Learning to code is one of the most powerful and satisfying things you can ever do. If you’re a designer, learning to code can help you understand what you’re creating for, and if you’re looking to build a startup from scratch, being a technical founder can make things exponentially easier for you.No matter why you want learn, the only thing you really need is curiosity. But if you’re just starting out as a novice and don’t know where to begin, here’s a list of 7 ways to start learning how to code right now for free:1. ProcessingProcessing is...

Over the years, I've seen a bunch of coding anti-patterns.I figured maybe I'll share a few.Today, I'll introducewhat I'm calling the for-if anti-pattern,also known as"We'll sell you the whole seat, but you'll only need the edge."This is a special case of the for-case anti-pattern, whereall but one of the cases is null.for (int i = 0; i < 100; i++) { if (i == 42) { do_something(i); }}This can naturally be simplified todo_something(42);The for-if anti-pattern arises in many forms.For example:foreach (string filename in Directory.GetFiles(".")){ if (filename.Equals("desktop.ini", StringCom...

Over the last year and a half, I have worked with a small group of students and staff to create an excellent online learning community at Mendicant University. Unfortunately, because Mendicant is something that we’re intentionally scaling at a very slow pace, we won’t directly reach as many people as we’d like to any time soon.In this post, I’ve collected some of the things that I think contribute to making Mendicant University a great place to learn. I’d love to see these ideas integrated into more local and online groups, so that we can create a lot more gr...

6ShareYou’re in the middle of a crazy startup development sprint. Pressure is sky high as you might have to fire everyone if you don’t generate significant traction over the next 4 months. Make it or #fail situation.The guys (I wish we’d have girls but … wait we have a student, anyway) are killing tickets and you’re pretty much on the target you’ve set with your investors. Not comfortably confident but ok.And you catch your guys debating, for multiple days, whether they should be using “n/a” or a slashed zero to represent a div by ...

I believe that motivation is really important. That’s why from time to time I read books about time management (as they motivate me to be focused and continue evolve my TM-system) and books about software craftsmanship. The other day I finished one of this kind of books - “Apprenticeship Patterns: Guidance for the Aspiring Software Craftsman”. This book motivated me to think carefully what I want to invest my time in.Also, it coincided with my 25th birthday and, of course, the new year is coming in a few days. As you can imagine, all this stuff pushed me to reflect on my sk...

I am a little late to this party where Michael Arrington says that startups mean working hard and sleeping under your desk. But I will add a few words. I read a lot of commentary about how such death marches can be counter-productive and ultimately unsuccessful, and also the real dangers they pose to the well-being (short-term and long-term) of the lives of the programmers. But I didn’t see many people actually do a quantitative analysis. So here it is.Your average working day is 8 hours and the average week has 40 hours. Now,  in the absolute best case (unworldly) scenar...

The WebSocket protocol has applications beyond plain vanilla web development.  I will explain how the protocol works, how to implement your own server and share some insights I had along the way. Before we get down and dirty, I will explain what I’ve been doing with it.At this point I expect many of you are saying “I’m not working on a web game this doesn’t seem relevant to me.” Well, neither am I. I embed a WebSocket server into my game engine and with a local web application use the WebSocket protocol as a medium to control, configure and monitor my game...

Programming is a lot like eating.Tonight I was hungry. I wasn't at home. I couldn't go to the kitchen for a snack. I looked around and saw only McDonald's across the street.Then I was struck with the same dilemma that I face whenever I leave the comfort of my own home for any decent spread of time: Do I eat crappy food now and satisfy that hunger? Or do I stay hungry for a little longer and eat a healthy meal back at home?As I pondered this dilemma I couldn't help but notice how much it relates to code quality. But more about food first.I can only speak for myself, but I do not consider a McDo...