Weekly roundup #02 | 3rd April — 9th April 2018
Hey DevChatters! Welcome to the second ever weekly roundup! I hope you enjoy — feel free to give any feedback though 😜
Here’s what’ll be in here today:
- ✍️ Articles published on the blog this week
- 🎤 An awesome interview with Joshua Lawson
- 💬 What happened on DevChat this week
- 👋 A welcome to our new members!
- 💼 Jobs posted on DevChat this week
Enjoy! 🎉
Articles on the DevChat Blog this week:
A huge thanks to Devon Campbell for writing an article this week!
Interested in writing your own? Join #blog_contributors on DevChat and tell me! (@Booligoosh). Even if you’ve never written a blog post in your life, feel more than welcome! I’ll even help you edit your post and get you set up with Medium.
Anyway, it’s interview time! 🎉
Interview with Joshua Lawson
(@Joshua Lawson on DevChat)
Hi Joshua! Thanks for being up for this interview 😁. Let’s get going!
What are your coding interests and language(s) of choice?
I have a massive passion for anything backend, I love digging into data, building business logic and automating as many manual processes as possible.
I was originally a PHP dev but have since moved from PHP to Golang with a massive interest in Rust lang, but only really playing around with Rust at the moment.
I also have a passion for TypeScript but hate JavaScript. Javascript is easy to learn but at a cost, which is annoying!
That’s a wide variety of interests! Tell me more about what you said, why do you dislike JavaScript?
I don’t hate JavaScript completely, I do understand it has its place and yes I work with JavaScript almost daily, but being a backend dev I prefer to work with stricter languages such as Golang. JavaScript has its pros and cons and for me the cons outweigh the pros, they may only be small problems that I find with JavaScript but they are enough to annoy me, things like everything is an Object, using TypeScript has made JavaScript a tonne load more bearable but still the small problems that annoy me shine through. Off the top of my head the most annoying pain point for me is multiline strings just as one example off the top of my head.
But as I said I am not a complete hater of JavaScript, I completely understand it has its place, as do most languages/tools. Like I said, I use JavaScript (TypeScript) daily building Angular and NativeScript apps, but personally I would NEVER use JavaScript for backend programming — it was not designed for it, there are much better languages out there. Again I am not saying DON’T use it, if that’s what best suits you then go ahead.
However, I hate that JavaScript is a go to first language for new devs, I wish someone could guide them to something stricter as this makes you understand more in-depth about the consequences of writing bad code. I hate that JavaScript/PHP were my first languages because I have learnt soo much more moving into Golang and Rustlang that I look back at some of my coding decisions and think what the hell was I thinking that day.
Cool! It’s interesting to hear so many different opinions from the DevChat community. What are you working on and doing dev-wise? (work, uni, side projects etc.)
Currently I am employed full time at a company based in Melbourne, Australia called Tipple as a lead developer. Tipple is a on-demand alcohol delivery platform. We get to work on some pretty cool stuff at Tipple, logistics and machine learning.
I’m currently working on a few personal projects, one is open source called trumpet, which is more just a small framework to help me build API services easily. Its still under massive development but would love to get some feedback and help if any Golang devs are interested it can be found here: https://github.com/joshualawson/trumpet
Other than that I have a couple of medium/large projects that I jump to and from every now and again, one is a social media platform with a twist and some game ideas I’m kind of prototyping/using to learn OpenGL and playing around with other higher level wrappers of OpenGL.
Awesome, great to see you’re doing stuff open-source. I also have many side-projects and enjoy the ability to switch between them. How did you get to where you are today?
Hard work, I never went to Uni, I did attend a TAFE course but left early because I had a job offer.. But really it was lots of long hours working for bad money and learning as much as I can. I’ve always had a passion for web development since I was about 10 and always played around with building websites and services to integrate into my game server hosting company I had when I was younger.
So for all those people looking to become a developer, don’t give up! Work hard, build a portfolio, work on some open source projects and get your name out there! No need for a degree.
That is some great advice, thanks 😃. What your experience been with DevChat?
I’m quite new to DevChat, but loving the community so far, #WasInvolvedInLargestThread hahaha.
Yup, over 200 replies (more on that in the next section). How is your desktop and work environment set up?
Definitely a *nix guy, always used Linux as a young kid, I could never afford my own PC so it was always hand me downs or computers I found on hard garbage that sucked at running Windows, so Linux was my goto. Now that I have some money I have invested into Apple, although not an Apple fan boy I do love the Mac range and would never turn back.
My setup is pretty basic, I love VSCode when I’m not in VSCode I’m in the terminal (iTerm).. I do like using VIM in my spare time, but for day to day work I’m not fluent enough with VIM to make it part of my daily development cycle :(
Other than that, just the typical packages, go, docker, etc.
Do you have any good tips for staying productive?
Delete Facebook… don’t have kids… I suck at keeping productive, I find I am a fast developer (and no not a messy dev, I have a massive passion for coding standards and doing things as best you can, I just guess I’m fast and getting faster at what I do every day) so I tend to get stuff done then waste time researching or looking at stuff I shouldn’t be. I used to love working remote but since I had kids its way too much of a distraction so I try to work from our office as much as possible.
I also find listening to some hard techno or electronic music depending on my mood really keeps me focused.
Wow, I think a lot of us could probably benefit from doing the time-wasting after getting a task done as supposed to beforehand 😂. How do you like to work?
I’m a very loud person, I hate quiet rooms and not having music pumping, so if the office is quite I’ll have my music pumping on my headphones. I tend to like to walk around too, if I get stuck on anything I’ll go for a walk or play some table tennis if anyone else has time to play too.
I always have 3 screens (including my laptop) code right in front of my face and anything else I need (terminal/database) on the other 2 screens, I never work split screen as I find it distracting.
Interesting, some people can only concentrate when it’s completely quiet and others can only concentrate when there is noise (I’m also the latter). Do you have any handy terminal commands, keyboard shortcuts of bits of code that come in handy day-to-day?
Get iTerm and set it up properly, setup some window arrangements, add in all your daily commands to get your dev environments to run so they automatically run with one shortcut key.
Other than that, just learn as much as you can about the tools you use, it really makes life easy.
Nice — I have aliases to run my dev environments, but shortcut keys sound like a really cool idea! What’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever done in development? (if you’re willing to share)
Deployed to live on a busy day, we used to do it all the time at work and 90% of the time we took our live environment down and stressed out and scrambled to get everything back up, which always causes mistakes.
On the plus side we now have deploy days which are the only days we can deploy on!
Thanks Joshua for volunteering to take part in the interview this week! I really appreciate it, It was really interesting :D
What happened on DevChat this week:
- @bobraf, @Joshua Lawson and @mpalmer, and a bunch of other people had a big discussion on developer salaries, career transitions from business roles and the likelihood of finding remote developer jobs. It helped @bobraf immensely — I love seeing messages like this!
- @JesusAndTacos, @folkrav and @mpalmer had a discussion about the Linux kernel, and what the term ‘Linux’ actually refers to
- @Joshua Lawson surpassed @miq’s record for the longest thread ever! 🎉🏆 I honestly didn’t think it would be beaten that quickly, but there you go! The participants were @Joshua Lawson, @RWOverdijk, @mrtreinis, @Ash and @folkrav:
So, that’s the report for this week 🤓. If you see anything that you would like to have put in this segment, just tell me! 😜
Welcome to these new DevChat members!
- @jeffC
- @djSam
- @pizzacat
- @simplecomplex778
Note: There are many other people who joined DevChat this week — unfortunately too many to list 😞. So, these are just the awesome folks who introduced themselves for the first time in #intro! If you haven’t done so, go ahead and do it right now! 😁
Conclusion
Wait whaaaat? What about the jobs section? I’m leaving it until the end this week, because it’s just so long! 😅 If they don’t interest you this is the last part of this week’s roundup.
I’d just like to restate that the DevChat blog is a community thing. It is what you folks make it. So feel free to write whatever you want in here (within reason) and to just ask if you want anything put in the weekly roundup.
We’d also love feedback! Are you enjoying these weekly roundups? Are they not working for you? What would you like to see on this blog? Direct Message me on DevChat to tell me 🙏
See you next week!
~ @Booligoosh, moderator of DevChat
DON’T FORGET THE JOBS THOUGH! 😅⬇︎⬇︎
Jobs this week
NOTE: I cannot guarantee that these jobs are still up for grabs, they may have been taken already. But check anyway! 😜
Job #1…
From @Georgia DigiTech Search on Wednesday:
Hi all, I have a Java Developer (Backend or Fullstack) position that’s based in Stockholm Sweden. It is a leading B2B provider of premium sports betting services. Would anyone be interested in finding out some more info? Only accepting EU candidates at the moment please and must speak good English.
(DM @Georgia DigiTech Search for the info)
Here’s a long one, prepare yourself…
From @Freitas on Thursday:
Delivery Hero/Foodora — We are currently looking to hire a Senior Software Engineer (m/f) for our Berlin HQ!
Responsibilities: Design, develop, test, deploy, maintain and improve software
Archive deadlines of the deliverables; Coaching and mentoring team members; Take part in architectural decision making; Understanding development lifecycle and collaborate with cross-functional and international agile teams
Required Technical Qualifications: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or an equivalent education or practical experience; Extensive experience in general purpose programming language; Experience working with distributed and parallel systems and web applications; Practical experience with Design Patterns, Design Principles, Software Architecture and Algorithms and automated tests (unit, integration and functional); (Very) good communication skills in English, both written and spoken
Preferable Technical Qualifications: Extensive experience with PHP or Go; Design Driven Development; Hexagonal Architecture; S.O.L.I.D principles; Event-driven architecture; Good knowledge of relational databases (You should be aware of normal forms, ACID, isolation levels, index anatomy); (Very) good communication skills in English, both written and spoken
Other requirements: Ability to work in a fast-paced software release environment; Flexible and open-minded personality; Feel comfortable to work in a multi-cultural environment
Our stack consists of: Microservice architecture; Redis, Elasticsearch, SQL and key-value storage, AMQP; Cloud-based infrastructure following 12 factors using Kubernetes/Docker; Go and PHP as main languages
What We Offer: A modern office in the heart of Berlin, close to amazing restaurants and bars. Inside the walls of this office you’ll find: An empowering, international and agile working environment; Responsibility from day one in an innovative and rapidly expanding tech business; Regular office parties and exciting team events; And a bunch of cool extras including a kicker table, table tennis and a playstation room, as well as free language classes and of course a monthly corporate discount for Foodora!You can apply on (https://www.foodora.de/en/contents/jobs?gh_jid=694220) and don’t forget to mention the name of the slack channel
That was a thorough job posting 😅
From @Keegan Rush on Friday:
Any iOS devs in (or close to) NYC? A client of mine is looking for someone to take lead on a project.
You’ll need strong experience in the relevant tech stack:
The app uses Core Data, with Realm expected in the future. Heavy use of SpriteKit for physics, but that’s open to change. Knowledge of typography and how it works on a low level in iOS is a big plus.
DM me or email hello@sic.studio!
Next up…
From @kieranc on Friday:
Looking for a graduate Java software engineer in Clonmel, Ireland: http://j.rfer.us/ITRONm7oYN
It’s the weekend now, yay!
From @twist900 on Saturday:
Hi there, we are looking for frontend developers (react/redux/css/html/adaptive_design) in remote or on site in Milan, Italy. Paying 37k++ eur. I am a developer myself, looking for awesome individuals to join the team. Please DM for details.
Lots of jobs this week..
From @Paul Mayeur on Saturday:
Appian (DC Metro Area) is looking for engineers/managers/agile coaches. If you are interested please email me paul.mayeur@appian.comhttps://careers.appian.com/jobs/lead-software-engineer-reston-virginia-united-states
https://careers.appian.com/jobs/manager-of-software-development-reston-virginia-united-states
https://careers.appian.com/jobs/lead-agile-coach-engineer-reston-virginia-united-states
Obviously HR didn’t get much of a break this weekend… 🤔
From @Bhumi on Saturday:
Looking for Android Developers and Architect for an award winning product based company with over 155 Million app installs and has 50+ Million users spending over 6 Billion minutes on our products. The Android developer should be having 3+ years of experience, Architect must have 8+ years experience preferably in product based company. We are based out in Bangalore,India. DM for details. Interested candidates can directly mail at bhumi@bleuming.co.in
Last one, I promise 😅
From @Samanta Leonie on Sunday:
Hi, I’m working with staffing company Preferati and we’re searching for latin america based developers for the following positions to work *remotely* and *full-time* with USA based companies:*Magento Developer* Expert level Magento I & II Intermediate English is a must.
*Front-End WordPress Developer* 3+ years of WordPress experience | Plug-in creation and maintenance experience | High-level knowledge of best practices in site security measures.
If you are interested in any of these, please feel free to DM me and I’ll give you all the details to apply.
You made it to the end!
Here’s a present to say thanks ❤️
