This
process
Some scale problems should go unsolved. No. Most scale problems should go unsolved. "To your pitchforks!", you shout. "Burn the heretic!" Hear me out. The thing is, most scale problems aren't problems at all. They are "problems". "Problems" are issues
tech
Software is vast and growing. It seems like every week a new editor, library, framework, or language is released. I've written before about the value of learning things that are unnecessary, but with so much material, how do we find the unnecessary amidst the unrelated and unhelpful. How
growth
The world's best programmers share exactly one thing in common: a passion. That passion is not for code. The passion is for creation. We are addicted to creation, whether it's solutions, websites or software. For most of us, technologies we do not require to create are,
tech
Editors are tools. Rarely, however, do we consider our abilities with an editor as part of coding mastery. In traditional canvas art, we can see the painter's mastery of their tools in their works. Often times, how artists use their brushes and knives become a defining feature of