Ciao!
What was your big win this week?
Mine was writing a blog post in three hours. In the past, non-technical articles used to take me longer, sometimes six hours or more. The secret? Reducing waste in the early stages.
Instead of rushing to a low-quality draft, this time I doubled down on whiteboarding the article. I spent more than an hour making sure I had a coherent point broken down into intro, elaboration, and outro. With a clear structure, writing the first version was a walk in the park.
I was shocked by the quality of the draft too. Not surprisingly, it didn’t take me much to edit. It was just a matter of improving the prose and fixing some typos. Much better than the jumble of sentences I used to end up with.
That’s interesting because it’s the same way I write code to achieve quality for free. Or at least I try.
1. Blog
Code Quality is Free (if You Do it Right) - The secret is simple: the first version of the code must be as close to perfection as possible. Here’s how to do it.
2. YouTube
Elm’s RemoteData in React (with Render Props) - How to separate fetching, pagination, and rendering in React with render props. All live coded by yours truly.
3. Pick
Parse, don’t validate - Now I have a single, snappy slogan that encapsulates what type-driven design means to me, and better yet, it’s only three words long: Parse, don’t validate.
4. Pick
Essays on programming I think about a lot - Every so often I read an essay that I end up thinking about, and citing in conversation, over and over again. Here’s my index of all the ones of those I can remember!
I guess another win of the week was bbq plus board games with friends. By the way, I got addicted to Patchwork, Forbidden Island, The Quest for El Dorado, and Everdell. What other board games would you recommend?
Thanks for spending some time reading with me. Talk to you soon.
Yours truly,
Riccardo.