Startups are supposed to pivot: run with one idea, then stop in the middle and possibly switch to a completely different path. Reassess the market, their current position and where they can go. Abandon the original idea completely for a more promising path to big profits. This is hard for humans. We get attached to … Read morePivot
As a long-time Java dev, it is tempting to declare function parameters as Lists. This is appropriate if we require an ordered sequence, but usually we only care that we can iterate over it. Our functions are more general if they accept any Seq. [1] However, now and then I really miss the cons operator … Read moreScala: when you wish that Seq was a List
It’s the title of a movie, in Hebrew with English subtitles. A Critic’s Choice selection on the plane from Amsterdam to Detroit today. It is about mentorship. About how the father/mentor wants to pass his culture and his values down to the son/pupil. About how the son believes the father’s achievements are great, are important, … Read moreFootnote
TL;DR – Speaking is awesome, and JDD Kraków is the awesomest. I sit in an orange chair at a table set with two forks and three knives. This hotel in central Warsaw has 31 stories and a lobbyful of teenagers chattering in Hebrew. I order krem grzebowy (cream of mushroom soup) and pierogi z grze… mushrooms. This … Read moreA speaking experience
Factoid of the day: the internet was invented because computers were scarce. Back when computers were huge and expensive, researchers needed a way to use a computer without traveling to it. This required a dedicated phone circuit, which was incredibly expensive back in the days of AT&T monopoly. When people tried to connect computers through … Read moreControl limits potential: Internet edition
People are like Android applications. We each run in our own VM, our own sandbox. Communication between us must be serialized into words or touch. Unlike apps on an Android device, we are not all running on the same hardware. Serialization errors occur, failing silently, as our minds swallow most runtime exceptions. The physical world … Read moresandboxed
One of the best coders I know majored in Cell & Structural Biology, long ago. He says: “I used to think I could never be a programmer, because I couldn’t imagine myself doing it.” My husband is a metallurgist. He picked it because it’s the engineering degree that requires the least math. He now wishes he’d … Read moreImagination first
So you want to be a programmer
jenmyers: I have the habit of telling my daughter to have an awesome day when I drop her off at school. (Go away, naysayers who claim the word is overused. I like it.) Generally, she rolls her eyes and tells me she’s always awesome. Today, she told me I should be awesome, too. I was … Read moreJen Myers Tumblings: How to be awesome
Yesterday at the Java User Group, I talked to someone with a recent Ph.D. in Computer Science who can’t get a programming job. Why? He doesn’t have experience. Everyone wants to hire a Java programmer with Spring and Hibernate to program in Java using Spring and Hibernate. To get experience, you need to have experience. … Read moreThe chicken and the egg both come first