Monday Links: Storytelling, Leet Code and Boredom

01 Aug 2022 #mondaylinks

In case you find the Monday Links series for the first time: these are five links from past weeks that I found interesting (and worth sharing) while procastinating surfing the Web. This is not a link-building scheme, I only read and liked these articles.

The Secret Art of Storytelling in Programming by Yehonathan Sharvit

This presentation starts with the author sharing his struggle to read books as a kid. And later read code as a programmer and contracts as a consultant.

The main message from this presentation is how memory, attention, and structure spans relate to coding. The author presents three coding style principles that respect mind spans:

1. Use small functions
2. Make every line in a function have the same level of abstraction
3. Use descriptive names instead of comments

Watch full presentation

Stop Interviewing With Leet Code

Interviewing is broken. We all agree. But we don’t know how to fix it. Brain teasers, IQ tests, pair programming, algorithms? This post presents an alternative: inspect the candidate GitHub and public work, ask him to review some piece of code, add unit tests or do some refactors. That sounds like a better idea! Read full article

How to professionally say…

One of the things we learn while working for a company is office politics. Basically, how to say things and to step away from certain situations. I learned from a coworker to say “I don’t have enough information to answer that question” instead of a simple “I don’t know.” You will find more lines like that one in this post. Read full article

How to feel engaged at work: a software engineer’s guide

Let’s be honest. It’s rewarding when we see the impact of our work. But, often, all days look almost the same. Another JIRA ticket for a production issue. Another meeting that could have been an email. This article shows four ideas to spice things up. Read full article

The Toxic Grind

This article talks about success, hard work, and work-life balance. This is my favorite line: “We should glorify the journey of achieving something meaningful, not the dream of wealth and power. Glorify the skills you build along the way, not the shortcuts you take.” Read full article

Voilà! Another Monday Links. What do you do to feel engaged at your work? Have you been asked to solve LeetCode questions during interviews? Would you like to do something different in future interviews?

In the meantime, check my Getting Started with LINQ course where I cover from what LINQ is to its most recent methods and overloads introduced in .NET6. And don’t miss the previous Monday Links on Staging environments, Work and Types.