“Booleans are programmer’s original ‘fuck you’ to the English language.” – Me
It’s official, I’ve jumped the shark by quoting myself. I’ll see myself out now..
Lately, I’ve had some flattering experiences lately with peers and aspiring programmers actually asking for my opinion. Quite honestly, this is the one thing I find more rewarding than finding my own solutions to things. Lending a little bit of confidence to someone experiencing some ‘analysis paralysis’ can help them get off the dime and act.
One story I like to tell quite often is about my son. He was having trouble with some spelling homework that had a certain number of errors for him to find. He’d found all but one and was getting extremely frustrated and emotional. I helped him look it over and noticed the error and let him know that there was still one to find and that he wasn’t wasting his time. It took him a bit longer, but he figured it out. The fun part was telling him afterwards, “Dude, finding typos is like 95% of my job”
“Yes, you do. You’ve just used a double negative” – Maurice Moss regarding education
Sanity checking isn’t just for syntax and booleans are my fucking nemesis. When you get deep down into code that is essentially just counting polarity reversals, it’s easy to get lost. I’ve got a friend going through some professional retraining and getting a bit flustered on some boolean puzzles for class. Again, this is one of those situations where a second pair of eyes and some reassurance can provide that little bit of confidence to push forward.
“You actually watch that show?” – James Van Der Beek regarding Dawson’s Creek
When I started this blog, it was largely an experiment to dabble in some new technologies and try and share some of that dabbling with whoever cared to notice. Actually getting feedback on my articles is flattering enough, but recently I had a peer share an interest in starting a professional blog in part due to being inspired by mine. I got into development because I like building things that people use, but this had to be one of the most rewarding outcomes of the past couple of years of blogging.
“Every time I say ‘No.'” – Captain Sheridan on winning
As cliched as they are, movie/television quotes are kind of my thing. Mental models (see: analogies) are great for encapsulating a dry and complicated situation into something relatable. You can do this through anecdotes in your own experience or by referring to something common between you and your audience. It works!
As always, if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to add them here or address them to john@benedettitech.com.