Notes from monthly book club

Sunday July 17th, 2022
https://www.meetup.com/central-connecticut-coders/events/287115522/

Let's become better programmers!

Join us in the * * * Lobby * * * voice channel of our Discord server

We are hosting a bi-weekly book club to have open discussions about computer programming, personal and career development, software design/architecture and more!

We have already chosen our first book, The Pragmatic Programmer, and moving forward, we'll have a vote of which book to read once a month.

ISBN: 0135957052

During our virtual book club, we'll digest the chapters in our discussions, explore new ideas and how to implement these concepts in our everyday lives, ask questions, share knowledge and more!

The Pragmatic Programmer

Characteristics of a Pragmatic Programmer

• Early Adopter / Fast adapter
• Inquisitive
• Critical Thinker
• Realistic
• Jack of all trades

Kaizen - japanese concept of continuously making many small improvements Pragmatic - latin derived "skilled in business" greek meaning fit for use

Tip 1: Care about Your Craft
Care about developing software and do it well. Tell others what you are doing! Family, close friends, let them know what you spend your time on and enjoy doing.

Tip 2: Think! about your work
IBM old corporate motto, never be on auto-pilot. Constantly be thinking and critiquing your work.

Tip 3: It's your life
It is your life. You own it. You run it. You create it.

8/1 Monday https://software-engineering-books.com/

8/14 Section 2 Discussions Tips 14-24 Favorite TIP so far is the DRY Principle. Don't Repeat Yourself. Make it easy to make changes throughout your code and projects, no matter how small. Otherwise duplicating knowledge across systems and whatever will slow you down and give you major headaches.

My way of relating to DRY is graphic design with my woodoworking projects. It can get so messy and not orgnaized with all the file revisions I produce. And the transfer of physical files from one location to the next. Laptop, desktop, USB drive, the list goes on.

So far, I have only mostly written HTML/CSS static stuff up to 100 lines of code a project. I can already feel the need to keep things simple, concise, easy to make changes, especially if I need to revisit something 6 months from now.

8/28/2022

Section 3: The Basic Tools

TIP 25: Keep knowledge in Plain Text The power of plain text. Make it understandable and human readable. Keep things simple, neat and organized.

TIP 26: Use the power of Command Shells GUI interfaces and WYSIWYG tools, wix and wordpress. Spice up your terminal will colors, themes, and prompts. Tab completion for commands. Be like a hermit crab, make your terminal your home.

TIP 27: Achieve Editor Fluency How can I automate simple tasks and make myself more efficient? Lose the mouse for a week. Try only using keyboard. Linux teaches you to use keyboard more.

TIP 28: Always Use Version Control Git and Github workflow. Use VCS for just about anything. Creating a backup of your devices, simple plain text files, large scale projects for groups. Use it, learn it, love it. Programming is really an art of doing, just like reading the prag book and doing the stuff it suggests. Github repo of my backups.

Two sections this time September 11th Section 4 and 5