Programming insights to Storytelling, it's all here.
The more experience I get, the less code I write. I am not saying this because now I write better quality code, but because I find it less necessary to write code. The deeper I get into it I realize that most programming is less about coding and more about solving a problem. You may be thinking well you need to write code to solve a problem but bear with me for a moment.
I am sure by now you have seen website footers that say "proudly made with <insert technology here>". It is a reminder that the developer care mostly about the tools he used then the solution he provides. But the new buzzword I am starting to hear even more often is Beautiful. I think this word is taking us back to the dot-com bubble, where the visual experience is the only thing we care about.
It all started as a simple challenge to create an alternative to the current tools we were using at work. Boredom can be a good motivator. I talked about it in a previous post and I finally have something to show. Bare in mind that the tool is still primitive. I have decided to make a break down on what happened in the past month or so.
Do you know how much the people you work with make? When I got my first job, like any teenager, I was bragging and telling everyone about it. I was excited to tell that I made $7.50 an hour. But no one wanted to tell me how much they made. Their answers were always : I made good money, around that amount, that's rude you don't ask that, and none of your business. I used to find it weird until my younger sister asked me the same question recently and I found myself reluctant to answer.
I am a huge fan of stackoverflow. I am constantly on it and I contribute as much as I can. I can't tell you how excited I was when I reached 10,000 points and was granted access to mod tools. For me I felt like it was natural for any programmer to automatically be part of something this amazing, but it is not the case. I am surprised to find that most if not all of my coworkers don't even have an account.
I read more about the NSA this week more then I care to admit. I also read a lot of comments on those articles, good and bad. On most tech related forums you see post about encryption. How we should all know about encryption, the proper way to do it, and how big companies suck at it. Yes, encryption should be implemented, but it is definitely not the solution to prevent the government from getting your data.
A week and a half ago I found fraudulent transactions on my credit card. Linode was the only place where I used it, and with the recent incident they had I naturally assumed it was stolen from them. I called my card company and canceled it immediately. Then I wrote a post on hackernews urging people to cancel the cards. For some reason not everyone was happy with that.
I recently read a post by Steve Blank where he compared the Internet with guns. He talks about how important it was to learn about gun safety. It was the first thing he learned in boy scout camp in the rifle range before even handling a weapon. Later when he purchased a heavier weapon, he hired a professional to teach him about gun safety before using it. He suggest that when accessing the web the first time, the same precautions should be taken. Interestingly the same day I read his post, I was invited to a shooting range and my experience was quiet different.
Saying yes is much easier than saying no. Most of the time, we say yes because we don't want to hurt feelings or we want to be nice. But what is the point saying yes if you don't plan to do what you are asked? Saying no is mostly seen as rude, even though it makes perfect sense in some situations. This may not be a big deal when friends and family are asking you for a favor, but sometimes answering a yes or no question can determine our future.
Pair programming is amazing. Looking at your own codes for hours on end makes you overlook the smallest mistakes. When debugging instead of reading the code we recite it in your mind, because we think we know what we wrote. When someone else sits next to me and point out obvious mistakes I made I yell "fire!" and use the distraction to quicly fix the error. No, I don't really do that, I would have to come up with too many puns and my creative moments are as rare as gold. But I am not afraid of making mistakes.
