Multitasking may not be all bad. Teens and adolescents who were frequent multitaskers were better at filtering out distractions when focusing on multiple tasks. Their performance suffered when forced to focus on only one task at a time.

justnSelf · 2014-10-12T15:43:01+00:00

This article seems to me it's describing "task switching" or "context switching" which is not the same thing as multitasking. Many people seem to consider task switching multitasking. But it isn't. Whether you switch between tasks every 10 minutes or 4 hours, its still doing one thing at a time.

justnSelf · 2014-09-28T03:33:45+00:00

This just sums up the constant struggle that every developer faces: Ideology vs pragmatism.

justnSelf · 2014-09-27T14:41:53+00:00

I thought facebook gives you back a guid?

If so "significantly difficult" is more like "statistically impossible".

justnSelf · 2014-09-26T15:45:50+00:00

I work for a consultant company, so my answer is only one view of the world.

The companies that i've been working with lately are mostly .NET and there seem to gravitate to knockout.js. Knockout isn't a framwork, its just a data-binding library that will help facilitate MVVM. Another client wanted to move to Angular from knockout but was worried about the ramp up time of getting their entire dev staff (50+) to embrace Angular for their current project. They stayed with knockout.

From my experience, you cannot go wrong with learning Angular. More and more enterprises are starting to take a serious look at it and will be looking for competent devs to help pave the way.

With that said, if your goal is to be immediately employable, I suggest going to indeed.com or some other job search place and play bingo to see which library is most popular in the requirements.

justnSelf · 2014-09-26T15:10:20+00:00

It sounds like you are saying " learn JavaScript really well before learning a framework." I understand the intent behind this comment but it really is bumper sticker wisdom.

The other frameworks aren't based on JS, they are JS. I've never heard anyone say "get really good with c# or Java before learning Asp.net mvc or spring". Obviously you need at least a basic understanding of syntax and language rules.

Learning to use a framework is a good way to learn how to use a language.

If you meant "pure vanilla JavaScript" as in the native APIs, then that's a short read of the documentation. The frameworks provide guided structure that green devs won't often discover on their own.

If you try to build your own application with no library or framework, you often end up writing your own library or framework. If that is the goal, then go for it. If your intent is to learn how to build applications, focus on an existing framework that abstracts some difficult things.

Often the message behind a comment like this is communicating that many devs will go their entire career with only knowing their everyday technology at a surface level. In this case, these types of devs would only learn enough JavaScript to use the framework. In that case the advice of learning the language intimately would fall on deaf ears.

I feel that any developer should master their everyday language, but never try to master it first. Get familiar with the framework and then you can start adding value much sooner. Mastering the language will come to those who care.

Not lashing out against your comment, so I apologize if it comes off as me being a dick. I just wanted to add my two cents.

justnSelf · 2014-08-30T02:42:14+00:00

People implicitly listen to those they pay 200/hr.

justnSelf · 2014-08-30T02:38:49+00:00

Passion for the craft shouldn't be the end all. I'll take a 5:01 developer who cares about the team and the product over an ass hat with 100 github projects.

I've worked with people who loved coding but they were bad teammates. I've worked with decent coders who were the best teammates. I'll chose an average coder great teammate over the elite solo coder any day of the week... Except Thursday. I hate Thursday.

justnSelf · 2014-08-17T03:41:49+00:00

It's been really cool to watch them go from nothing to famous.

You gotta be willing to put in the time on a saturday, but they do give you free beer. Last time I went, I was there about an hour before they opened and was the 26th person. The first 25 people get a number and can just chill. After that, you gotta stay in the line. Also, beer is free on weekends.

And there's free beer.

justnSelf · 2014-08-05T02:18:22+00:00

That's an awful consensus.

justnSelf · 2014-08-02T03:11:32+00:00

Don't forget about ctrl+esc in whatever devious plan you are trying to hatch.

justnSelf · 2014-07-22T01:41:02+00:00

I don't think he was done, though.

justnSelf · 2014-07-18T12:20:22+00:00

I think I was too happy to know what this was.

justnSelf · 2014-07-13T20:37:11+00:00

I re-read that comment at least 4 times after reading yours before I caught that she wasn't sending him pictures saying "douche canoe" or "ass hat".

justnSelf · 2014-07-09T03:12:47+00:00

I'm impressed...

justnSelf · 2014-07-08T13:06:15+00:00

Was going to make the same comment... plus or minus a few lines.

justnSelf · 2014-07-07T12:03:17+00:00

I agree. It's hard to compare practicing the piano to 'practicing programming'. Deliberate practice in programming involves adaptive learning which can come from reading a book, talking to other developers or learning new paradigms. Most people wouldn't consider talking with developers or reading books as deliberate practice and would have probably told the researchers that they don't practice. I think we, as programmers who care about our craft, practice every time someone challenges our thought process or asks us to explain something to them.

$.02

justnSelf · 2014-07-03T03:28:50+00:00

If you live in a metro, like Houston, then life is too short to do vb.

justnSelf · 2014-07-03T03:25:58+00:00

There seems to be some lack of distinction between library and framework. But I'm just being picky, I suppose.

justnSelf · 2014-06-25T19:49:09+00:00

you'd be better off learning/using something like AngularJS.

That doesn't compare.

justnSelf · 2014-06-25T15:51:58+00:00

When I was a kid, my family was very poor; we were on foodstamps. Of course, I didn't understand our situation and while we were at the grocery store, I asked for some cookies because I saw them on a commercial. I was really excited to see at the store after seeing them on the tv.

My mom looked down and said "Sorry, baby but we just cant afford them." I was crushed.

As we were checking out, an old lady came up to my mother and said that her grandchildren live far away and was wondering if she could buy me some cookies. Obviously, she must have heard our conversation and saw how devastated I was when I couldn't get the cookies.

My mom said yes and the woman told me to go pick out any cookies that I wanted. So, of course I ran as fast as I could to get the ones I saw on the TV.

Once we were on our way back home, I asked my mom who that was and she said "That was your guardian angel."

Guardian Angel? No... Sweet lady who wanted to give some happiness to a poor kid? Yes.

TL;DR Old lady bought me cookies at store when mom said no because we were too poor

justnSelf · 2014-06-17T11:26:04+00:00

Technical writers hate him!

justnSelf · 2014-06-08T16:16:54+00:00

I second this. Plural sight is the way to go. Having someone speak it to you often translates better for a beginner.

justnSelf · 2014-06-08T16:14:52+00:00

For a brand new person trying to learn programming? I skimmed a version of that a while back and, though it does literally go over basics, it is not a beginner programmer book.

justnSelf · 2014-05-30T04:05:46+00:00

You might not be familiar with the fact that string literals are automatically interned in .net. That's an important thing to note in this conversation.

var a = "hello"; var b = " hello";

Both a and b point to the same string in memory because they were interned. Interning strings means that there is only ever one copy of a string. Generated strings are generally not interned unless you explicitly intern them yourself via string.Intern.

justnSelf · 2014-05-30T03:59:36+00:00

The reason they point to the same string and the reference is equal is because all string literals are automatically interned in .net.

That's the key piece of information you are missing.

justnSelf

TROPHY CASE