You heard this before: “The code should be its own documentation”. I don’t like this phrase. There is some truth to it, but I don’t feel it’s completely accurate. It misses some cases where the code is not, and should not, be its own documentation. When the code is the documentation? Documentation adds complexity to […]
Programming
You’re not shipping your computer
Not all computers are the same. Here, you are entitled to go Duuuh!, but bear with me. What works on some computers, does not always work on the others. Why does it happen ? And more importantly, what can you do to protect yourself ? Over the years I spent a lot of time on […]
Linux command line – things a programmer can learn in a day
If you’re doing software development, chances are you had to do with Linux. It’s nearly impossible to go around it. Even Windows has linux now. Although getting good with Linux it’s more than I can do in a single blog post, I find that it’s quite easy to get working knowledge. Just enough to make […]
Frontend and Backend and beyond
There is a lot of talk going around in programming circles about the fabled full-stack developers. What are full-stack developers ? What do they do, and why is everyone talking about them? Let’s try and find out what full stack developer does, and what skills they need in their day-to-day job. To put it simply, […]
Learn about transaction isolation levels
Databases are everywhere and they’re here to stay. If you’re a bit familiar with relational databases you are probably familiar with transactions. Transactions are pretty powerful tools when working with databases. They allow multiple users to play nicely with each other while working on the same database. However, with more and more users connecting to […]
HTTP – REST API – Cheatsheet
HTTP (short for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) may very well be the backbone of the internet. So much of the internet’s traffic relies on this simple protocol is astonishing. Use-cases range from simple static websites to awfully complicated single-page apps and lots of things in between. I will be providing you with a minimal introduction […]
Statically typed vs dynamically typed languages
What are types ? How does a program go from ones and zeros to the complex data-types that we are used to. And what the hell is a strongly typed language ? Is there really such a thing ? I will try to answer all these questions and hopefully shed a little light on this […]
What you need on a programming job — besides programming skills
You’re about to start your career as a software developer. This usually means you went through some sort of technical interview. There you had the chance to prove you’re good at coding, maybe some theoretical questions about algorithms and design patterns and that is usually it. However, a programmer’s life involves far more than just […]
Can you have code comments and clean code ?
Comments have the programming world divided. There are those who argue that you don’t need comments, code should be self-explanatory and you shouldn’t need to add anything. In the other corner, there are those who like to add their fair share of code comments. I want to share some code comments best practices with you. The […]
How to learn a new programming language
In this article, I’m trying to synthesize my tried-and-tested approach to learning a new programming language, or a new framework. This is not a zero to hero guide to programming. I will be assuming that you have experience with at least one programming language. There is an easy way of going from “I know Java […]