July 9, 2018

Comprehensive Instructions

A user opened an issue in Tilex last week that I spent a significant amount of time thinking about and talking about (thanks JB) before responding to. Here’s the truncated request:

May I ask you to compile a step-by-step list to set up a running TIL instance?

December 31, 2017

My Annual Review 2017

Here’s my annual professional review covering 2017.

September 17, 2017

The Universal Programming Language

Recently I tried to answer a question that I think is common to consider when you’re first learning about computer programming. I’ll paraphrase:

Why can’t there be an “universal” programming language that serves all purposes?

August 9, 2017

How I Talk: My Guide to Tech Public Speaking

I’ve been giving technical talks for a few years, and I’m speaking at the Vim Chicago Meetup next month about integrating React with Vim. In this post, I’m going to use that opportunity as an excuse to document my speaking process.

July 19, 2017

It's Done

When a stakeholder asks for a change to the software I’m building, my typical responses are, in order: “Got it.” Then: “I’m working on that issue.” Finally: “It’s done.” Here’s an alternative: skip the first two conversations and go straight to the third. As soon as you can, just do the thing, and respond with: “It’s done.”

June 19, 2017

Don't Build Every Feature

There’s a detail about Today I Learned some might find unusual: we never added a way to delete posts from the site. Why ignore a basic CRUD feature? We didn’t ignore it. It was intentionally omitted.

June 10, 2017

Work Small

Write programs that do one thing and do it well. –The Unix Philosophy

I believe in working small.

June 5, 2017

Tilex Progress

Tilex, our Phoenix port of Today I Learned, is coming really well. After a personal hiatus for RailsConf prep, I’m back full-swing. My coworkers have really been bringing quality commits as well, and I feel we are very close to a successful port.

May 4, 2017

Binary to Decimal Conversion in Ruby

This week I wrote an algorithm in Ruby to convert binary numbers into decimal numbers. Here’s the problem description, from Exercism:

“Convert a binary number, represented as a string (e.g. ‘101010’), to its decimal equivalent using first principles. Implement binary to decimal conversion. Given a binary input string, your program should produce a decimal output. The program should handle invalid inputs.”

February 11, 2017

You Should Blog

I created this blog to reflect on my code and development as a programmer. In that spirit, I’d like to make a pitch to anybody reading: you should blog.