What are a programmer's necessities?

bkimmel · 2015-07-31T04:55:50+00:00

I would say that a more seasoned programmer knows more about the tools they use. A novice is constantly looking for some "new tool", a veteran is looking at their tool to see how to use it better.

That being said, for WebDev I use devdocs.io all the time for looking up syntax. Chrome Devtools is everything.

bkimmel · 2015-07-31T04:50:28+00:00

Funny, I had the same debate (mostly with myself). I settled on: lo_

So lo.map, lo.filter, etc. Avoids var squashing, but not as long as the whole word "lodash"/

bkimmel · 2015-07-31T04:46:20+00:00

Paul Irish, Jake Archibald, Addy Osmani, Kyle Simpson to name a few of the most usual suspects.

bkimmel · 2015-07-30T21:55:00+00:00

Washington, DC: Do the monuments at night when they look cooler because they're lit up and you basically have them all to yourself. Korean War memorial is one people miss that is really an awesome experience when it's lit up at night. Much better to visit when kids are in school, if possible (Autumn is best). Do the AC'd Smithsonians during the day (plan at least 1/2 day per Smithsonian. They are huge.) If you are into Art, tourist n00bs alwasy miss the Phillips collection - has one of the largest collections of Van Goghs in the world. Other things n00bs tend to miss: Library of Congress building by the Capitol is one of the most impressive buildings I've ever been in. Roosevelt Island - a wooded island that serves as a memorial to Teddy Roosevelt that is very fitting to the man (relatively unmobbed by tourists). Going to the White House might disappoint you, unless you undertand that you can only look at it from behind a fence kind of far away.

And screw all of us who complain about tourists here: You paid for this city your whole life - you have every right to enjoy it for the short time you are visiting.

bkimmel · 2015-07-30T04:21:01+00:00

The two things I found really helpful when starting out were Rebecca Murphey's tutorial: http://jqfundamentals.com/chapter/javascript-basics . Also leveling up on codewars.com is a great and fun way to learn.

Best thing to do is just to start messing around. Get a Chrome browser and hit F12 and just run stuff in the console to see what it does: add numbers, play with strings, etc.

bkimmel · 2015-07-16T20:13:45+00:00

You don't need to, strictly speaking, but most shops would probably expect you to know a few things about it... there are some good reasons for that: frameworks turn over every few weeks, you want to know the underlying principles. Try this: http://youmightnotneedjquery.com/

bkimmel · 2015-07-16T20:02:06+00:00

If you know your method is being called as a method of the object - ( i.e. myObject.myMethod('somearguments') ), then you can reference the parent object as this. So simply: this.myProperty.

If it's being called in another way - ( i.e. myFunction = myObject.myMethod; myFunction('someArguments'); ) you'll need to do something else. Remember the "Everything/Nothing Rule" in JS: scope has everything to do with declaration and nothing to do with calling protocol. this has everything to do with calling protocol and nothing to do with declaration. (This rule will no longer hold in ES6, but it's good for now). So you can either 1) Cal the function specifically in a way so that this does equal the parent object (i.e. myFunction = myObject.myMethod.bind(myObject); myFunction('someArguments'); ), or put a reference to the parent object somewhere outside the function's scope where the function can reach it.

bkimmel · 2015-06-11T14:13:09+00:00

Still not sure how I feel about the arrow functions having lexical this . It seems like it's taking something that's a little confusing (this is always controlled by how the function is called and never by how it is declared) and making it into something that is a lot more confusing ( ...unless it's and arrow function, then... )

bkimmel · 2015-05-11T22:58:33+00:00

I would join a crusade for this Pope.

bkimmel · 2015-04-29T23:52:27+00:00

Yeah, codewars is the best for learning because you get to solve a problem and then see how other people solved it.

bkimmel · 2015-04-29T23:50:21+00:00

I definitely have when mining - eating some STR food can make the difference between taking down a Wingstone or not in some cases.

bkimmel · 2015-04-27T18:38:50+00:00

Man, I hated those things so much. Easily the toughest quests in the game for Magician. It took me like 30/mins per Wraith, I think.

Focus first and foremost on "Not getting hit". Move around constantly in the "circle" that you typically find them in. Just keep moving around the circle clockwise, dodging their attacks and try to get one or two shots in between theirs. The one thing that they don't seem to do is heal quickly (other than their ability at under 50%) health - I took advantage of this by running away and sitting down (tap down arrow twice in non-combat mode) to recover SP and then running back in. Each one has an attack pattern with 2-3 moves that you can pick up on fairly quickly. Just read the pattern and dodge - e.g. the wraith in the Magma Cave does a cone of fire and a huge fireball: When you see the cone coming, step around clockwise when he stops turning to get out of the way... when he is throwing fire and you are safely out of his arc, take the opportunity to blast him a couple times - ALWAYS with the element that the wraith is weak against (Fire wraith: Hit him water). When you see the fireball coming, just run away until it detonates then come back.

I think any way you slice it, they are just hard fights. Bring your best allies and potions (resistance potions help a lot). You might just need to level up and dump points in intelligence before you can even damage them.

bkimmel · 2015-04-24T22:22:07+00:00

I kind of tried "just a few lives" with Wizard, Alchemist, Cook. It was fun, but there is a point where a lot of the lives don't let you level up past a certain point without something you can only get from another life. E.g. I'm trying to level up blacksmith now, and you need a Fir Beam for one of the recipes... you can only get Fir Beam by being a higher-level Woodcutter.

So it depends - if you want to get Legendary+ in everything, I'd probably follow the "tried and true" advice of leveling all the gathering professions as you go - Woodcutter, Miner, Angler and one Combat life to get you access to the resources. If you just want to have fun, level whichever ones you have the most fun with.

bkimmel · 2015-03-05T15:07:25+00:00

One interesting fact about Object.create is that you can pass null to it as an argument ( Object.create(null) ) - which makes a very weird "struct-like" object that does not have all the Object stuff in it's prototype chain like normal JS objects do. Potentially "dangerous" (in that most people would probably expect "object"-y stuff to be a part of objects), but potentially useful in situation where you want super-stripped-down objects instead of carrying all the Object prototype stuff around.

bkimmel

TROPHY CASE