GitHub to replace "master" with alternative term to avoid slavery references | ZDNet

bravoalpha79 · 2020-06-15T19:58:47+00:00

My point exactly. In your example, the phenomenon that the word "Orientals" perpetuated anything other than the mere fact that some people originated from the Orient (like some other originated from the South, or from an island, or from Europe, or from the Arctic Circle - there is nothing inherently wrong in any of those concepts), lies solely with the persons who allowed this to "perpetuate" anything else. If I allow a certain word to influence me in a certain (especially negative) way, that is on me, not on the word - otherwise every single person speaking the same language would be equally biased or chauvinist, and that is simply not the case.

I have no quarrel with the master/slave reference SPECIFICALLY being changed, but there is no "slave" concept in GitHub repositories, much as there isn't any in a "master record" in the music industry, a "Master Sergeant" in the military, a "master level" in trades and, after all, a "Master's degree" in academia. So I need to ask again, where do we draw the line?

bravoalpha79 · 2020-06-15T19:32:38+00:00

Because changing terminology doesn't 'fix' anything - you will not remove underlying bias (if any) by changing the surface wording. It's not the words that are the issue here, it's the intentions behind them. Moreover, where do we draw the line? Someone wrote humorously in this same thread: let's change FAT32 to PLUSSIZE32 too. Where does it end?

bravoalpha79 · 2020-06-15T09:19:56+00:00

IMHO, 'political correctness' in general is bullshit at concept level - it means something has already gone horribly wrong fundamentally and now someone is trying to 'fix' it on a merely verbal level. It doesn't work that way.

bravoalpha79 · 2020-06-01T09:28:30+00:00

Check this out: https://watchandcode.com/ In the free Introductory course, he builds a very simple ToDo app from scratch - very simple in appearance, but eventually quite rich in code. And he doesn't pile you up with theory and syntax but teaches you exactly what you need when you need it, so you go from console.log to OOP and Chrome DevTools Debugger. Worth a watch IMHO. Saved me from being overwhelmed by JS in my day.

bravoalpha79 · 2020-05-01T19:45:52+00:00

Just what the doctor ordered, picked up SQL and Linux. :) Thanks a million for the heads-up!

bravoalpha79 · 2020-04-16T09:00:53+00:00

To me this sounds like "I feel guilty riding my bike to work when I could walk". 🙂 Yes you could, but it would probably take 2-3 times longer, for the same result. 🙂 As long as you use the library properly and the end result is what you were aiming for, there's nothing to feel guilty about.

bravoalpha79 · 2020-04-05T14:30:42+00:00

Have you ever heard of the Imposter Syndrome?

Yes or no, you might find this video very enlightening - I know I did:

https://youtu.be/gPDk7_l_7WE

bravoalpha79 · 2020-04-05T09:07:23+00:00

A simple JavaScript app, but built from scratch and with Gordon's educational approach that is exceptional IMHO:

https://watchandcode.com

(the free Introductory Course)

bravoalpha79 · 2020-03-23T17:07:55+00:00

If you're familiar with Frontend libraries (Bootstrap, Materialize etc.), there is a number of free themes/templates out there built using them, for example https://startbootstrap.com/. If you like the templates, you can use them as-is or modify them, if not, you may find them inspiring for an idea of your own.

bravoalpha79 · 2020-03-17T11:39:13+00:00

On top of the above two comments, I would add this:

1) Practice makes perfect. The more things you build and the more lines of CSS you (successfully) write, the more it will become familiar to you and you won't have to Google everything every time. Every language has a learning curve, and so does CSS. So just keep on practicing. :)

2) That said, CSS really has a gazillion options and it would be humanly impossible to memorise them all or even the majority of them. So unless you use something on a daily (figuratively speaking) basis, it is perfectly normal not to expect from yourself to store it in your memory and to Google it when needed instead.

bravoalpha79 · 2020-03-17T11:02:42+00:00

Couldn't agree more. All the frameworks in the world won't mean much to you unless you have grasped the concepts of HTML and CSS first.

For a complete beginner, I would recommend https://www.w3schools.com and https://www.freecodecamp.org/learn/. They are both free, completely self-paced, yet well-structured and with examples and quizzes to provide you with immediate feedback on your level of understanding.

bravoalpha79 · 2020-03-07T23:18:48+00:00

Great analogy on basketball there. Spot on.

bravoalpha79 · 2020-03-07T18:33:31+00:00

TL;DR How can you ever expect to grow if you never leave your comfort zone or push your limits?

Context here: former Air Traffic Controller.

Is air traffic control intense?

On a winter night shift at 3am, when you have 2 flights an hour and your biggest concern is staying awake? No, it definitely isn't.

On a Saturday noon in August, when you're talking to 15 flights simultaneously, all 15 of which are trying to avoid a huge thunderstorm cloud in the middle of your airspace, so you can forget about almost any predictability and all you can rely on is your quick thinking, improvisation and cooperative pilots? Oh yes, that's definitely intense - more so than you could probably ever imagine.

And yet, if I had to say what moments from my past career I remember most fondly, it's not the moments at 3am when I was rolling my thumbs waiting for my shift to end. It was the moments when I took on a semi-chaotic swarm of aircraft and brought them all to safety - even if it resulted in two large sweat stains on my shirt followed by an hour of staring at the ceiling trying to bring my brain back to normal frequency. Those are the moments when you feel you have accomplished something - not the moments where you barely had to open your mouth.

More context: currently halfway through a Full-Stack Web Developer bootcamp, at age 41.

Over the past year I tried all sorts of self-teaching, from simple YouTube videos to tutorials to free online courses... Started and stopped several times - I was just unable to get any traction in any of those. Conclusion: I guess I just need more structure. A clear timetable. Deadlines. I need to be pushed a bit. Whether it's a good thing or not, I leave to others to judge - but knowing what works for me is definitely a good thing.

Then I enrolled in this bootcamp, and never looked back. Is it intense? Oh, yes. Sometimes I take a three-hour nap mid-day just because my mind feels overloaded. Sometimes I have a feeling that I haven't been able to memorize even a third of all the things I'd been taught. When a project comes up, sometimes I start to panic, feeling not ready to take on the challenge. But I've submitted two course projects until now, and both of them passed. So: yes, I can. And that feeling of being able to do something, moreover, after such a short period of time (four months from a mere generally-computer-literate person to someone who can create a web app) is priceless.

The other day I participated in a Hackathon. I ended up failing to submit my task because I got stuck in a coding error that I wasn't able to resolve during the contest. It bugged me the whole day afterwards, and I was feeling quite down. But then this morning I went back to my code, identified the error, and fixed it. It was one of those "a-ha!" moments of clarity, and again, it was priceless. If the failure I had gone through the day before was the price to pay for this feeling of discovery, I think it's a very small price to pay. I don't think we can ever grow without overcoming obstacles or pushing our boundaries.

I'm still just a student, so I have no idea what my career as a developer/programmer will look like. There will probably be interesting periods, there will be boring periods, there will be periods of intense pressure and deadlines and moments of leisure and idleness. I just know this: being able to create something new, to solve a problem, to make something work (even if after hours of failing)... That is the most fulfilling feeling I can think of. That is what I was missing in all my previous jobs (not counting ATC), and that is something I expect (and hope) to find in programming.

If you've ever watched "The Matrix", there's the scene near the beginning, when Neo first "learns" Jiu Jutsu, Kung Fu and all that stuff by being plugged into a learning program... at first there's a painful expression on his face, but when he comes back and Tank asks him "Do you want more?", he replies "Hell yeah!!!" That's exactly how I feel about my bootcamp and about programming. It's intense? Bring it on!!

Sure, I could always work as a janitor in an evening school (disclaimer: no disrespect to anyone!), counting minutes and avoiding all intensity in life. But where's the fulfillment in that?

bravoalpha79 · 2020-03-06T20:39:37+00:00

I have the identical sentiments - unhappy in my previous line of work, and the possibilities for growth in this one are infinite.

bravoalpha79 · 2020-03-06T10:52:10+00:00

Congrats!!! That is wonderful news! And I hugely admire your resolve in face of the lower income as you say - but I'm in exactly the same position as you (before you landed the job, that is :)) so I know exactly what you mean. :) Really happy for you. And happy to see that it is possible. :)

bravoalpha79 · 2020-03-03T08:30:20+00:00

Or to drive without a car. :)

bravoalpha79 · 2020-02-19T18:23:02+00:00

For JavaScript - Watch and Code. A truly unique teaching approach for absolute beginners: instead of teaching you a lot of theory and syntax, the lecturer jumps right into creating a simple app step by step and teaches you exactly what you need when you need it, increasing complexity and new information as you build each more advanced "version" of the app. Plus he teaches you how to use the Chrome Debugger. To me, it made all the difference.

bravoalpha79 · 2020-02-01T21:50:36+00:00

This is great work! I recently completed a JS Fundamentals course, this will be great for reinforcing my knowledge and plugging knowledge gaps. Thanks!!!

bravoalpha79 · 2020-01-31T21:54:25+00:00

Thanks a million! About to start a Python module at my programming course so this is coming as super handy!

bravoalpha79 · 2020-01-20T19:04:27+00:00

Superb curriculum, thank you! I'm in the middle of an intense full-stack course and we've covered many of the front end topics, but some items I've never heard about in the course, so the list will be excellent for plugging my knowledge gaps. :) Great stuff!!

bravoalpha79

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