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Resolutions for programmers (2012)

matt.might.net

31–40 of 228 posts

Re: Resolutions for programmers (2012)

#31

#3 Embrace the Uncomfortable - one thing I did a few years ago that might fall into this category (as an American) is start using the 24h clock. It makes working w/ remotes a lot easier because you become good at doing the +12 math and knowing which hour it represents. :)

That's a good first step, now switch it to UTC.

Re: Resolutions for programmers (2012)

#32

#3 Embrace the Uncomfortable - one thing I did a few years ago that might fall into this category (as an American) is start using the 24h clock. It makes working w/ remotes a lot easier because you become good at doing the +12 math and knowing which hour it represents. :)

How wonderful would the world be if we had a base 10 clock instead of 24?

Let's make a day be 86400 seconds (already a SI standard), and then you can divide that into tenths, hundreds or whatever. One thousand of a day is 84.4 seconds, which is close to a minute (which is (/ 60 (/ 24 one-day))).

We have metric for measurements in space, but something as simple for day-to-day time measurement would be nice.

Re: Resolutions for programmers (2012)

#34
post #26
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Save by not investing in standing desk.

Build a standing desk.. Two resolutions - a hobby (learn carpentry) and health benefits!

The health benefits are at best questionable.[0] [1] [2] [3]

[0] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/standing-desk-sitting-da...

[1] http://health.usnews.com/health-news/health-wellness/article...

[2] https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/2014/1...

[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/stand...

Re: Resolutions for programmers (2012)

#37
post #24
post #13

"Switch to Dvorak" .. ha :(

I think this one is a waste of time unless you seek a mental challenge. In my experience, it's just not worth getting confused on QUERTY keyboards all the time, and the 5% speedup or so is really not worth it. It's definitely more a cargo cult/challenge than a useful skill.

Is it possible to switch back and forth easily, or is it one of those things where the constant context switching is more trouble than it's worth? I know very little about Dvorak, is it a software setting in the OS (e.g. you can relatively easily switch a single keyboard back and forth) or a hardware/firmware setting in the keyboard itself?

Re: Resolutions for programmers (2012)

#38
post #27
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this one is a waste of time unless you seek a mental challenge. In my experience, it's just not worth getting confused on QUERTY keyboards all the time, and the 5% speedup or so is really not worth it. It's definitely more a cargo cult/challenge than a useful skill.

I don't think the speedup is worth it, but that wasn't why I became interested in the first place. I'm way more interested in the benefits of a more ergonomic layout for my wrists and fingers. I haven't studied the science of that very carefully, but I'm fluent with both Dvorak and Qwerty and the subjective comfort I feel when typing English with Dvorak is very much worth the effort of learning it, for me. It ticks m…

I'd be interested in knowing what resource(s) you used to learn Dvorak, and how easy it is for you to switch back and forth (if you do it often/daily).

Re: Resolutions for programmers (2012)

#39
Very interesting article! I like the fact that you mentioned Prolog as one of the less mainstream languages to learn. During my time at uni I found that both Haskell and Prolog really changed the way I approached different problems and gave me a high level perspective to problem solving. Some interesting resources to learn Prolog:

# http://www.swi-prolog.org/

# http://people.cs.kuleuven.be/~bart.demoen/PrologProgrammingC...

# http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~pjh/prolog_module/sem242.html

# http://www.learnprolognow.org/

I'm getting an itch now, I think I'll give Prolog a second go this new year.

Re: Resolutions for programmers (2012)

#40
post #21

> Switch from emacs to vim or vice versa. Switch to emacs + evil, or alternatively to Spacemacs: https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs

I did this a few years ago, and as a result, I'm pretty confident I'm in the minority of people who 'like' both. I have not yet declared a side in the holy war of emacs vs. vi. They're both great.
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