What I Say During Ruby Code Review
“hmmm… that’s interesting” -> “ok, ok, ok…” -> “what the fuck?” -> “what the fuck?” -> “ugh, ugh, yuk” -> “ok” -> “cool!”
This pattern always repeats, and yes, even with my code!
2010 Gotham Ruby Conference Video (GoRuCo)
Wow, even more awesome contents.
MongoNYC Video Now Online!
I was there, but if you missed it, you can watch the video of MongoNYC at http://mongodb.blip.tv now.
Installing Redis on Mac Snow Leopard
Here’s how I do it.
Step 1 – Get the source and compile it
Step 2 – Place the binaries and configure
- copy redis-benchmark, redis-server, redis-cli, and redis-stat to /usr/local/bin and set the owner to root.
- copy redis.conf to /usr/local/etc and change “daemonize” to “yes”
- if you want it to start when the system boots, create redis.plist in ~/Library/LaunchAgents directory with following content:
Then use the following command to automatically start when your computer boots:
Step 3 – Test
- open Redis CLI by entering “redis-cli”
- open Redis CLI again
Don’t Try To Be A Great Developer
Before becoming a great developer, we should all be decent human beings.
Don’t be a jerk
Whenever someone asks for help, never, ever, respond with “read the fucking code”, “read the documentation”, or “google it first”. Instead, say, “you can find it in xxx section of the code” or “the feature is documented in xxx”. I especially get pissed when a jerk says “google it first”. Why? Considering the fact that Rails change faster than any other framework I’ve seen, blog posts get dated and a half of them are just outright incorrect. I know this because I myself have very outdated posts that show up in searches.
What’s obvious to you might not be obvious to others
The way I define a “stupid question” is a question that is asked by someone that is so painfully obvious to me, I can’t understand why someone would even ask this question. The key here is that the nature of the question is based on your skill level and your understanding. Therefore, before you answer any stupid questions, put yourself in other’s shoes and try to understand where they’re coming from. Answer with a question to figure out why someone would ask that question and answer or point them to the right direction. And do it nicely!
Don’t assume anything
Please don’t assume that people know your shit because they know the framework or the language. We all speak the same language, but I sometimes can’t understand a word of what someone else is saying. What that means is that it’s all about the context, not the language. It’s not how, but why that creates confusion. If you do things one way, don’t assume everyone else does it the same way as you do. Arrogance is very subtle trait that is how to detect by yourself.
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
*** Update ***
Forget curl, just download and install wget => “If you’re using a Mac and don’t have wget installed, then replace wget with curl -O”
***
Now that the videos are fixed, I was watching Jim Weirich’s keynote at this year’s Red Dirt Ruby Conference. He mentioned the book “Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs” and what he was doing with it. So I got really interested.
Before I go any further, I don’t have a “computer science” background. When I started computing, there weren’t much and I did things without knowing the name. Take TDD for example. I always thought that people programmed that way and as far as I’ve seen, all the “old” people did it that way. What offends me the most is some asshole comes along and puts a label on it and I’m suppose to know what that is.
Ok, back to the subject at hand. You can purchase this book for $68 or view it online for free at HERE. You can also get the video of the course that uses this as the text from MIT’s Opencourceware by running following script I wrote for you. Here’s the link to MIT 6001.
First run the script below.
Then run the following script to clean up the file name.
The primary reason why I go through the beginner’s stuff is that whenever I go into an interview, I get asked basic computer science questions because people interviewing me never worked on any real applications and the only thing they know is what they learned from school.
In any case, this surely is an interesting exercise and I’m enjoying it.
RailsConf 2010 DHH Keynote Video
Rails 3 Screencasts
Rails 3 Screencasts by Gregg Pollack. As always, well produced and informative.
Tech Founders NYC
I became a CTO by getting in very early stage of a company. The more the company grew, better my situation got and for eight years, I enjoyed the greatest ride of my life. Now that I’m looking for the second “hit”, I thought it was really interesting the Francis Hwang of NYC.RB fame organized this.
From the website at http://techfounders.heroku.com
We are a group of technical founders and programmers who are interested in joining or helping launch startups. We invite early-stage tech entrepreneurs to pitch to the toughest audience around — computer programmers.
We choose entrepreneurs who are looking for an early-stage technical partner and whose ideas sound interesting to us, and we let them try to convince a room full of programmers to take a chance on their company.
Considering the fact that Rails is the darling of startups, you should really give this event a look if you’re in NYC area and looking to get into a company from the ground floor.
