One of many things nerds like to spend far too much time debating is whether or not to comment their code. On one hand, comments make code a lot easier to understand, but on the other, many people claim that good code is self-documenting. If you haven’t been writing code professionally for long, it probably seems totally obvious that comments help you understand code you’re new to or haven’t looked.. Read More
Link of the day
What even is a container? If you don’t know either, check out Julia Evans‘ post! Docker’s explanation of containers isn’t terrible, but I personally got a lot more out of Julia’s. I recommend the rest of her blog too, she has this really great friendly way of explaining things.
Hiring funnels are a thing
Recently I went to a Victoria BC Startups meetup about diversity and inclusion in recruitment called Lever talks Diversity and Inclusion in Recruitment. What I learned the most about was how hiring funnels work. I first learned about the concept of funnels from sales funnels, where you start at the top with lots of people who are simply aware your product/service exists, and work your way down through getting them interested in.. Read More
Talk of the day
I really enjoyed this recording of the Pycon 2015 keynote and I think you will too. My favourite part was the bit about we are all statistically unlikely to be terrible – it’s called a normal distribution for a reason, most of us are, drumroll please…. normal! Sure, you’re not super likely to be extraordinary (if everyone was then it really wouldn’t be extraordinary), but you’re not super likely to.. Read More
Why not start with an IDE?
In college our first Java classes used a text editor (TextPad), not a full featured IDE like Eclipse, and compiled and ran our programs from the command line. When we finally started using Eclipse, I was kind of pissed off that we’d spent so much time slowly and painfully debugging our code when Eclipse could’ve just told us exactly where the problem was. Knowing what I know now, I totally understand.. Read More
Dev tool of the day
Hey java devs, somebody built a REPL! It even runs in the browser, nothing to install or configure (or curse at). I love this thing for when I can’t remember which function accepts a null parameter and which one freaks out and throws a null pointer exception, it’s so helpful. There is a REPL in Java 9, but we haven’t even switched to 8 yet at work (always let someone.. Read More
Happy thanksgiving!
Happy thanksgiving readers! In the spirit of thanksgiving (and not making you read too much when you’re just going to end up in a turkey coma), here are some things I’m grateful for: Being lucky enough to enjoy doing a job I can make a good living at. The tech industry certainly has its flaws, but it beats the hell out of the jobs I had between high school and.. Read More
CSS tip of the day
If for any reason you ever need to center a circle inside of a another circle using CSS, here’s how. That delightful person even created a jsFiddle so you can test it out yourself. And in the spirit of almost-Canadian-thanksgiving, I give thanks for stack overflow :)
What if I don’t know?
I was listening to the Developer Tea podcast the other day and caught a re-air of an episode about how to handle questions that you don’t have good answers to. The very short version of their answer (which I totally agree with) is don’t say “I don’t know” and stop there, follow it up with “but I can find out.” And then, you know, actually find out and follow up.. Read More