building your skills
Posted on Become a Better Developer

Three Easy Steps Toward Building Your Skills

Practice Makes Perfect The best part about the foundational items of programming is that they cannot be avoided.  Every day you code you will get more comfortable with many, if not all, of the items listed.  Over the years you will write thousands of loops, create millions of variables and use all sorts of methods to read and write to files.  The only worry in dealing with these foundational skills is automation.  An automated solution is not going to be useful in building your skills. There are code generators and IDE utilities that help take a lot of the work out of these items.  They can make your programming skills deteriorate through lack of use.  Of course, regularly working in... Read more

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Make The Most of Search Engines

We all like to work through the problems we have been presented.  However, this is not the fastest way to a solution.  When we are in an office, we can pester our co-workers.  On the other hand, we can always use search engines to pester the entire Internet instead. Search Engines Require Thoughtful Questions The first thing to know about search engines is how to properly ask a question.  Although most of them will handle standard English sentences that approach will not always return the best results.  This can cost minutes or even hours of time as you vet the various answers.  These engines work off of keywords and phrases, so it helps to use those in phrasing the search terms or... Read more

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Eating the Frog and Reducing Stress

Eating the Frog is a term that may be new to you.  Simply put, this is the idea of getting the things done that you want to do the least.  It is a popular way to improve productivity and get things done.  However, it is also a practice that can help with reducing stress and increasing happiness.  In this episode, we look at how doing what you dislike is a key to happiness. Removing Obstacles is Key To Reducing Stress Depression and lack of productivity go hand in hand.  Likewise, productivity and happiness are often related.  These are all complicated concepts, so the cause and effect of them are also a little muddy.  We can improve productivity through a lot... Read more

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Getting The Most From Mastermind Program

In this episode, we take the risk of self-promotion and look at the elements of a good mastermind program.  We put our money where our mouth is in this respect.  The program we recommend happens to look a lot like ours.  However, this episode is more than an advertisement.  We lay out some features that you can add to yours or look for when selecting one. Accountability is Key To a Mastermind Program I have found that the greatest value of a program like this is being held accountable.  It also is what we strive for every time our program is reviewed.  This focus makes perfect sense when the goal of a mastermind program is to make everyone more effective. ... Read more

building your skills
Posted on Become a Better Developer

Building And Reinforcing Your Foundational Skills

In the course of a technical career, there is a need to first build a solid foundation of skills and then extend that.  Unfortunately, it is essential to return to those foundational skills from time to time as well.  It is not that a good foundation is forgotten as much as this allows one to adapt to a new technology. As with most things in life, the first time is the hardest.  Building a solid foundation takes years of study, work, and effort.  However, it must be stated that putting in that time and hard work does not guarantee a good foundation.  Thus, we should look at what makes for a good foundation of skills and then how do we ensure... Read more

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Native Vs Mobile Friendly Applications

In case you have not noticed, mobile applications are all the rage.  In fact, the very definition of mobile is constantly evolving as well.  The apps that were aimed at tablets and phones now include those aimed at more devices.  These include devices like Google home and Amazon Alexa as well as general IOT devices.  This flood of platforms makes the native vs. mobile approach to building applications a key consideration. Native vs. Mobile Friendly Can Be Simple The choice between the two options can be a given in some cases.  The requirements of your solution may dictate one or the other.  For example, a need to work in a disconnected state eliminates responsive.  On the other hand, a requirement... Read more