Few topics in the programming world spark debate quite as much as TDD. There's enough dogmatism from the evangelists of TDD to warrant an equal and opposite reaction from those who aren't on board and are tired of being told they're doing it wrong.
We're living in an interesting time, when one person - anywhere in the world - can start a business without leaving their bedroom. Even better, this business has the potential to bring in revenue while the person sleeps. This is the secret sauce to wealth, and it's now available to anyone with an internet connect and a decent idea. As a result, we have now regular folks - often with little business sense - running highly profitable small businesses.
Every open source project begins with the best of intentions. In fact, they usually begin with excitement. One developer has an idea, and thinks, "Hmm - I can do this!" So why is it that, more often than not, these projects eventually spiral out of control?
We can all surely relate to the sense that our ability to focus has slowly deteriorated over the last decade. If this scares you as much as it does me, let's talk about how we reverse the process through habit forming.
I think you'll find that intermediate-level developers tend to be the most passionate and rigid of the entire community. It is at this stage of your learning when you are most susceptible and attracted to programming "rules," or instructions from above that, when followed, lead us to clean code. But that's okay. While we all eventually realize that rules are meant to be broken, in certain phases of our training, rules very much serve an important purpose, and we'll talk about it in this episode....
To offer something different this week, let's tear down and inspect a recent conflict on the US presidential debate stage.
In this episode, I offer a brain dump on the intricacies of raising two little kids, and fatherhood in general.
Too often, we hear politicians spew the tired "learn to code" slogan in response to difficult questions related to disappearing jobs in remote America. Let's talk about the logistics and practicality of a middle-aged coal miner making this switch.
I've thought quite a bit about types in the last year or two. I know - borrring - but I find it interesting to observe how intensely talented developers can disagree with one another on this particular issue.
Developers passionately disagree with one another on most programming issues. For every tutorial on class inheritance, duck-typing, naming conventions, and mutability, I'll show you another resource that argues vehemently in the opposite direction.
Every developer should develop and manage at least one project themselves. Doing so not only harnesses your discipline, but it also forces you to flex product-related muscles you've never used before.
One of the more frustrating aspects of front-end development stems from the fact that even the smallest of alterations has the potential to derail your entire week. In this episode, we'll discuss how to track browser-specific CSS performance issues.
That simple rule we all learned years ago in school may not have stuck properly. Why else would we, decade after decade, incorrectly and constantly draw "cause-and-effect" lines from one variable to another?
It occurred to me recently that I've likely recorded more programming screencasts than just about anyone. In that time, I've picked up a number of small tips and techniques.
Traditionally, there are three primary locations when most friendships are formed: school, the workplace, and church. But what if you're unable to tick any of these boxes, as is increasingly the case for remote workers.
A recent study found that a small percentage of individuals are largely responsible for the widespread sense that online interactions are hostile and toxic. Assuming this is true, is it possible that muting a handful of people will instantly remove the negativity in your feed?
In this episode, we'll discuss a series of performance improvements that you can apply to your own projects right now. You'll learn about everything from image lazy loading to inspecting the cost of an NPM package.
No, this isn't the last Laracasts Snippet. But we will be discussing PHP's final keyword and the arguments for and against applying it by default.
In the last few years, I've noticed that my eyes simply aren't as resilient as they used to be. After staring at a computer screen for so many years, the daily eye strain and headaches have been getting worse. Much worse. In this episode, I discuss the steps I've recently taken to improve my situation. If you're in the same boat, have a listen!
Each of us is born with a unique personality that defines much of how we view the world. Is it possible that this also cascades down to the code we write? Maybe!
Today, I have four completely unrelated topics to discuss with you today. As a (cheesy) way to connect the dots between them, we'll call this episode the four P's: Personal, Professional, Political, and Parental.
As part of managing Laracasts, I've been lucky enough to speak with countless developers. Whether newcomers or seasoned veterans, they too often seem to share the same insecurity: sooner or later, they'll be found out.
The subject of this week's episode is gamification. I'll begin by gushing over Outer Wilds, and then move on to discussing the pros and cons of general gamification elements in web apps and schools.
I recently made a bittersweet commit that removed jQuery from the Laracasts codebase entirely. Let's discuss how important the library has been to the JavaScript ecosystem as a whole.
Are you as annoyed as I am that there are five different points of entry, if you want to watch a movie you own? Is it a Blu-ray? Is it on your DVR? Did you buy it on iTunes? Or was it Amazon Prime? Recently, I've been trying to consolidate all of my purchased media to a Plex server I set up. If you're in the same boat, here are some things to watch out for.
After working with PHP for over ten years now, there's one question that continues to pop up - no matter what year it is: "Isn't PHP Dead?" Let's talk about it.
The first draft is almost always crap. There's no getting around it. But once you accept this harsh truth, it can be freeing. Not everything you do is gold.
This episode, I have four things to discuss with you: children and values, old PHP, developers and back pain, and finally a new UI component we're working on for Laracasts.
I recently spent an entire day making a small, but tricky Vue component for the Laracasts forum. There's no doubt that it took longer than I would have liked. But, the fact remains: at the start of the day, I had no clue how to build it. When I clocked out that evening, it was finished and deployed. Let's talk about why this is my favorite aspect of programming, and how it can overflow into the rest of your life.
Representation in the tech community is a tricky topic to discuss. Like a minefield, be careful where you step on this issue. But let's see if we can trace a safe path through.
