Various tips and tricks often focused on software engineering with specific code examples for you to use in your programming.
You can find part one of this here! Applying for Software Development Jobs How do I stand out on an application? I think this is largely going to depend on where you're applying. Something to consider is that especially with large tech companies, they're getting thousands and thousands of resumes all the time. It can be really competitive to be able to even land an interview so sometimes if the caliber of other applicants is high, it can make it difficult to stand out. That's okay. We don't have control over others, but we do have control over ourselves! We can try a few different things to stand out and help you get started on your software development journey professionally. The following are things I personally would suggest and may not reflect the exact views of my employers (past, present,…
Navigating Post Secondary Education for Software Development Do you have any advice regarding university applications? For university, it's been so long since I've had to go through applications that I'm not sure I have really specific advice. I think it's important to know what schools have for prerequisites and really ensure you nail those down. In terms of which school to pick, that's certainly a personal choice. You'll have so many factors to consider including cost, what programs are offered, relocation, proximity to loved ones, etc... As a hiring manager, personally, I am less concerned with WHERE someone went to school versus what they could showcase about what they have learned. I'd also personally suggest checking out schools that offer internships since it's an excellent way to get real experience! This is something that worked really well for me since…
I recently wrote about TODO lists and how they can help with focus now that many of us are working from home. I had a former colleague on LinkedIn mention this concept of "timeboxing" (which I think many people are familiar with the general idea) and how that can improve the effectiveness of a TODO list. I had made a post on LinkedIn sharing my blog article, and here's a comment that came in right away from Graeme Harvey: This obviously got me thinking because sure, Elon Musk is a pretty smart dude, but I also have a lot of respect for Graeme and his perspective on things. So I decided I'd try something out! TODO Lists v1.0 My original TODO lists didn't factor in any timeboxing techniques, but they had some benefits. The engineering mind in me says this…
It's more relevant for more people now than it probably has been in other times in their professional careers, but COVID-19 means remote work for a lot of people. It also means no work for a lot of people too. I've found that a simple tool for me to keep focused is leveraging a TODO list. It's so simple that I think people often overlook the power of a TODO list when you're feeling like you're a bit lost or not making progress. With your TODO list, the first thing I'd suggest is thinking about a daily routine. Now that you're working remote, or in the unfortunate case out of work, I think it's really important that you keep some sort of daily routine to help give you some guard rails. Think about what things you usually do in the…
I've been writing a little bit about Autofac and why it's rad, but today I want to talk about Autofac modules. In my previous post on this, I talk about one of drawbacks to the constructor dependency pattern is that at some point in your application, generally in the entry point, you get allllll of this spaghetti code that is the setup for your code base. Essentially, we've balanced having nice clean testable classes with having a really messy spot in the code. But it's only ONE spot and the rest of your code is nice. So it's a decent trade off. But we can do better than that, can't we? What are Autofac Modules? We can use Autofac modules to organize some of the code that we have in our entry point into logical groupings. So an Autofac module…
What's An Interface? I mentioned in the first post of this series that I'll likely be referring to C# in most of these posts. I think the concept of an interface in C# extends to other languages--sometimes by a different name--so the discussion here may still be applicable. Some examples in C++, Java, and Python to get you going for comparisons. From MSDN: An interface contains definitions for a group of related functionalities that a class or a struct can implement. By using interfaces, you can, for example, include behavior from multiple sources in a class. That capability is important in C# because the language doesn't support multiple inheritance of classes. In addition, you must use an interface if you want to simulate inheritance for structs, because they can't actually inherit from another struct or class. It's also important to note…
Background I wrote a post a long while back about how I started to use Google Keep to get myself organized. Google Keep has been a go-to app for me on my phone for a long time now. I love using it to make lists of things, and I find it much more convenient than a paper notebook. Don't get me wrong--I think a paper notebook still has plenty of uses! I love my notebook for long running meetings with open-ended discussions or brain storming sessions. It's great to be able to take a pen/pencil and doodle down any idea that comes to mind. When I'm having a free-form conversation, I need a free-form way to take notes. However, my phone is something I almost always have with me--and my paper notebook isn't. My phone allows me to take my Google…
Background I'm a "middle manager" where I work, but that means a whole bunch of things. My everyday tasks primarily consist of programming, but I do a bunch of work to interface with other departments and teams, and I play a role in managing people on... well, the "people" side of things. For the latter part, I refer to that as people leadership. I think it's pretty easy to look at some of the aspects of people leadership and dismiss them as "fluffy" or needless... I consider myself a logical/technical thinker, so I have that frame of mind sometimes. However, I do see the value in actually being able to support my team so that they can operate at the best of their abilities. I try to find ways to do that without it seeming to them like I'm doing "fluffy leadership things",…
Code Smells Welcome to the second edition of Code Smells! Periodically I'll be posting about how to detect code smells and what they mean in terms of the big picture of your code. The previous installment can be found right here. What's a code smell? Wikipedia says it perfectly: In computer programming, code smell is any symptom in the source code of a program that possibly indicates a deeper problem. Code smells are usually not bugs—they are not technically incorrect and don't currently prevent the program from functioning. Instead, they indicate weaknesses in design that may be slowing down development or increasing the risk of bugs or failures in the future. Onto the code smells! The Stink List Code Smell #4: (Thanks to reddit user fkaginstrom) You have an large number of parameters being passed in to your function call. Functions that take in a ton of parameters stink for…
Background I thought this might be kind of fun (fun can also be read as "upsetting"), so I'm giving it a shot. It's pretty frequent as programmers we go back and revisit some code and find ourselves shaking our heads at what we see. These code smells often don't show their faces when they're being created, so don't beat yourself (or anyone else) up just yet. Common signs you've stumbled upon a code smell are when you find yourself saying: How could that co-op have possibly coded this?! Blast those interns! Or What the heck was John thinking when he put this together?! Does he not have a brain?! Or No wonder we find so many bugs in this part of code! Look what Jane did! But it never truly hits home until you get one of these: What is…
