I have a number of questions in my quiver when I'm giving technical interviews to candidates. They are all of a similar flavor. I don't ask puzzle questions, I find them low value. Instead, I ask questions that are straightforward but have a few angles with which to explore deeper topics. Enter the humble median. Write a function that takes an array of numbers and returns the median. At a minimum:…
Two years ago I was new to the Warhammer 40K setting and I wanted to check out the universe. I'm mostly interested in books, I don't play the tabletop game. So where to start? Lots of folks online recommend the Eisenhorn series as a good starting point. I mostly agree but you can safely start with any stand alone novel or first entry in a series. No one novel will communicate the breadth and depth…
There is a genre of content out there that is obsessed with productivity systems. For a short while I was a big fan of this genre. I want to get things done, I want to accomplish tasks; if I implement these systems I could become prolific! I won't be so bold as to say all the productivity people are bullshitters; but there are smells. There is a common trap that productivity people fall into. A…
[ one word ] Go: ez Rust: robust Swift: Apple [ two words ] Go: comfy tooling Rust: borrow checker Swift: nice enums [ four words ] Go: small language big impact Rust: genius, possibly too genius? Swift: progressive disclosure mostly works [ eight words ] Go: Occasional slice footguns, suspiciously productive language all considered. Rust: Fearless concurrency is not just a catchy slogan. Swift:…
1. Prioritize your health. You can't be hot without a crisp jawline. If you are not getting quality sleep you are leaving engineering brainpower on the table. Same thing goes for diet and exercise. This is very well studied: being fit makes you smarter. In addition to peak brain power; being fit will let you work for longer durations. Being fit will allow you to get your core work done faster and…
1. Be entertaining. I'm a huge dingus, but if I'm funny I might be able to cast a spell on my audience. Corporate work is often dull. One or two jokes goes a long way to helping lighten the mood. Minimum of one joke, max three. Jokes don't have to be complicated, self deprecating is safe. 2. Remind folks of the team goal. Everyone gets tunnel vision at work around how they do their little part of…
There is a good reason the most common troubleshooting step for a tech problem is to restart the device: it often works. Why might that be? The explanation is actually pretty simple. Software is default blind. Default blind means that software has no clue what it's doing. Running programs charge forward recklessly. Software has no visibility into itself or anything on the system unless it has been…