Last week I found myself looking at two C# methods I’d written. They were nearly identical, with different names and they differed by the execution of one single predicate function at the very end to filter out exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. I found this to be pretty dissatisfying. I knowContinue reading “First Class Functions: C# and JavaScript”
Author Archives: Joe
There Are No Easy Problems
Within reason, there are no easy problems. I say “within reason” because there are pretty obvious solutions to some problems, like drinking water when you’re thirsty. But if you back far enough up and attempt to find an abstract solution to “someone is thirsty” you may find that even that problem isn’t as simple asContinue reading “There Are No Easy Problems”
I Don’t Care For AI (Right Now)
An enormous amount of ink has been spilled lately because of the release of ChatGPT. You can pop over there, right now, and have a couple of fun minutes getting a computer to generate some text that approximates, with varying degrees of success, the thing that you wanted. When you’re done with that, you canContinue reading “I Don’t Care For AI (Right Now)”
Let’s Talk More About Twitter
Back in April 2022, I wrote about why I thought buying Twitter was a foolish idea. My opinion still holds, and I think recent events somewhat vindicate it. However, those same recent events have provided me with more to say and I think it raises points about just what makes software valuable. Software Value SoftwareContinue reading “Let’s Talk More About Twitter”
Start a Dev Blog
Seriously, do it. Start blogging about what you’re working on, or something you find interesting. I’ll give you my perspective: I’m an in-house developer for a manufacturer. Most of the things I work on aren’t public-facing, so I can’t show them off to others. None of the code I write for my job is openContinue reading “Start a Dev Blog”
The Value of Leetcode
My day-to-day work doesn’t always involve interesting programming challenges. That’s the nature of this work – sometimes you’re building something grand, sometimes you’re sweeping the floor. Things like Project Euler and Leetcode have always been in the back of my mind. This week, I became determined to begin working my way through the problems foundContinue reading “The Value of Leetcode”
JavaScript’s NaN
I wanted to write something about NaN because this occupies a weird space in JavaScript and might not behave like you suspect it should when doing equality comparisons. It also came up recently, and I want to make absolutely certain that I don’t forget the manner in which I should handle this thing. My firstContinue reading “JavaScript’s NaN”
Let’s Talk About Twitter
Twitter, apparently, got bought out this week by someone who had enough money laying around for that kind of weird flex. I think this was a foolish idea but from the standpoint of a developer. I’m going to come out swinging with some bold claims and, as always, I’m perfectly open to being argued outContinue reading “Let’s Talk About Twitter”
Useful Experience
I’ve been in a Senior Developer role for a little while now; long enough to start thinking about how to convey the usefulness of experience to more junior developers. There are a lot of jokes in our profession about being really good at using Google, or copying and pasting from Stack Overflow. Humor is importantContinue reading “Useful Experience”
Passwords!
I happen to know a Systems Administrator that is currently waging a battle against a truly ridiculous password policy. Based on the other content around here, you’ll no doubt figure out that I’m a software developer and not even one with a specialization in security. This is fine: my defense is that we should probablyContinue reading “Passwords!”
Joe Writes Software 