@brwngrldev - March, 2017

Hello! Welcome to the seventh issue of my newsletter. I recently had the opportunity to record my first course for Lynda.com/LinkedIn Learning. It will be released in a few weeks. The contents of the course are still hush, hush. Needless to say, it will definitely be about Android Development. The approach that I followed to create the course’s content was very similar to what I wrote about a year or so ago around the course I created for O’Reilly.

The main difference is that LinkedIn had me record the videos in a studio, instead of at home. This was very helpful to me because my assigned producer, was right there the entire time. He helped me decide on final word choice for certain portions of my videos, gave feedback on my slides, and provided general encouragement when I didn’t feel like I could record even one more video. It’s a lot of work putting together an entire course, and I really hope that the Android Community is able to benefit from it once it’s released. So stay tuned for updates on that. Here's a short GIF of the whole experience. I was in Carpinteria, California it's a small, beautiful city. I had a great time there. Now, let’s get into the main content...

This book is a classic in the world of Software Project Management. The main takeaway for me so far, is that we can’t just throw people at software problems and assume that the final project will take less time. In fact, it’s often the inverse “mo people, mo problems.” The author’s tone makes it enjoyable to read. Here’s a little gem from chapter two: “…when schedule slippage is recognized, the natural (and traditional) response is to add manpower. Like dousing a fire with gasoline, this makes matters worse, much worse.” <= Such true statements! I’m really looking forward to finishing this book; so far, so good.

Let’s Talk Podcasts   Fragmented - UI UX development   In this episode Donn and Kaushik talk with Raveesh Bhalla, an UI/UX Google Developer Expert. He argues for the case that developers should be concerned about the User Experience of their applications just as much as the Designers are. Further, he recommends spending time to understand your target users, see what kinds of applications they’re using, and keep your design as similar to those applications as possible. This is especially the case in markets where there is low tech literacy. Towards the end of the podcast he talks about some UX research he did while in India last year. It was really fascinating to hear the difference between what we think our users know, and what they actually know. Definitely give this one a listen!   Talking Kotlin - Catching Up with Jake Wharton   It was interesting to hear the adoption process for Kotlin at Square. Jake created a document a few years ago to argue for using Kotlin at Square. Once it was approved, they slowly started using it in tests and tooling to make sure it wouldn’t negatively impact anything in production. This seems like a good way to get started with incorporating it into your projects. In fact, here’s a nice blog post I read that can help you to do just that in Android.   The Speaker Lab - The In's and Out’s of TED/TEDx    In this episode Grant interviews, Tamsin Webster, the Executive Producer of TEDx Cambridge. She shares the differences between TED and TEDx Talks. It was helpful for me to hear her explanation. I didn’t realize that there were so many TEDx events around the world, and not all are on the same level. Further Tamsin, talks about how she helps her speakers prepare for their TEDx talks. They have to practice A LOT! This explains why the speakers are so comfortable and have their content memorized. My current goal is to spend even more time practicing my talks so I can have that same level of comfort on the stage.     Cool Finds   Syntax Highlighter - https://romannurik.github.io/SlidesCodeHighlighter/   This is a great tool by Roman Nurik, Designer at Google, for preparing your deck. It lets you paste your code on one side and then on the other side, get a nice version for display on slides. I used it in the slides I created for my Lynda.com course. I’ve also used it in my slides for my upcoming Keynote. In the past, I chose what I considered a decent font size, something like 30 points. However, this defaults to 40 points and it’s much easier to read. Let me know what you think!     Recent Videos   I’ve been working on creating a few videos each month. Here’s a listing of my latest videos: