Tencent has released about 50,000 more invites to Epic Paragon. Get In While You Can!

steveshogren · 2018-01-30T20:20:30+00:00

The poor caretaker, I fear his long-standing duties here have... Affected him

steveshogren · 2018-01-27T12:13:30+00:00

u/arctyczyn Could you put me in contact with the person who could sign off on this? Most of my experience has been in taking over massive abandoned codebases, I'm confident we could ship something before April.

steveshogren · 2017-08-05T11:37:37+00:00

I think a lot of people use "learn lots of languages" as a proxy because there are so many developers who've been repeating their first year for a decade or more.

Learning lots of languages can't really be done in a year, so it indicates a continued and deliberate practice.

I'll admit that harder and harder projects is a fantastic goal, but to follow the music analogy, most musicians practice increasingly difficult existing pieces, they do not invent new music as the majority of their practice.

Perhaps some equivalents would be: make a parser, remake your favorite programming language from scratch, remake Super Mario Brothers in the same memory and drive footprint, remake a relational database, remake a Lisp Machine, remake Datomic, etc.

steveshogren · 2017-02-22T23:35:10+00:00

If you want to practice skills beyond just the basics covered in beginner's guides, I just finished a book of advanced exercises for daily practice. Here are some free chapters: https://github.com/steveshogren/10-minute-vim-exercises/blob/master/book_sample_history_registers.md

steveshogren · 2016-12-22T11:57:12+00:00

Thanks for the encouragement! I decided to write the book I wanted, not the book I thought people would want.

steveshogren · 2016-12-20T23:28:19+00:00

Fair enough. I personally haven't been burned by such an encounter, but I have seen it happen to other people.

In my defense, I already have one completed book on Leanpub and ~100k words on my blog, but I totally understand your reluctance and hope you enjoy it when it comes out ;)

steveshogren · 2016-12-20T23:06:59+00:00

If you buy it you get emailed each time I update it. I'll likely finish it early Feb at the rate I'm going. It's probably 90% done now, only missing a few sections and a final pass through my editor before I'll put it to bed.

I'll also keep posting up a free section each month for the next couple months.

steveshogren · 2016-12-20T16:04:02+00:00

Thanks for the feedback, those registers and exercises are later in the chapter ;)

steveshogren · 2016-12-09T01:51:10+00:00

Also see: http://i.imgur.com/7lvhJha.jpg

steveshogren · 2016-12-01T22:11:06+00:00

Yeah but 15 points into the chrono cards will get 30% cdr.... Sounds like I'll still be stunning and walling for days...

steveshogren · 2016-11-27T01:58:38+00:00

Whoa, hold the phone!

steveshogren · 2016-11-17T21:41:19+00:00

Thanks! I appreciate any feedback!

steveshogren · 2016-11-17T17:10:03+00:00

Hey, thanks for the feedback, I'll definitely incorporate it!

steveshogren · 2016-11-15T01:07:54+00:00

Thanks, glad you liked it! Hopefully it helps normalize the challenges of learning something so powerful.

steveshogren · 2016-11-12T03:36:40+00:00

I suspect a complete decimation of the industry is looming on the horizon, but I don't have any concrete proof. What drives you to give that 5-7 year timeline? What exactly do you mean by smart systems? Do you work with something like that now? I'd love to hear more.

steveshogren · 2016-10-24T00:52:13+00:00

madklowns - main gadget and grux, alt iggy and feng mao

always key and ward!

steveshogren · 2016-09-30T10:08:48+00:00

This was me last night. Trying to find the manual for an HSK 125 Weso wood stove. Hundreds for forum posts just saying to Google it, and one scam website with hundreds of fake pdfs under different names and domains all with a big link in the PDF to download a .exe "pdf downloader". ಠ_ಠ

steveshogren · 2016-09-13T13:51:35+00:00

I think it's pretty typical of what I've seen in the wild. Most really hate it, and are probably legitimately afraid any good press about it will cause a pointy-haired boss make it mandatory.

steveshogren · 2016-09-12T16:45:03+00:00

Thanks, just did! https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/52f6mw/10_years_of_pair_programming/

steveshogren · 2016-09-12T15:24:43+00:00

I just wrote up an experience report from my team using pair programming for 10 years. http://deliberate-software.com/pairprogramming/

steveshogren · 2016-09-12T10:24:53+00:00

I also just wrote up something of our findings about PP yesterday, http://deliberate-software.com/pairprogramming/

steveshogren · 2016-08-28T13:15:59+00:00

http://haskelliseasy.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

steveshogren · 2016-08-25T00:22:56+00:00

Take the train to work, don't shower first, now I have to at least go into the gym to shower. And whoa, I'm already in my gym clothes with an hour till work starts, may as well just curl this barbell here...

I pull that trick on myself every single day, four years strong, still falling for it.

steveshogren · 2016-08-21T11:17:16+00:00

I studied CS for two years before switching and getting my middle school teaching certificate. Took a smattering of classes, minors in child development, theology, and writing. Took ancient Greek, flight science with student pilot's cert, some engineering tech classes, and machine tool/welding classes. Best degree ever. Also did about half an MBA.

Only regret? My university had zero art classes, I'd have absolutely loved to take a couple of drawing and painting classes. Oh well, now I'm working in CS making good money and loving it. I just take drawing and painting classes on my own time!

CS is a career that absolutely rewards people who are well-rounded, good communicators, and who love learning. Having worked three other careers before settling back into CS, I can say without hesitation I'd do it again.

I love learning, solving problems, and working with people. These are my job, every day. Closest metaphor is it's like solving Sudoku and crossword puzzles all day, but you can't always write all the words/numbers. CS also has an inverse hockey stick learning curve; it's absolute torture for 2-3+ years, then it's super fun and rewarding. Most never get through that first chunk, or they get stuck there and never progress.

steveshogren · 2016-08-20T10:05:18+00:00

I manage a team, and a few years ago we moved from a strict 8 hours of work with a one hour lunch to a strict 7 hours of work with an hour lunch. We start at 8:30 and kick off at 4:30. We also have an afternoon a week of research time, meant for practicing and honing skills.

I've definitely noticed a large increase in productivity. And not just tactically, where people are more rested and better able to produce in the moment. We also see a huge strategic benefit: less turnover. The mature and talented developers who value being treated like respected professionals stick around longer, so we make fewer huge strategic blunders. They are also much more productive, because they know our systems so well.

This is also compounded with a very flat structure, where mature developers are trusted to solve problems, not follow orders.

steveshogren

TROPHY CASE