Learning on Jake Worth

How I Read 44 Books Last Year

Tue, 24 Feb 2026 16:10:54 -0500

Do you want to read more? Over a decade, I’ve been on a journey from casual to power-reader. In this post, I’d like to share the ideas and techniques that have helped me read more.

Favorite Ideas from "It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work"

Fri, 20 Feb 2026 08:40:45 -0500

I recently re-read It Doesn’t Have to be Crazy at Work by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier of Basecamp. Here are some of my favorite ideas.

Learning to Program in 2026

Fri, 16 Jan 2026 12:00:19 -0500

If I had to start over as a person who wanted to become a professional programmer, in 2026, what would I do?

Things I Don't Know, As of 2026

Tue, 13 Jan 2026 11:25:29 -0500

Here’s a list of the things that I’d like to learn about and have chosen not to specialize in (yet), as of 2026.

Learning JavaScript Promises the Feynman Way

Mon, 25 Aug 2025 12:08:06 -0400

Want to learn a tricky topic and sharpen your learning skills at the same time? In this post, I’ll use the Feynman Learning Technique— a method of learning complex things by explaining them simply— with a sprinkle of LLM magic, to deepen my understanding of JavaScript promises.

Practical Ways to 'Learn in Public' Now

Sun, 28 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been a practitioner of Shawn Wang’s ‘Learn in Public’ for years. In this post, I’ll share a list of ways I’ve found to learn in public.

One-Sentence Summaries of Popular Technology Books

Tue, 21 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Here are some one-sentence summaries of books that have helped me understand programming and technology.

Computers Can Be Understood

Tue, 06 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

A big mental leap I made early in my programming was starting to view computers as something that could be understood.

Spell Checking with Vim: Tutorial and Best Practices

Wed, 15 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I write each post for this blog in Vim. Writing in the terminal makes me feel like a programmer, even when I’m not specifically programming. In this post, I’ll share how I spellcheck in Vim.

Debugging Tip: Learning From Bugs

Fri, 25 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

You were stuck, and now you aren’t. Congratulations! Before you move on, it’s vital to stop and learn from it. It’s the best way I know to get better and spare your mind for increasingly harder problems.

Stop Studying, Start Building

Wed, 16 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

If I could give one piece of advice to anyone learning to program: build.

The Tutorial Anti-Pattern

Tue, 24 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Here’s a scenario: you’re applying for your first tech job. You’ve found a bunch of hands-on tutorials and you’re speeding through them. When you finish, you upload the code to Github and add a new line to the ‘Projects’ section of your resume. Maybe you even deploy the code as a production website. My advice: stop.

Programming Resources for Beginners

Sat, 05 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

There is a glut of programming information online. You can’t read it all, and you shouldn’t, because much of it is outdated, wrong, or irrelevant to you.

So, what is the signal in this noise? I recommend aggregators, blogs, pair programming. And I offer a gentle recommendation against tutorials.

My Development Roadmap

Tue, 20 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been working on a development roadmap for my projects, and wanted to share my process. Consider this my recipe to turn an idea into software.

Learn to Test

Fri, 15 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0000

What is a skill one could learn to set themselves apart from other entry-level programmers? Testing.