Review: UI - 7 Tips for Cheating at Design

These are actually great tips on making better UI Design (element styles).

https://medium.com/refactoring-ui/7-practical-tips-for-cheating-at-design-40c736799886

Review: Write Simple Code - Fast

I like how this author points out the difference between a senior developer and junior developer.

"But code is human language. It has to communicate the who, what, when, where, how, and why of a task, as well as instruct the computer. It has to make sense five years from now after the company has been acquired and a new team who has never seen this code before has to crack it open and make an enhancement or fix a bug.

Yes, writing dumb code is hard. ...I know that the best thing I can do for my team, and the future maintainers of the code, is to write dumb code."

https://hackernoon.com/why-senior-devs-write-dumb-code-and-how-to-spot-a-junior-from-a-mile-away-27fa263b101a

KISS

Basically, a senior developer writes the most simplest code - think KISS. Even better, s/he creates the simplest designs and then directs her/his team to code simply according to the simple design.

But, we do live in a real world and almost every developer is trying to gain points over another.

Good luck.

Review: Tech moving faster than skill development

IBM highlights Skills Gap (World Economic Forum 2019)

IBM CEO Ginni Rometty makes a splendid point here in this article.

For most, "technologies are moving faster in time than their skills" and I agree. This adds to my belief that we must upgrade our public schooling system. Waiting until our kids become young adults and relying on companies to train up our kids for the workforce will hurt us all in the near future.

I like this highlight by the article:
IBM CEO Ginni Rometty said at the World Economic Forum's 2019 annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, that the most pressing issue of the "Fourth Industrial Revolution" is the "skills crisis" that would leave workers behind.

https://www.businessinsider.com/ibm-ceo-ginni-rometty-talks-new-collar-jobs-at-davos-2019-1

Microsoft agrees (to a degree)

In addition, here's an article by Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott with a quote that supports the outlook by IBM CEO. Scott goes further than employment into gently suggesting our duty as citizens.

“It’s challenging, because even if you’re a person with significant technical training, even if you’re an AI practitioner, it’s sort of challenging to keep up with everything that’s going on. The landscape is evolving really rapidly,” he said.

https://venturebeat.com/2019/01/20/microsoft-cto-understanding-ai-is-part-of-being-an-informed-citizen-in-the-21st-century/

And, just in case that's not enough to convince you of the dire state edging our economy, here's another article showing just a snapshot on the timeline of the increasing skills gap.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/two-in-five-technology-job-applicants-dont-have-the-right-technical-chops-survey-finds/

Public Thoughts

Here's what the public thinks, before I conclude my point. And, I wish the public survey by Udemy Research had smaller categories especially for those Over 40 to give insight what the older generations think. Because, I believe those who witnessed more technology impact over more years should have more insight and well thought out solutions.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/what-do-attitudes-toward-the-skills-gap-tell-us-about_us_5a31af5be4b04bd8793e9714

And here's a quick look at Udemy's 2018 Report.

My Conclusion

Companies must become responsible owners of reducing the skills gap. Our government and public institutions have a greater responsibility in driving the skills gap reduction and even eliminate it.

Cheers,

Review: Open Dialogue about Open Source Software

I really like this author and article. I'll be keeping an eye on the roadmap laid out. If you like Open Source Software, then I strongly suggest that you fill out the form as well.

https://github.blog/2019-01-17-lets-talk-about-open-source-sustainability/

Review: Easier developing isn't actually easier

Here's an article I agree with. The speed and ease of application development doesn't make development actually any easier. The biggest concern from my perspective is developers coding while being mindful application security.

https://www.itprotoday.com/devops-and-software-development/why-easy-software-development-making-things-hard-development-careers

Review: Is C++ faster today?

This was an interesting article. If I ever get back to coding in C/C++, then I'll need to revisit such blogs and catch back up.

I appreciate this author's breakdown and insight.

https://zeuxcg.org/2019/01/17/is-c-fast/

Review: C Programming Language status

The article I read today -
https://insights.dice.com/2019/01/14/state-of-c-programming-language-in-2019/

This was useful to know. Although C is not among the popular languages because other programming languages are more attractive and programmers don't need to worry about low-level coding or resolving performance issues on the application lower layer, C is still useful to understand. Like the author says, it's useful to know for IoT development (or any kind of development related to devices and to robots). Basically, if you're getting into the hardware side of development, then you really need to know C programming language.

Sounds like I too need to brush up on my C understanding! Well, when I get into programming devices or robots. :D

Happy Learning!

Review: Bonus pay hacking Google API

I wish I could get the time to hack away at Google products, especially those with an API.  I'm sure this guy got lucky with this specific product though.

Else, I am sure there would be a lot of pressure on the Google Test teams.

https://medium.freecodecamp.org/messing-with-the-google-buganizer-system-for-15-600-in-bounties-58f86cc9f9a5

Apple's Entrepreneur Camp - finally!

Apple's new Women Entrepreneur Program!

https://developer.apple.com/entrepreneur-camp/

Review: Microsoft Open Source Stories - Starting the .NET Open Source Revolution

I really appreciate the author (and his reference to the other authors) on telling this story (and continuing to tell the story of open source revolution).

Quite interesting to see how legal teams slow down tech teams. Even more interesting that legal teams seem to work more independent unlike many tech teams that work more interdependent (because no one likes to re-invent the wheel). Someone's going to need to change the legal system. Well, at least for the tech industry.

https://medium.com/microsoft-open-source-stories/starting-the-net-open-source-revolution-e0268b02ac8a

Journey into SET: No WebElement.isClicked()

In creating the Test Framework using Selenium for testing a specific web application, I am sort of shocked that the authors of Selenium would allow a WebElement to be "clicked" but not keep track whether this WebElement "isClicked" or even "isClickable".

https://seleniumhq.github.io/selenium/docs/api/java/org/openqa/selenium/WebElement.html#click--

So, anyhow, learned the hard way and had to really pay attention to reading the large paragraph in the API's method definition when it should the method should hanlde such cases or the Object should allow for handling such cases.

But, there's my issue too - why am I not contributing to this open source library set (tool)?

I need to get my game up and contribute, not complain.

I got around my problem and solved using the:
driver.navigate.refresh()

Well, at least I now know. :D

Review: Microsoft changed the way they Interview

This is great to finally hear! Not because I can't pass such technical difficult interviews, but because such in-depth technical interviews do not reflect how people actually work in tech environments. There's a lot more to developing a key product pushing the industry's tech edge than a random research conclusion or unrealistic (useless) technical solution.

The "Alternative Interview Framework"
https://blog.usejournal.com/rethinking-how-we-interview-in-microsofts-developer-division-8f404cfd075a

P.S. French is a very useful language in the tech world, as I'm starting to see.

References

• https://www.businessinsider.fr/us/microsoft-new-developer-interview-process-2018-12
• https://www.businessinsider.com/how-google-hires-2013-6

Learn: Microsoft Virtual Academy -> Microsoft Learn

I never heard of Microsoft Virtual Academy (or if I did, I forgot). So, glad to have read this article.
https://buildazure.com/2018/12/28/microsoft-virtual-academy-is-being-retired-jan-31-2019/

In short, learn more regarding Microsoft development at:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/