Tue 01 November 2011 | -- (permalink)

In a post linked from Hacker News today a guy named David Jacobs explains how he moved from Java to Ruby because of awesomeness like first class functions, giving an example of how Ruby lets you create your own function and pass it to array.select in order to filter …

Thu 13 October 2011 | -- (permalink)

At work we've been talking a lot lately about how to branch and merge code when we do releases and build new features.  It's a fundamental law of the internet that every git vs mercurial flamewar must include a comment along the lines of "they're both pretty much equivalent, just …

Sun 05 June 2011 | -- (permalink)

Awesome quote from Derek Sivers:

They say there are a few stages of learning:

1. unconscious incompetence
2. conscious incompetence (\< -- me)
3. conscious competence
4. unconscious competence

I'm not sure which "they" he's referring to since I've never heard that before, but I think it's profound.

It strikes me that the quality of communication …

Wed 25 May 2011 | -- (permalink)

Context from the hover text on today's XKCD:

Wikipedia trivia: if you take any article, click on the first link in the article text not in parentheses or italics, and then repeat, you will eventually end up at "Philosophy".

Wed 20 April 2011 | -- (permalink)

Not necessarily for a career, but as part of being a well rounded member of society. This quote from Swarthmore's Timothy Burke via The Atlantic's Megan McCardle explains why:

The most awesome development project I've ever seen personally was a former small businesswoman in the Peace Corps who was teaching …

Sat 26 February 2011 | -- (permalink)

I've just finished the five week Machine Learning 101 class taught at Hacker Dojo.

I didn't get what I had hoped out of the course. I'm quick to acknowledge that I could have gotten more out of it by applying more effort, but I also think there were some unnecessary …

Thu 18 November 2010 | -- (permalink)

If you're going to write an article comparing X and Y, try to have an opinion. Don't end it with this:

The best way to determine which is right for you is to download both and put each through a comprehensive evaluation.

The Server Side: Comparing MySQL and Postgres 9 …

Mon 15 November 2010 | -- (permalink)

There are some things that schools and colleges really focus on that I just don't think are very relevant anymore. There are other things that kids really need to know, but that are only taught as electives if they're taught at all.

• Less useful: Cursive writing. You don't need to …

Mon 04 October 2010 | -- (permalink)

Over at Language Log.

I would add "anyone who walks by a janitor cleaning windows at the JSMB and says 'Can you come do mine next?!'

Sun 03 October 2010 | -- (permalink)

In Slate.