As a full-time developer and someone who likes working on various side projects, I often find myself looking for advice from those who have gone before me. I find that some of my best learning happens from watching and reading what others have already created, how they went about it, and their pain points. Other times, I just need a po...

I often question if I'm making any progress. How am I supposed to know that I'm advancing (personally, professionally, emotionally, etc.) in life? I think that the reason progress has become such an important metric in our society is because we use one's concept of progress to estimate outcomes. Equating progress to an expected outcome...

This week I was building a simple Docker image to use for some debugging and ran into an odd case that was rather frustrating to track down. I wanted a simple Docker image that contained the ibmcloud CLI and some plugins for that CLI that would simply sleep indefinitely. So, I created a rather simple Dockerfile: FROM alpine RUN curl -f...

Problems come up every day, for everyone. Development teams are no exception. Those concerns are raised by a variety of stakeholders - customers, executives, and colleagues. Where I've seen trouble arise is when the immediate reaction by a decision maker is to treat the symptom of a problem. • This design concept has shortcomings? Scra...

Does the following situation sound familiar? A colleague or team member has just assigned you a new task, but they've already done all the investigation into the underlying issue, spec-d out a solution, and explained why going down this path is the correct choice. The work that remains? Going and implementing the solution. You've just ...

This week I ran into a confusing issue when trying to use grep in a shell script that was called via a Makefile. In hindsight, the error should have been obvious, but in the moment I was lost. So, I hope this simple description of my problem and the solution helps someone else in the future. I had a simple text file that contained a li...

I am entering the final week of my second technical internship. I've spent approximately 3 months working as a Backend Developer intern. This has been another excellent opportunity for me to learn more about the industry, grow my technical and soft-skills, and learn about the day-to-day work of a Backend Developer. In keeping with the ...

I just completed my first software engineering internship this past week. The opportunity to join a team enabled me to learn about the health and tech industries as a whole, software development, and myself. Below are some of my biggest takeaways that I will bring with me to future professional opportunities. Document everything. Whene...

Compensating individuals (monetarily or otherwise) for what they contribute is important. For me personally, there is a form of payment that is more valuable than anything else: genuine appreciation. Don't get me wrong being compensated monetarily is nice, but in the long-term money can only do so much for my internal well-being. I fin...

If anything good were to come from this ongoing global pandemic, I was hoping that it would be that people would slow down. Maybe we (by "we" I mean humanity) wouldn't be in such a rush to get to where we are going or be in such a hurry to get to tomorrow. About a year into this whole ordeal, it seems as if the exact opposite has happe...

Saying "No." is hard for me. I like to help people when they ask for it, irrespective to what I might have on my own plate. I tend to say "Yes." and "Yes." and "Yes." and "Yes." Then I regret saying "Yes." more than I would have regretted saying "No." Saying “Yes.” has gotten me into sticky situations. Situations that I could have avoi...

I have exceptionally high standards for the work that I do. My entire life I have had a single principle to guide the quality of my work: do work that I was proud to stamp my name behind. Does this mean I take credit for any and everything I do? No. Not even close. It means that I stand behind the work I do when it gets checked off of ...

Listening to what others say is infinitely more intricate than simply listening to the words coming out of their mouth. Now, more than any other time in my life, I feel as if most people have lost their ability to listen to what people are saying - beyond just the words they are speaking. There are many things to observe and absorb whe...

I love technology. Always have. I took my first true computer science (CS) course in a public school system in middle school. I took CS courses throughout my high school education and I am currently a student at a major four-year university working towards a degree in computer science (emphasis/focus within the field is still to be det...

Earlier this week I decided to do away with Google Analytics on my personal website. It was long overdue. Privacy is important. Privacy should be considered a right for everyone on the internet. You wouldn't walk up to a person in the grocery store and tell them where you live and that you keep a spare key under the plant on your patio...

Three or four-ish years ago I was an intern working at a website design and development company. We worked exclusively with WordPress. For those that are not familiar, WordPress is a Content Management System (CMS) that runs roughly 40% of the world's websites. WordPress has plugins that run on top of the core WordPress functionality t...

Intuitive is defined as "using or based on what one feels to be true even without conscious reasoning." The feeling of something being intuitive is hard to explain, we just know it when we feel it. It's what "feels right." Each of us has our own feelings on what is intuitive and what is not. That is a good thing. It creates diversity, ...