Interesting Reads 5/24 - 5/30

There's a whole boatload of good stuff this week! First, There are links to three more talks from RailsConf. Then another talk about leveling up. After that a few interesting blog posts. Finally, agood explanation of dotfiles.

Enjoy!


Sean Marcia is awesome and this is his great talk about Bees and saving the world: http://www.confreaks.com/videos/3318-railsconf-saving-the-world-literally-with-ruby-on-rails

Harking back to my management days a bit, this is a good talk about decision making and team working in tech: http://www.confreaks.com/videos/3487-railsconf-workshop-teamwork-ain-t-always-easy

Okay, I think I've only made it through 5 databases so far but interesting overviews: http://www.confreaks.com/videos/3374-railsconf-an-ode-to-17-databases-in-33-minutes

Another talk, but not from RailsConf, about taking your engineering role to the next level: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgxEmiMJVq4

Information anxiety and how to parse through what you need/want to learn: http://blog.codinghorror.com/keeping-up-and-just-in-time-learning/

Great post on mentorship: https://medium.com/theli-st-medium/have-some-coffee-9e468d958e77

Interesting post on coding principles every engineer should know. Do you agree? Which would you add?: https://medium.com/on-coding/coding-principles-every-engineer-should-know-b946b48cc946

Lastly, this week I had to set up my first new computer for development. A friend passed this along to me. It's a great step-through of dot files which, I think, seem super intimidating, but aren't IRL: http://code.tutsplus.com/tutorials/setting-up-a-mac-dev-machine-from-zero-to-hero-with-dotfiles--net-35449

Interesting Reads 5/17 - 5/23

Lots of really great links this week. There are a few more RailsConf talks since I had a chance to watch a few more of those this week. Some great posts on terminal and keyboard shortcuts and tricks, and some fun team-related posts.

Enjoy!


Amazing tips and tricks in this post for keyboard shortcuts.

AND amazing tips for terminal in this one.

Leading a team is really hard. Jessie does a great job talking about some of the ways to actually be a GOOD manager.

Some great tools and thoughts for thinking from railsconf.

Love this! https://speakerdeck.com/aviflombaum/20-things-i-love-about-code

A really interesting talk about imposter syndrome

I've always looked at the stages of group development in the context of leadership groups and immersion experiences but this is an interesting post on the high performing team dynamic in programming

Does the size of a team affect the quality? This post talks about some of the data behind it.

Interesting Reads 5/10 - 5/16

I have 8 RailsConf talks bookmarked to watch but I know I won't be able to watch all of them before posting, so I guess I'll have to include them in next week's roundup. That being said, below are a good handful of talks that I've already had a chance to watch and they are awesome so enjoy!

Coraline's great talk on apprenticeship: http://www.confreaks.com/videos/3346-railsconf-artisans-and-apprentices

10 years keynote: http://www.confreaks.com/videos/3337-railsconf-keynote-10-years

Reading Code good (but also is more about becoming better programmers specifically through this method of reading code): http://www.confreaks.com/videos/3342-railsconf-reading-code-good

In more personal news, I'm starting a new job next week!! I'm very excited to start at a new place but worried I'll be the weakest person on the team (a very common fear, I've been told). While I don't necessarily feel like a phony, I just feel new and still pretty inexperienced. This is an interesting read about how a lot of others feel similarly: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ImAPhonyAreYou.aspx

I'm trying to start getting into hardware hacking a bit more and arduinos fascinate me, but I've had a hard time figuring out where to start. Ruby Rogues did a great podcast on hardware hacking! This was one of the super helpful resources: http://juliahgrace.com/intro-hardware-hacking-arduino.html

Setting up Aliases

For months and months I’ve heard people talk about setting up aliases and profiles and all these custom configs for their computers. I’ve done some basic googling but have stayed away from setting things up because I hadn’t found any simple, easy posts and I had this vision that this whole “set up” thing was super complicated. Guess what? It’s actually ridiculously simple. This is what I get for being too embarrassed to ask about something for an extended period of time.

What are aliases? Aliases are basically shortcuts for things you type all the time. The same way that hotkeys work to open up programs and execute certain actions you find yourself constantly using, aliases do that for your terminal.

The best place to start is to think about what you type all the time. For me, I type “git status” over a dozen times a day, so that was aliased to gs. Chris suggested that I set up an alias to open my bash_profile file so that I can quickly add more aliases as I discover what I type the most. As I mentioned, doing this is super easy.

1. Open up your bash_profile file
2. Set up your aliases by typing alias gs=“git status”

As you see, the left of the = is what you want the shortcut to be and the right of it is what the shortcut stands for. Once you’re got all your aliases in, quit terminal and reopen it to start using them.

Besides aliases, I also learned from JP about using homebrew more effectively. Homebrew is a package manager and with homebrew you can add different packages including git bash completion which allows you to tab to complete things like git branch names and more.

The final piece of this setup is naming your computer. Apparently this is a thing. I’ve got my Disney princess naming convention for my servers so now I need one for my computer(s). I’ve decided on 80’s cartoons starting with the very-applicable “penny”. I look forward to naming future computers Brain, Jem, and, I’m sure, a number of CareBears.

Here's a good article for additional reading on setting up git aliases: http://robots.thoughtbot.com/streamline-your-git-workflow-with-aliases

Interesting Reads 5/3 - 5/9

Here are some really great reads from this past week. Lots of good fodder for self-reflection and thinking critically about programming and life, in general

Enjoy!


The hardest parts of software development

An interesting post about being more interesting… not sure I agree with all the entire post but interesting to think about.

Love Love Love this!!: http://blog.samstokes.co.uk/blog/2014/05/01/what-programming-is-like/

The importance of looking up and recognizing what's around you.

Interesting Reads 4/26 - 5/2

LOTS of really good reads this week on a whole variety of topics. There are some great ember tips and tricks to start with. The a few good iOS pearls. After that, some excellent articles and slides on Rails/ from RailsConf. And then finally, mixed in are some good pieces on imposter syndrome, onboarding, and coding in general. This week is definitely filled with a bunch of articles and posts and slides that are worth spending a few moments on.

Enjoy!


Some great ember tips… still digging into most of these

Great iOS tools

Rails tricks and tips from railsconf

Interesting read on great qualities of software with more in-depth reading options as well

Fascinating read on refactoring in a super disciplined way

Awesome ember modal action

Just worth a read... in a weird way, it kinda reminds me why I love programming: http://stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks

I really love the "starter kit" idea: http://lnbogen.com/2013/04/11/how-to-use-your-unfair-advantage-to-create-an-unforgettable-first-day-for-new-hires/. Growing up in Young Judaea, when you got a leadership position on the board, you were passed a box. This box contained the info you needed to be good at your position but it also included fun items, toys, games, OLD YJ stuff, advice, etc. One of the best parts of having a leadership position was getting this box and then adding to it when you passed it down to the next person. You can't do this the same way in a work position, but I think the starter kit is close.

You are NOT an impostor slides

An honest, amazing piece abut impostor syndrome

Writing fewer bugs: http://ht.ly/wkg96