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Your ideas are important — share them with the community

Your ideas are important — share them with the community

Sharing your ideas helps you and others get better. Here’s how to get started. At least once a week I say to myself, “That’s interesting. I should write something about it.” And then I don’t. A bunch of excuses fly into my head. “Lots of people have

It’s OK to be pragmatic

It’s OK to be pragmatic

Being pragmatic is engrained in me. I’m at my best being practical and boring. Here’s the problem — experience has taught me that you’ll never do your best work through sheer pragmatism alone. While I’m good at weighing options and making decisions, I’m not that visionary

Silicon Valley arrogance — “I can tell you which startups will succeed, without even knowing what they do”

Silicon Valley arrogance — “I can tell you which startups will succeed, without even knowing what they do”

According to Marissa Mayer, long hours and weekend work (in person) will lead to success Yesterday I read this article about Marissa Mayer. This quote infuriated me (emphasis mine): My husband [the venture capital investor Zachary Bogue] runs a co-working office in San Francisco…And if you go in on

Life as an impatient programmer

Life as an impatient programmer I have to admit — patience has never been one of my strengths. My parents tell me over and over, “Try to be more patient!” It’s never quite stuck. I get why they harp on me. Impatience is by definition pretty negative sounding: having or

The most helpful thing you can say to a teammate — “It’s your call”

When a teammate asks me a question, one of my favorite responses is “It’s your call.” It’s such a simple yet powerful phrase. In just a few words it conveys… Trust—Confidence—Respect—Autonomy—Ownership—Empowerment— Responsibility—Decisiveness How can such a simple phrase mean so much? Take

How I became and stayed a successful programmer

How I became and stayed a successful programmer

3 strategies that have been crucial to the longevity of my programming career For a while now, interest in programming has been skyrocketing. So there are a lot of beginners out there starting their careers — and that’s a wonderful thing! If you’re one of those beginners, eventually you

I went on vacation and a funny thing happened — I didn’t do any work

Many vacations are broken, filled with the stress of work. Help me bring back the work-free vacation. My family and I just returned from a 12 day vacation to the San Diego area, where my brother, mom, and dad all live. We had a wonderful time. We did all the