Interesting Reads 6/27 - 7/10

Seems as though either lots of people are on vacation and therefore there is less to read OR I am just super crazy busy and have missed some great posts. Well, I've only got a few posts for today but they're good ones, so check them out.

Things I learned as a Software Engineer

An older but great post about making fat models skinnier

What makes a good startup engineer (as opposed to a regular engineer)

Interesting Reads 6/21 - 6/27

Just a few short reads this week on SQL, servers, interviews, and teams.

Enjoy!


Working on a distributed team

A perfectly bad interview question

Culture fit and its dangers

SQL joins

App server comparisons

Interesting Reads 6/14 - 6/20

Short on time this weekend, but lots of good reads both very technical and not. A few great reads for newer developers.

Enjoy!

I recently got an Up and I love it. I also love when companies do interesting things with their data like Jawbone did in this post: https://jawbone.com/blog/the-divided-states-of-steps/

Mise en Place and organizing your day: http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/06/how-to-spend-the-first-10-minutes-of-your-day/


OoooOOOooo, Thoughtbot's playbook. A really interesting read for anyone working for a tech company or interested in working for one. I'm amazed at their level of documentation here: http://playbook.thoughtbot.com/

Swift and Ruby: http://littlelines.com/blog/2014/06/11/why-rubyist-will-love-swift

This is a great, interesting resource… and I've actually been asked a bunch of these questions in interviews: http://www.toptal.com/ruby-on-rails#hiring-guide

Interesting Reads 6/7/14 - 6/13/2014

Busy busy busy this week but I was still able to read a few interesting things. Even though I'm not using Ember on a daily basis anymore, it's still an interesting framework to me so there's an ember post, a little bit of debugging, and then two good soft skills posts. Finally, I haven't had time to finish watching all the railsconf talks I want to but I'm not sure when that will happen so i'll post the talks that are still on my list below.

Enjoy!


Learn to code, learn to think: http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2014/06/09/320309576/learn-to-code-learn-to-think

Feeling like a fraud? Everyone does! https://medium.com/theli-st-medium/everyone-feels-like-a-fraud-530cfc9c774d

Debugging in Rails. A great collection of tools to use and posts on how to use them.

Terminology and what it means in rails vs. ember. This was a great post but I think the most confusing piece for me when learning was the use of the term routes and what that means in rails vs. ember so i'm a little disappointed that they didn't include it.

RailsConf talks I haven't quite gotten to:

The Rails of Javascript won't be a framework

All the small things

Aaron Patterson's closing keynote

Lightning fast deployment of your rails-backed Javascript app

DHH's Keynote

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

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 from the week 4/19 - 4/25

Just three short interesting reads for this week... I imagine/hope there will be more next week with some good blog posts coming out of Railsconf so enjoy these and look forward to some more next week.


Design for good and interesting thoughts

Interesting read on TDD

    In response to this initial post

Interesting Reads 4/12 - 4/18

This week, we've got some ember, some soft skills, some git practice, and more.

Enjoy!

One of my goals is to understand and get better at git. This looks like a good resource... now I've just gotta make time for it!

To do, three things: http://blog.codinghorror.com/three-things/

A great article on thinking through giving feedback.

Interesting read, not sure I agree with all the parts… what are your thoughts?

Since Ember is my first javascript framework, i'm always looking for good articles that explain the similarities and differences between what's out there. This was a good comparison.

This is the sort of beginner's guide I've been waiting for in Ember! If you're curious about getting started, check out this link to walk through building a simple app.

Video on code architecture and making things better

Interesting Reads 4/5 - 4/11

Some really good reads this week on a variety of different topics.

Enjoy!

Read on effective flows

Conference proposals and a good step-through process to create your proposal

Really in depth thoughts on crafting a talk

Improv and coding

Scientists and Code reviews

Write Code Everyday. I talk about this a lot in regards to learning to code. This post breaks things down really well.

Interesting Reads 3/22-4/4

You'd think with two weeks of reading I'd have more interesting things, but not so much that past two weeks. The reads below are really good but I've been a little more heads down recently and haven't had the chance to read as much. Anyway, there are some good, interesting posts below, so check them out and enjoy!

Doing Your Best Work: http://www.naildrivin5.com/blog/2014/03/16/doing-your-best-work.html

The Last Developer was Terrible: https://medium.com/p/506a06ae35ea

Old but still interesting: http://rachelnabors.com/2012/04/of-github-and-pull-requests-and-comics/

A good first day: http://guillecarlos.com/developers-first-day-at-work.html

Other Great Things I Learned At EmberConf

As a newbie in development, I like to do a post on random things I learned during the conference. These often end up being CS terms, nerd culture related, or other interesting items that didn’t quite fit/make sense in a session post. Here are those from this conference.


Primitives: basic types in javascript like booleans and numbers.

Orthogonal: not a computer term, it just means adjacent.

Grok: means to really really understand something. It’s actually coined from a book about an alien and it’s understanding of humans. Check out the link to the book here.

D3 is a drawing library mostly used for graph’s or charts

Donut charts are pie charts with a hole in the middle

Truthy/falsy: this concept is more or less important based on the language. Basically, when stuff isn’t strictly true or false, javascript tries to help you out and guess which one it’ll be. A quick google search shows that there are lots of better explanations out there on what it is. This one looks pretty comprehensive and interesting: https://gist.github.com/jfarmer/2647362

CLI is a command line interface and it is how you interact with the app on the command line. (A perfect example of things I’ve been doing but didn’t actually know the name for)

This is a great background blog post that a few sessions referred to: http://emberjs.com/blog/2013/12/17/whats-coming-in-ember-in-2014.html


Finally, for other great notes from the conference, check out these links:

https://www.icloud.com/iw/#pages/BAKaAlrUjn9i0hXOyWyBDqAS2MEQFkyKTBaF/EmberConf_2014_Notes

https://github.com/zurt/notes/blob/master/EmberConf-2014.markdown

http://www.justinball.com/2014/03/27/ember-conf-2014-wrap-up/

http://pixelhandler.com/posts/we-are-emberconf-2014

http://hermanradtke.com/2014/03/27/emberconf-2014.html

Being a Healthy Programmer

Health issues. Something we all face as developers but is not really talked about. Being a developer comes with some very specific health concerns that are different than what I’ve experienced in other fields. As I’ve learned to code over the past year, I’ve gotten a lot of advice and learned a lot of best practices. None of this advice, however, has included anything related to health! All of a sudden, I was coding full time and experiencing all these new issues and I had no idea why. We all experience similar physical pains of transitioning into a new industry but it's one of the things I think isn't discussed adequately enough to prevent it from happening. Additionally, a lot of the solutions cost money, which may be something you don't have a lot of if you are going through a career transition, coming out of a bootcamp, or just in the beginning of your job. In speaking to others, I found that most of the stuff I was experiencing are really common among developers. I sent out a request to understand what people experience and what some solutions are and here’s what I got.


Eyes. Obviously looking at a screen that is two feet away from your face all day has got to have some serious long term effect. Additionally, if you don’t have the right prescription then you’re also probably dealing with some sort of eye strain.

Back. Posture and sitting up straight is really important. Long term affects can include needing physical therapy, surgery or just constant pain.

Headaches. I know a few people (including myself) that have been experiencing afternoons headaches. There are LOTS of things that can affect headaches including hydration, food, eye strain, muscle aches, and more.

Hydration. Turns out we all forget to stay hydrated during the day. Between coffee intake (which actually dehydrates you) and getting so focused on work that we forget to make sure we’re drinking, this is a major issue (that can, of course, relate to other things on this list like general draining, back pain, and headaches).

Food. What?! You forgot to eat again? Me too! I can’t even count the number of times I’ve looked up from my computer and realized it’s 2pm and I haven’t had breakfast or lunch yet. Obviously, not a healthy practice.

Sleep. “Just 5 more minute and I’ll be able to solve this issue and close my computer.” I’ve said this to a friend or my husband so many times. We tend to try to power through problems, drink coffee or energy drinks to push that last bit of code to production, or just accomplish a little more by working through the night which is solid, uninterrupted time. This is also related to something someone called “sleep creep” (which I love). Instead of working through the evening, some developers will get up at 4:30am, have some solid morning work time and then have to check out for a bit in the afternoon for a nap or to recharge.

Weight Gain. We sit. A lot. Like all day. There are lots of ways exercising can affect other things on this list, but weight gain and circulation from sitting all day can definitely be harmful and a tough pattern to break out of.

General draining. What we do involves a lot of brain power and a lot of thinking. It is easy to get exhausted and it’s easy to finish the day and just want to get the easiest thing for food and sit on the couch to unwind. This isn’t so much a solution, but a good article that goes into this issue further.

Hands. There’s lots of concern about repetitive strain and carpal tunnel syndrome. This is definitely an issue that, as a newbie I don’t think about much but as someone getting started in a longterm development career, I probably should.

(Thanks to @vicfriedman, @pamtaro, @embryoconcepts, @robyurkowski, @tundal45, @stevenhaddox, @_ZPH, and @peterbroderick for your help and mentioning issues you’ve faced or are concerned about)

So, how do we improve out situation? It’s great to offer solutions like a standing desk, complex raised screen setup, and other such tools but these tools are expensive! Here are some cheap ways we can solve these issues.

“Pretend” standing desk. My first standing desk was literally 3 boxes stacked on top of one another to give me computer a little bit of height.

Pomodoroing. Following the pomorodo work style basically means that you do focused work for a specific amount of time (usually 25 minutes) and then you take a mandatory break for 5 minutes. There are lots of benefits to doing this but I find that it makes me more aware of myself. When I have a forced break, I make myself drink water, use the restroom during the break. I also find that when I break every 25 minutes, I’m way more aware of my posture and actively correcting my slouchiness.

F.lux. This app helps alter your computer screen lighting based on the time of day. I wasn’t so much a believer until I started using it but the gradual deletion of blue light from your screen helps you mind get ready for sleep even if you’re still using your computer.

Posture exercises. This is one a friend passed along to me. I also recently saw an app that focuses on alerting you when you aren’t holding good posture.

Exercise in general. I’m lumping standing versus sitting into this category as well. Exercise is always tricky to make time for but it is definitely an important part of being a developer (I reluctantly type as someone who really hates going to the gym). Put GYM in your calendar.

And finally, there’s the Healthy Programmer book which I haven’t read at all, but I’d bet it’s pretty informative.

I’ll be honest, I’m not the best at following all of these. I haven’t found good boxes to make a standing desk, I only successfully pomodoro’ed once in the past 3 weeks, but being more aware of these issues motivates me to make sure I’m establishing best practices for my health. And of course I’m hoping in the near future to be able to purchase the things I need to make my home office and work situation even better (ie- the chair I use is like the worst chair for programming EVER).

Got more issues, suggestions, and cheap alternatives? Leave them in comments below.

Interesting Reads 3/15 - 3/21

A fairly diverse set of reads this week from agile development, to being a better programmer, to some cooking related things. Lots of good info in these, mostly short, posts and articles.

Enjoy!

Why Agile is failing

A great read on holocracy. One of the highlights for me, "Dysfunction happens any time somebody can't do something because they need permission, or won't do something because they're afraid of some repercussion."

The corruption of agile

"Don't burn yourself out to be a better programmer"

7 years of culinary science

No one knows what they're doing. Favorite quote: "The good news is that this makes you very not dangerous. The bad news is that it also makes you feel dumb and helpless a lot of the time."

Making technical decisions. Really interesting talk by Sarah Mei.

Sandi Metz's most recent talk slides. Can't wait to see the video!

Interesting Reads 3/1 - 3/7

A day late is better than a week late. Here are the interesting reads (and watches) from this past week.

Currently, I've been working on a bunch of analytics-related queries and tools. I came across this video about measuring which was really useful.

ember, ember, ember!!: http://www.confreaks.com/videos/2597-lonestarruby2013-ember-on-rails-realtalk

I rewatched this amazing Ben Orenstein talk this past week, refactoring from good to great. I had watched it a few months ago and a lot of the concepts went over my head so it's fun to see how much I've been learning!

Related to the questions I have as a professional programmer, some days are good and some days are bad. This was a great article that helped me realize everyone goes through the same roller coaster.

For Fun.

Beefing up those Comp Sci chops

For anyone who's been asked to FizzBuzz

The Maker's Schedule. An old article but still relevant.

Interesting Reads Double-Wammy edition

I know, last week you were so disappointed when you didn't see the weekly interesting reads posted. Truth is, I had a list of them, but hadn't had a chance to read any of them yet. Hopefully this week's double-wammy list makes up for it.

Enjoy!

RR last week was on passion and I think had some very interesting points.

As I've mentioned a few times, I'm doing A LOT of Ember now. It's actually really interesting and pretty enjoyable. This is a great post about ember that explains reasons for using it clearly and goes into the technical components as well.

Reading articles like this makes me feel better when I make these same mistakes.

There are lots of articles about saying no, but I think this one is actually worth a read.

Software development reading list.

Finally, So you want to be a software dev, but do you?

Interesting Reads 2/7 - 2/14

Yes yes yes, I owe the world a more interesting blog post than just interesting reads, and I've got a bunch in the works! In the future, you can look forward to the last post on the gem, a post on ember, a random learnings post, probably a post about my first few weeks as a professional programmer (which have been crazy and amazing and exciting and scary and pretty much all the emotions) but for now, I have to just give you the interesting reads for the week. Hopefully you find them interesting as well.

Enjoy!


Yes! This! Tech and Tiaras

Software Developers Changing Lightbulbs

Thoughts on Working Remotely

I don't agree with all of this but there are some really interesting points made about how everyone shouldn't learn to code.

A Year of Code. Similar to the piece above.

Interesting Reads 2/1 - 2/7

Well, it certainly has been a busy week for me. Fortunately, I've also come across some really interesting articles and things to read/watch. AND I've actually read all of the articles this week (except for the last one... it's a video I haven't had a chance to fully check out yet). There's a variety of stuff in here this week so ...

Enjoy!

Will NOT Work for shoes! I love shoes, but this is a great article about women and their workplace value.

If you've had a rough week or are a newer developer, this short post is a great pick-me-up.

Personally, I'm not very good at celebrating small wins. That, coupled with the fact that I'm getting used to a "dev" to do list, as opposed to a non-dev to do list, makes it hard sometimes to feel like I'm accomplishing greatness. This post talks about that and some great ways to reflect regularly on your work.

Okay, I lied!! I haven't had a chance to read this article about the amazing new Marvel API, but I've gotta find time soon!

On a slightly dryer note... here's some great HTML5 documentation.

In my new position, I'm learning Javascript... lots of Javascript, but Ember.js in particular. Since I'm new to it, I thought this article gave some interesting, basic pointers about the differences between some of the more popular JS languages.

A great post from Aaron based on a question asked at RetroRuby's Newbie track last week!

And to close out this week, here's a video I haven't watched yet about Postgres and things you haven't found.

Interesting Reads 1/25-2/31

Another busy week but I've got some good stuff today. For better or worse, the reads this week are mostly NOT code related, but they are fun.

Enjoy!

Delicious Flags

Regex Crossword!! I haven't done this yet, but I totally want to!

Jewish Hair - Learning to love it

Conference calls in real life video