Picking the best programming language is difficult because we can’t just pick the one with the largest goodness number. Obviously, these objective goodness numbers are the easiest and most reliable way to find the best language, but someone neglected to assign them. Instead we individually convert our time slowly into experiences and our experiences into […]
My year as an apprentice software engineer
This post originally appeared on Ryan’s personal blog The unlikely programmer Music theory was my ‘thing’ from the time I was 10, so naturally that’s what I studied in college. Years later I found programming and, realizing a better thing when I saw one, I switched ‘things.’ After attending the Institute of Whatever the Search […]
3 Hard Steps on How to Fail (you probably can’t do them)
I have many friends who cannot help but win. Everything they do seems to blossom, and sometimes I wonder if they might not be descended from King Midas in some ethereal way. Here’s how to prevent yourself from being another victim of Pervasive Success™. 1. Avoid things you’re good at Being good at something takes […]
Passionately Driven Development
I started programming because I needed to solve a problem. My former employer was a small college on the south-east side of Indianapolis and they kept all their student’s academic records in Excel files. I was a humanities teacher with a degree in music theory, but I didn’t like that broken system. So I build […]
You have to start somewhere
I started fresh in at SEP on Monday and by Tuesday the bananas were fresh out. Fellow new guy Jackson and I were tasked with our first project on Monday just before quittin’ time: update the internal resume reporting website from ‘ancient’ to ‘tomorrow.’ It currently runs on a mid-2006 vintage copy of Ruby on […]
