Dec 18, 2021How I’ve Benefitted From Reading Technology HistoryEarlier this year I read Masters of Doom, a phenomenal book about the creation of Doom, one of the most influential video games ever. The book is wildly entertaining, and it presents countless lessons about building great technology that has stuck with me ever since. I never played Doom —…Technology5 min read
Nov 26, 2021What is Hammock Driven Development?This is a summary of Rich Hickey’s ‘Hammock Driven Development’ talk. In it, he describes his process for thinking about and solving hard problems, a useful skill for programmers and non-programmers alike. The talk is brilliant and I’d recommend that you stop reading this and listen to it first. I’m…Software Development8 min read
Nov 17, 2021Paper Summary: No Silver Bullet“No Silver Bullet — Essence and Accident in Software Engineering” is a widely discussed paper on software engineering written by Turing Award winner Fred Brooks in 1987. This is a summary of the key ideas. Much of the progress in software engineering productivity that past generations experienced can be attributed…Software Development7 min read
Published in Ascent Publication·Oct 17, 202013 Ways To Live a Life of Purpose In Your 20sIt sounds morbid, but I contemplate death daily. I ask myself, “What if this is it? What if my time runs out today?” I’d love to say that I’m at the point where I’m comfortable with death, but it terrifies me. A benefit of these thoughts about expiration is that…Personal Development9 min read
Oct 12, 20208 Essays on Programming That Are Worth Your TimeAs an aspiring software engineer, essays on programming have become a valuable source of information and inspiration. They detail the thought processes of the best engineers in the world. They provide insight into how they formulate and articulate problems, communicate them to others, and go about solving them. Humans are…Programming6 min read
Published in Level Up Coding·Oct 5, 20206 Step Guide to Navigating Git and GitHubIf you’re learning to code, you‘ve frequently heard about how important your GitHub profile is. It’s like a social network for programmers — a place to showcase your work, find interesting projects and connect with talented people. I remember hearing this and deciding that it was time that I established…Programming5 min read
Mar 30, 2020The South African Twittersphere during Covid19By Zach Wolpe & Keagan Stokoe — We’re living in unprecedented times. Whilst we face severe financial & medical challenges — one ought not to neglect emotional & psychological burdens presented by the break of normality. Whilst limited, social media allows for a window into the human condition. …Data Science3 min read
Mar 30, 2020Smarter Than CovidBy Keagan Stokoe & Zach Wolpe — We are living through a period about which history books will be written, theses will be based, and stories will be told. As we live through this period of history, plenty of uncertainty surrounds us. In an attempt to make data accessible and transparent, Smarter Than Covid was formed to…Programming5 min read
Feb 4, 2020Text and Sentiment Analysis of WhatsApp MessagesWhatsApp is the third most used social media app in the world. As the user base continues to grow, so does the number of messages sent on a daily basis. …Sentiment Analysis5 min read
Jan 28, 2020The Best Resources for R and RStudioIn a data-driven world, the ability to organise, use, and analyse data is becoming a very important skill for any programmer to possess. I recently undertook the task of learning to R and RStudio. These are the best resources I found. ‘R for Data Science’ R for Data Science This book will teach you how to do data science with R: You'll learn how to get your data into R, get it into the most…r4ds.had.co.nzRstudio4 min read
