edding4500

I applied for a job.

I did a coding assignment.

I was asked to read two xml files, one with data, one with operations, and perform the operations on the data.

The task was deliberately unclear and suggested to not use third party software.

So I did the thing and wrote an xml parser.

I documented my decisions in design etc.

Later I found out that one could have used any third party XML reader package.

I was declined for other reasons but when asking for feedback on my code, all I got was: You did not check for divisions by zero.

I am still wondering what skill they actually wanted to test with the coding assignment.

I wrote a little reply on that[1]. I don't think that a tool is ever to blame. Sure, some tools suck and can be a source of distraction. But human beings need tools to capture creativity and transport them into real life.

[1]: https://papierplan.de/blog/on-notes-against-notetaking-syste...

Fantastic, great idea! The amount of job offers when searching for 'software engineering' is a bit annoying, though.

I would assume that extroverts, trying to obtain gratification from outside themselves, boast out with ideas, opinions and the like much more easily than introverts and are thus perceived as more confident. Confident as in "I am confident in myself, hence I say this thing out loud". An introvert may say that thing out in his/her head and leave it at that, so no perception can be made from outside.

I can only imagine a society to be stable if it manages to maintain trust. Not only trust in the government, whatever form it may have; but trust in other people that are also part of this very society.

In my humble opinion, trust can only be formed via communication.

This approach has helped me, above all, to manage my expectations, which were too high. When it's clear that I only have an hour or two, I rarely start projects or parts of projects that are too big. Instead, I can focus better on the core problems in this short time. I lay down software architecture ideas, boil down problems to core algorithms, implement core functionality, write outlines of blog posts or summaries etc. Most of the time this means I'm 80% done. If the small project still attracts me then I'll automatically continue it the next day and start working on the remaining 20% that take much more time.

I had to think of my grand dad. As a (german) child he fled from war in his early childhood. Back in the days there was no psychological help for people like him. Going to a psychiatrist had the reputation of going to the madhouse and back in the 40's to 70's you really would not want to end up there. He and his whole generation never talked about what happened in war. There were some exceptions in literature but the tenor in the general public was to 'get on' and leave it all behind. Now his past is coming back at him and he tries to open up about it.

What I'm trying to say is: he never grew up with an accepting society or internet forums to easily find like minded people in anonymity. Publishing on a widely accepted and discussed topic seems more obvious than publishing on topics that are considered taboo. After WW2, germans discussed and published about the guilt of their parents. There was little room for compassion for those who "started war", but there was no room at all for those who suffered from it.

Here's a (imho) pretty neat post on technical writing that was recently linked on HN:

https://www.heinrichhartmann.com/posts/writing/

Small company here with a data team consisting of 1.5 full time employees. I just found out about DataStation from this post, immediately installed it and I'm loving it. Great work and concepts :)

Cool project, congrats you finished it up to this point :)

As some people pointed out, web developer demands are pretty specific and vary from person to person. To fulfill most of them would mean immense efforts.

In contrast to that, I think your idea could thrive as a `boiler plate` component generator. Add an export button that just hands you the component code and you got me hooked for some quick components.

Well earned, bravo! To me, Quanta truly stands out in terms of explaining complex matter not just to anybody but also in an entertaining way. I'd subscribe to it if there were a print version.

I think that is a great advice and insight. An addiction can not bo tackled when your drug is all around you.

What I did: I took the sim card from my smartphone, put it into a dumb phone. So I had no internet during my 30min work commute (train/bus). Then I took a book with me. And I read it. I started this last year in October and I'm at my 9th book now, mostly only reading them during commute.

Another insight for me was: don't do read text books for the sake of "reading more". Go for the type of literature you like, how unintellectual it might be. For me its pretty much any best selling novel.

I got my hands on LSP and developed a language extension for a DSL. I found the overall idea great. he only thing that grind my gears is that currently, LSP focuses on some very common language support features and some Microsoft / VS Code inventions such as CodeLenses. The latter being a feature of the VS Code API, I am wondering whether the LSP will stay a platform agnostic protocol.

Well, hello.

You mean threading? That is just one common example for what is possible with arbitrary effect handlers.

Nice! By coincidence I'm ging to present my bachelor's thesis today - partially in effects and handlers.

Please also notice this blog post by Dan Abramov and how he got behind algebraic effects: https://overreacted.io/algebraic-effects-for-the-rest-of-us/

Oh this is sweet!

Any specs in the case? Is it fully aluminium?

Too Bad I just baught a Thinkpad with the same price tag :(

I can highly recommend otto.de and their customer service - up until now, every time I called the customer service, everyone was extremely nice AND helpful. Delivery of even heavy household articles such as washing machines is extremely easy. Just a great service overall.