David Yu
Problem solver and software engineer. I write about software development, productivity, and life.
Excel powers businesses, databases power software, technically everything is just a giant table. Arguably the most important part of your service is the data, it is what makes it unique. The code can easily be copied, replaced, deleted but you can't do that with data. The greatest disaster for any company's IT team would be data loss not when their services go down
More Stories
Software rituals
Rituals are regular meetings held by the team, usually run by engineers but most of them can be run by anyone. They are best kept short and focused with a small group of people no greater than 5 because we want maximum participation. There is a fine balance between being professional and spending too much time in meetings. I find most participants dread meetings and find it a chore because it requires effort.
What it is like to work in big tech
Are programmers different in big tech? This was a question I always wondered before I joined. I thought they must have something special to join because the interviews are so tough and they get paid so much more. After spending a lot of time from junior to senior principal engineers I can say there isn't a lot different. I wouldn't say they have substantially higher IQ or anything like that but I do observe two key differences
Australian software company tier list
This is purely educational to help people decide on their next job and an over simplification of reality, factors such as the roadmap, projects and team are far more important. If you care about what looks shiny on your resume and what you deserve to be paid then this might help.
A life well lived - Warren Buffet
The Snowball is a book written by Alice Schroeder who worked in the finance industry, it provides a candid and objective glimpse of Warren’s life chronologically from childhood until the 2008 financial crash. It uses the analogy of rolling a snowball for Warren as he goes through life, readers would initially assume the snowball refers to his net worth but it is much more than money and includes his relationships and experiences he acquired through life. The book is easy to read because it feels like you are right there throughout his life at all his major life events such as when his father became Congressmen, his marriage with Susie, when his father died and many more major events.
Look into React Website
The #1 advice I always give to uni students is to code as much as you can. Try to find something you are passionate about and code it. I think that is the best way to get started in the software industry but at some point you will start to get curious and start reading the open source code you use every day and realise you don't know a whole lot. Don't feel bad it doesn't mean you are dumb, it just means there is a lot to software.
Free stuff for students
Being a student and a software developer is actually quite an attractive position for a lot of organizations so they offer you a lot of discounts and free stuff. Here is an on going list :+1:
Should You Use Serverless?
The term serverless does not mean there is no server rather there is just less server. AWS was the first provider to offer something like this with _lambda_ functions around 2015/2016. This service allowed developers to create an endpoint or api in their language of choice without a cumbersome backend framework.
Introduction to CFC projects
Thank you for choosing to help out in one of our charity projects 💜. We love and appreciate the fact that you have volunteered your time for a great cause.
Weekly Learnings 23rd of May
You can use `debugger` statement to breakpoint an application. Just open dev tools first then run the application and it will breakpoint on the `debugger` line. This is useful to inspect the state of the application.
Weekly Learnings May 17th
You can use `debugger` statement to breakpoint an application. Just open dev tools first then run the application and it will breakpoint on the `debugger` line. This is useful to inspect the state of the application.
GraphQL Hype
Facebook initially developed GraphQL for internal consumption in 2012/2013 before publicly releasing it in 2015 and subsequently moved it to a foundation hosted by the non-profit Linux Foundation. Since then it has gained a lot of developer attention and many influential companies and people have used it in production.
My software tools
Here are a list of my favourite tools I will always download on my new computer. This is aimed at frontend development. ## Summary of Tools - **Get a Macbook** - **Homebrew** - **Zsh** - **VSCode** - **Gitkraken** - **Team communication software** - **Node (Through homebrew)** - **Yarn** - **Table Plus and Sequel Pro (optional)** - **Postman**
Lessons Learnt & Looking at the future and past of CFC
The #1 advice I always give to uni students is to code as much as you can. Try to find something you are passionate about and code it. I think that is the best way to get started in the software industry but at some point you will start to get curious and start reading the open source code you use every day and realise you don't know a whole lot. Don't feel bad it doesn't mean you are dumb, it just means there is a lot to software.
How to move your website to a new hosting provider
There will always come a time when you need to move your website or more likely your database to another hosting platform. For example you find a provider that offers a better deal or service. This is generally a dreaded experience because A) You are not a dev ops expert B) One wrong move and everything blows up. C) You can't Google your way out of it.
Understanding Events in Laravel
I have grown to like the Laravel framework very much even though I am not a fan of php. The reason why I like it so much is because it takes care of a lot of things that you would normally have to try implement yourself or use an unofficial library such as authentication, form validation, sending emails, pusher notifications, caching, oauth
The Most Popular Material Frameworks
Ever since the release of material design by google websites have been adopting it for its beautiful design and it’s ability to give a native and responsive feel regardless of the device and screen width. Visit the official site here https://material.io
Setting up HTTPS on AWS
Most websites use the https protocol to serve all their traffic. This is to ensure that the data is encrypted so no unintended party can read any of the data that is being sent. This is important for privacy reasons as you wouldn't want anyone to be able to see what you are browsing on the internet and also security
Best Practices for Express Apps
Production process manager that has a built in load balancer. Allows applications to be up forever with no downtime