My blog. Personal thoughts, anecdotes, and musings.
When you were three years old, you asked “why” an awful lot. If you have kids you’re probably sick and tired of hearing that question. But it is a fundamental question; it’s how we learn. We have a need to understand. Some things are learned over time, like “We need to eat so we don’t die.”
But some things are not easily understood.
Like Pointers in C.
Recently I came across an exercise that was designed to help the student understand the use of pointers in C.
There’s no shortage of software developers who are eager to share their passion with others through writing and teaching. It’s an amazing time, and it’s great to have all these resources out there for us to all get better at what we do.
If you’re a software developer who wants to teach others how to do things, listen up, because there’s a chance you’re derailing your students and undermining their confidence before they even get started.
I believe that web developer should have a command of a few simple things in order to tackle the random craziness that web development entails. This isn’t, by any means, a comprehensive list. It is opinionated, but also based on things I see other people I respect demonstrate in their daily work.
JavaScript It’s everywhere and you can’t avoid it. You also can’t afford to continue the copy-and-paste approaches of the last 15 years.
Unfinished
Published March 5, 2013
Being pulled in a lot of directions at once means you don’t get to finish some things. I didn’t get my RPM Challenge stuff done, although I did produce one track.
You can listen to “The Letdown” here.
I’m actually pretty happy with this song. I did a lot of it on the iPhone while waiting for meetings, waiting for things to build, or as a distraction for those times when my brain was starting to get fried.
I’m working a lot these days.
I’m editing a couple of really cool books, I’m working very hard on getting one of my best-selling books updated with fresh content, and on top of that I’m teaching full-time. That doesn’t leave me much time to work on music.
So against my better judgement, I’m doing the 2013 RPM Challenge, where you have just 28 days to write and record an album of music.
I’m teaching an introduction to programming course and I asked my friends and fellow developers to send me short 30-second clips of why they love what they do. Then I edited them all together. Here’s the video!
Why I Love Programming – Stories From Developers from Brian Hogan on Vimeo.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve had this passion for showing people how to do things. When I was in fourth grade, my dad, a teacher for the blind and visually-impaired, taught me how to program on an old Apple IIe computer. Once I got the hang of it, I started teaching my friends how to do write little programs of their own in our short-lived computer club after school.
Back in February, I released my latest book, tmux: Productive Mouse-Free Development with help from the wonderful folks at the Pragmatic Bookshelf. If you don’t know what tmux is all about, watch this video:
I’m proud to announce that my latest book, Web Development Recipes{.popup}, is available in print directly from the publisher.
Modern web development takes more than just HTML and CSS with a little JavaScript mixed in. Clients want more responsive sites with faster interfaces that work on multiple devices, and you need the latest tools and techniques to make that happen. This book gives you more than 40 concise, tried-and-true solutions to todays web development problems, and introduces new workflows that will expand your skillset.
Today marks the start of PragProWriMo, where the fine folks over at the Pragmatic Bookshelf{.popup} are encouraging aspiring writers to write a technical book over the course of the month. Over at the forums{.popup}, I shared my writing workflow, which I’m reposting here.
My process may not be a good fit for everyone, but it’s served me quite well.
I usually map out my idea using either OmniOutliner{.popup} or the free online CheckVist{.