A Code-Obsessed Novelist Builds a Writing Bot. The Plot Thickens
Vikram Chandra, the author of Sacred Games, created Granthika to keep track of complex narratives. It could change the future of storytelling.
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Weekly newsletter about leadership, technology, books and anything else we felt compelled to share with others
Vikram Chandra, the author of Sacred Games, created Granthika to keep track of complex narratives. It could change the future of storytelling.
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Code Coverage, although important, is not sufficient for giving good feedback of the changes developers implement. Mutation Testing tackle this problem in a systematic way, by applying changes heuristically and validating the suite of checks reaction to them.
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The most efficient way to close the stress cycle is physical activity. Walking, running, cycling, dancing, whatever. The second most effective method is breathing exercises. Box breathing, for example, allows CO2 to build up which stimulates the vagus nerve and the parasympathetic system, producing a calm and relaxed feeling. And the third way is positive social interactions and laughter.
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The good news is that there are things we can do to both address and prevent burnout. Where we go wrong is a failure to recognize that burnout comes in many different flavors, each of which necessitates its own solution.
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In general, Enabling environments focus on creating opportunities for growth and action, not on skill-building.
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In early 2017, I was mentally in a bad spot. It was the perfect storm of stress, the kind that no one asks for, but you deal with the hand you're dealt. Work was piling up to a point where I couldn't process all the things that were expected of me. I was training for spring half-marathons, which should have been stress relief, but I was putting too much pressure on myself to perform at a high level. And then on top of the everyday family obligations, a surgery in our household turned us into a one-car family and seriously added to the mounting pressure on me to provide and take care of the family. Then I broke.
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When I first learned Python nearly 25 years ago, I was immediately struck by how I could productively apply it to all sorts of messy work projects. Fast-forward a decade and I found myself teaching others the same fun. The result of that teaching is this course–A no-nonsense treatment of Python that has been actively taught to more than 400 in-person groups since 2007. Traders, systems admins, astronomers, tinkerers, and even a few hundred rocket scientists who used Python to help land a rover on Mars–they’ve all taken this course. Now, I’m pleased to make it available under a Creative Commons license. Enjoy!
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Throughout my career, I’ve developed some opinions. Some have worn particularly deep ruts, reinforced by years of experience. I tried to figure out what these had in common, and it’s the idea that code in production is the only code that matters. Staging doesn’t matter, code on your laptop doesn’t matter, QA doesn’t matter, only production matters. Everything else is debt.
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If you claim to be a tester, or if you are making some claim about testing, please prepare yourself and have some answer ready when someone asks you “what is testing?”. Please.
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There are a bunch of heroes in the digital world that are held up as aspirational examples in conversations about digital business, technology and ways of working. Netflix, Spotify, Uber, Amazon and a host of our favourite characters, but these myths can become damaging fictions.
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Burnout has been a hot topic in both the open source community and broader tech industry, but too often these discussions simply acknowledge that burnout exists. We can do better. The care and feeding of ourselves is a start, but how about the care and feeding of our community?
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There are few possible reactions after learning about the Clean Architecture or Hexagonal Architecture (AKA Ports & Adapters) or even merely innocent service layer in Django. Some developers are enthusiastic and try to apply these techniques immediately, some are hesitant, full of doubts. The rest is strongly opposing, declaring openly this is an abomination. (...) What two extremes fail to do, is to ask the right question – WHEN? When the Clean Architecture should be used?
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