The Laracasts snippet, each episode, offers a single thought on some aspect of web development. Nothing more, nothing less. Hosted by Jeffrey Way.
Developers have come to dread interviews. What sort of silly, gotcha question that has nothing to do with building web apps whatsoever will I have to stress about this time? If I were hiring a new coder, I'd asking them an almost laughably simple question: "Is it okay to send an email from a controller? Explain why."
It's such a basic question, yet I guarantee the answer you are given will speak volumes about the type of developer you're interviewing.
In the development world, you'll frequently hear the phrase "you are not your code." At its core, this is very good advice, however, too often it is used as an excuse to publicly belittle your peers.
I noticed something this morning: the developers I most frequently disagree with on Twitter place code acronyms in their bio. SOLID, DDD, etc. On the flip side, the coders I most respect nearly 100% of the time never do. How come? Let's talk about what this might indicate about the type of developer you are.
I recently published a short video on what I refer to as "visual debt." Shortly after, the critical tweets began to roll in. How dare you propose that all of these keywords and types and interfaces add noise, they declared. Well, let's talk about it...
The Single Responsibility is both simple and complex to comprehend at the exact same time. In fact, many people find it to be so vague to the point of being worthless. Let's talk about that in this episode, while reviewing how I personally interpret the advice for my own projects.
Moving to a new server while upgrading to the latest version of a framework is always a scary thing. Even the smallest change can send you down a two hour rabbit hole, as you search for a solution. In this episode, I discuss my basic process, as well as the tools I prefer.
Today, we're discussing my personal workflow, when planning a new conference talk. Unfortunately, it's never quite as simple as opening your presentation app of choice, and typing away. Any typical conference talk likely took months to prepare.
"Don't use tools," they say. "It won't exist in a few years, but these design patterns will." Of course, the argument is that, if you dedicate any time at all to embracing libraries and frameworks that actually allow you to get the job done, you're somehow, as a result, doing yourself a huge disservice.
In the last six months, it has been made very clear to me that, for better or worse, we're all parrots. Whether tech, or politics, or religion, or programming, this can't be denied. How do we fix this?
Let's take a break from code this week, and talk about the person behind the code. When I found out my wife was pregnant last year, a million different thoughts and concerns went through my head all at once. Having your first child is like nothing you've ever experienced before. If you have one on the way, here's what to expect...from a male's point of view.
Over the years, I've come to realize that, what folks advertise and say they do, often bears no resemblance to what they actually do. Consider the broke financial advisor, or the event sourcing evangelist who sticks to basic CRUD and Active Record for their own projects, or the TDD expert who secretly doesn't TDD. The truth is that folks advertise what they're excited by. And, too often, what excites us is what's new and undiscovered.
