In this lightning question Tom and Ed discuss the work:non-work ratio of coding for a living. When writing code is your job, how much time do you spend actually writing code? How much time gets eaten up by the "other stuff"? Is every non-coding minute a waste of time? How does this compare to other industries?
In this lightning question Tom and Ed discuss take-home coding tests, and how much time you should budget for them. Most tech companies will set a challenge as part of their interviewing process. How long do they expect you to take? And is it a useful part of the process?
In this lightning question Tom and Ed discuss whether or not you should use spaces or tabs in your code. Spoiler alert: "spaces" is the only correct answer.
We often recommend that developers should attend tech meetups. But what does this involve, and is it useful for everyone? Should your level of professional experience effect whether you go to meetups or not? And is "networking" (shudder) the only reason to meet other developers? Is there any point in going to meetups if you're *not* job hunting? Spoiler alert; we both think meetups are great and that everyone can benefit from attending. But tune in to find out our details thoughts in this week's...
In general, developers are awesome people. Both our hosts have been helped and supported by some fantastically friendly and generous engineers. But there are some bad eggs. And given that we spend a lot of our time online, the nasty folk can be more vocal and more visible. And to make matters worse, we often see the bad characteristics excused by high performance. "A bad person can be valuable to your company if they're really good at code" is often said. But is it logical? Is it helpful to exam...
July is a good time to revisit our yearly goals and motivational tactics. Hey, we're nerds; it's always a good time to talk about organisational systems! We first touched on this topic way back in episode four. Have our options changed since then? Have our opinions changed since then? And are we still finding the same time-management strategies and tactics useful? Find out all this, and more, in this week's motivational instalment of A Question of Code. Mentioned in this episode: Episode 4: How ...
Boy, oh boy; bugs can be frustrating. A tricky bug can often make feel like a bad programmer, but fear not. Bugs happen to everybody. They're an unavoidable part of the coding process, and dealing with them is an important skill. Many coders think debugging is the most versatile and important skill you can learn. How do our hosts deal with their bugs? Are there strategies that help? Are there techniques you can learn to make your life easier? Find out all this, and more, in this week's buggy ins...
Tom is absolutely nuts about Functional Programming. He goes on about it all the time (mentioning it in almost every episode so far!) but Ed doesn't really know what it is. So what is this fancy programming paradigm that's got Tom so excited? And is he able to explain it clearly and succinctly? (spoiler alert: he isn't!). Will Ed be able to make any sense out of Tom's ramblings? We all know that a monad is just a monoid in the category of endofunctors, but do any of us know what any of those wor...
It's a common assumption that all programmers are maths wünderkinds. But is that necessarily the case? Many coders do come have a strong mathematical background, but does the correlation imply causation? What is like to learn to code when you've previously been a humanities specialist? Can you get by without any maths at all? Find out all this, and more, in this week's illogical instalment of A Question of Code.
An oft-heard piece of advice is to "write about what you learn". But what does that actually mean? And who are you supposed to be writing for; just yourself, or for other people in similar situations or following in your footsteps? Find out all this, and more, in this week's literary instalment of A Question of Code.
A good CV is an important part of finding a job in any industry. But are there specific things you should do to improve your chances in the tech industry? Are there any parts of Tom's old resumés that he's ashamed of? What tricks and tips has he picked up over the years? And does any of Ed's experience carry over from the world of teaching? Find out all this, and more, in this week's educational instalment of A Question of Code.
Ed doesn't have much experience with automated testing for his code. This week he asks Tom about the principles behind testing, and some of the benefits and downsides. Does Tom think Ed should learn how to write tests ASAP? What kind of tests does he find are the most useful? And are there any downsides to writing tests for your code? Find out in this week's inspiring instalment of A Question of Code. TalkPython podcast Classic Computer Science Problems in Python , book by David Kopec Boundaries...
In this lightning question Tom and Ed discuss the term 'full-stack'. What does it mean and is it even possible for one person to do all the things?
In this lightning question Tom and Ed give you a quick overview of how many of your skills need to match a job description before you apply.
Ed has found the world of open source software both intimidating and intriguing. Did Tom feel the same when he started out? What even is open source, anyway? And is getting involved useful for people just starting out on their coding careers? What are some good tactics for getting started? Find out all this and more in this week's enticing instalment of A Question of Code. Learn by Contributing article dev.to github.com Git Basics Code Triage The Cathedral and the Bazaar The Changelog podcast...
In a new venture for the aQoC team, we took our show on the road. Future Sync is a tech conference keeping you in-sync with the latest digital trends. We attended for a day of talks, interactive exhibitions alongside plenty of networking opportunities throughout the event. We were able to speak to a whole range of people and get to the bottom of why people attend tech conferences, and what they get out of them. Find out all this and more in this week's pioneering instalment of A Question of Code...
This week Tom tells Ed what it's like to be a remote developer. They talk about accountability and motivation, as well as the importance of Gifs to a happy distributed workplace. Does Tom miss anything about working in an office? How correct (or otherwise) are Ed's preconceptions. Get the full low-down (warts and all) in this week's thrilling enticing instalment of A Question of Code.
In this episode Tom describes his most recent round of interviewing. What tasks and challenges did he find? How many rounds did he have to go through? And is any of this representative of interviewing in the wider tech industry? Find out all this and more in this week's thrilling instalment of A Question of Code.
Coding Coach - https://codingcoach.io/ Exercism - https://exercism.io/ Future Sync - https://futuresync.co.uk/
When should you specialise in your career? Is specialising even necessary at all? The week Tom lays down some hard-earned wisdom (which Ed is smart enough to unpick and not take too seriously). Does Ed feel like becoming a "specialist" yet? And has Tom learned anything useful from his past (mis) steps? Find out in this week's illuminating instalment of A Question of Code!
Notion: https://www.notion.so/ Postman App: https://www.getpostman.com/ Our Notion board
Anki flashcard system: ankiweb.net Exact Instructions Challenge - Dad makes his children write instructions for making a peanut butter and jam sandwich. The Evil Genie
GIT: https://git-scm.com/ GitHub: https://github.com Notion: https://www.notion.so Trello: https://trello.com/en Basecamp: https://basecamp.com/
Code, by Charles Petzold Where Wizards Stay Up Late, by Katie Hafner & John Lyon Syntax podcast "Must Have" CS fundamentals A Baseline for Front-End Developers Open Source Society University...
Learn You The Node r/learnprogramming here be dragons! Django Wagtail CMS .dev TLDs CS50's Web Programming
Halt and Catch Fire TV show: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/oct/16/farewell-to-halt-and-catch-fire-the-best-show-that-nobody-watched Startup Podcast: https://www.gimletmedia.com/startup D3.js: https://d3js.org/
Indeed: https://www.indeed.co.uk/ StackOverflow Job Board: https://stackoverflow.com/jobs Joel Test: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/08/09/the-joel-test-12-steps-to-better-code/ CodePen job board: https://codepen.io/jobs Angel list: https://angel.co/ West London Coders: https://www.meetup.com/West-London-Coders/ GitHub: https://github.com/ Future Sync conference: https://futuresync.co.uk/ Hired: https://hired.com/ Talent.io: https://www.talent.io/ @aQoCode @edPython @thomashazledine...
Picobel audio wrapper: https://github.com/tomhazledine/picobel @aQoCode @edPython @thomashazledine
Refactoring UI , by Adam Wathan & Steve Schoger: https://refactoringui.com/book/ Automate the Boring Stuff , by Al Sweigart: https://automatetheboringstuff.com/ CSS Tricks: http://css-tricks.com Stack Overflow: https://stackoverflow.com/ Medium: https://medium.com/ Flask Mega Tutorial, by Miguel Grinberg: https://blog.miguelgrinberg.com/post/the-flask-mega-tutorial-part-i-hello-world/ CS50: Introduction to Computer Science: https://online-learning.harvard.edu/course/cs50-introduction-compute...
VS Code: https://code.visualstudio.com/ PyCharm: https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/ iTerm 2: https://www.iterm2.com/ Prettier: https://prettier.io/ Vim: https://www.vim.org/ Vim talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlR5gYd6um0 Moom: https://manytricks.com/moom/...
