/Tips

Claude Shannon: How A Genius Solves Problems (2018)

- Zat Rana tl;dr: Solving problems comes with the right thinking pattern. Often, we use a logical thought process. Shannon's approach changes the reference point of problems asking "what a bad solution looks like". All answers hold a truth and reference points break up unhelpful mental loops.

featured in #146


How To Start A Software Project With A Quality Mindset

- Bruno Paz tl;dr: Taking a good first step is important (1) Define the development process, tooling, etc... (2) Build the foundations for good documentation (3) Define and enforce coding standards and guidelines (4) Setup static analysis tools to detect code smells early (5) Automated tests suite (6) Development environment.

featured in #145


How To Pair Socks From A Pile Efficiently?

- Amit Gross tl;dr: Pertinent Stack Overflow question for all of us - turns out that "sorting" is not actual the answer.

featured in #144


Elegant READMEs

- Yegor Bugayenko tl;dr: A how-to for README files. Contents structured with the following headings - Title and Description, Badges, What Is It?, How to use it?, Use Cases, How To Contribute, Downloads and Releases, License, Changelog, Contributors vs. Acknowledgements.

featured in #140


"Don't Deploy On Friday" And 3 Other "Unwritten Rules" of Software Engineering

- Tobias Merkle tl;dr: Maintain regular backups i.e. database, cryptographic keys, config files, get a complete spec before you start and, finally, if you see bikeshedding - wasting time on trivial matters while sacrificing important ones - call it out.

featured in #134


Never Feel Overwhelmed At Work Again: How To Use The M.I.T. Technique

- Sihui Huang tl;dr: M.I.T. stands for Most Important Task, a critical task that will create significant results. "Every day, create a list of 2 or 3 M.I.T.s, and focus on getting them done as soon as possible." The article details how to approach this and benefits. Are the short summaries (tl;dr sections) helpful? Please vote here

featured in #131