Writing on Jake Worth

Leave a Trace

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 10:40:18 -0400

Always leave something behind. If you find something interesting, leave a trace that you were there.

A Talk on Twelve Factors

Fri, 01 Aug 2025 13:48:58 -0400

Today I gave a talk to my team about the Twelve-Factor App Methodology.

Why I Write for Software Engineers and Engineering Leaders

Wed, 11 Jun 2025 09:47:19 -0400

Eight years ago I wrote a post called You Should Blog. In it, I made an argument that I still believe in: public, professional writing is something every engineer should try. Today, I want to share why I write, and have for over a decade.

How to Start a Meetup Group (Lessons from Running One for 10 Years)

Mon, 03 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been organizing Meetups for a decade, starting with Vim Chicago and Chicago Elixir, and now running Maine JS from Portland, Maine. In honor of our most recent Meetup, here’s my practical guide on how to start a Meetup group, based on what’s worked for me.

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.

My Feature Writing Template: Given/When/Then

Tue, 20 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

When preparing feature development work, I write Gherkin-style tickets, which follow the “Given/When/Then” format. Many people call these stories, and I do, too. This technique is incredibly effective! But why? In this post, I’ll try to answer that question.

How I Talk: My Guide to Tech Public Speaking

Wed, 09 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

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.

You Should Blog

Sat, 11 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000

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.

Writing Elixir Sigils

Mon, 04 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Sigils are a mechanism for working with textual representations in Elixir. If you’ve ever made an array of Strings in Ruby with %w(), the API is similar. A neat feature of sigils is that we can make custom variants, or override existing Kernel variants. The latter is generally discouraged.