Zombie Coder Podcast – Zombie Coder

Code Philosophy: Why Worse is Better (Ep. 15)

The Zombie Coder is back for a new season! Today’s episode focuses on one of the Zombie’s key coding philosophies: Worse is Better. Learn about the history of the phrase and join the “Cult of Done” if you dare.

Key Resources for today:

Why Perfectionism and Burnout Go Hand in Hand – A lifehacker article addressing the evils of perfectionism
Worse Is Better – Jeff Atwood at Coding Horror discussing worse is better with some examples
The Cult of Done Manifesto – Read the Manifesto and consider adopting it in one or more areas
The Unix Hater’s Handbook – A PDF of the Unix Hater’s Handbook

Credits:

Audionautix – Intro music

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Podcast to return next week

While I have recorded a podcast episode for this week, after some consideration I’ve decided to bin it as I don’t want to go down any sort of political rabbit hole here. Next week we’ll return to tech form with something a bit more positive.

After Hours and Season 2 Preview (Ep 14)

In this episode I’ll talk a bit about plans for the next season of Zombie Coder, and review some of the lessons learned over the past several months. Look for more episodes to resume after the new year!

Music: https://audionautix.com

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CS Topics: Welcome to Hash World (Ep. 13)

In this episode, I conclude a series on Merkle Trees – or, the key technology and ideas behind distributed systems. I hope this episode captures your imagination to the potential applications of the distributed web.

Resources and Links:

https://www.codementor.io/blog/merkle-trees-5h9arzd3n8 – Codementor article on merkle trees. This covers most of the material I discuss in this episode.
https://ipfs.io/ – IPFS project homepage
https://odysee.com/ – Odysee Video sharing service operating off of the Hash World

Credits:

https://audionautix.com/ – Music

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Avoiding Death March Projects

What is a death march project? Recognizing Death March projects is easier than you might expect, and avoiding them means simply setting your own boundaries.

Death March [Amazon]: The “standard” book describing death march projects.
https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/changing-death-march-project-parade-6066: Paper describing death march projects
https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/13/15782200/one-device-secret-history-iphone-brian-merchant-book-excerpt: Article on the history of the iPhone
https://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html: Livejournal post that sparked substantial discussion and reforms in the video game industry
https://dzone.com/articles/scrum-is-the-new-death-march: Description of scrum death marches
“21 signs of a bad manager”: Article on signs of a bad manager
Inc.com: Importance of work-life boundaries
TheMuse.com: Article on setting work-life boundaries
Business.com: Article on setting work-life boundaries

And remember:

Don’t work for Sh*tBags!

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CS Topics: Rand and Xor Magic

In this week’s episode, we dive a bit deeper into the underlying theory behind how random numbers and the importance behind the XOR operator when creating hashes.

This episode does depend on pre-existing knowledge of basic boolean operators. If you aren’t familiar check out this page.

GNU C Sources: Look for the linear congruential method in __random_r
Sha1 Js Implementation: A well explained implementation of SHA-1 algorithm
Md5 Algorithm Wikipedia Page: There’s pseudo code to try implementing in your favorite language.
https://www.fourmilab.ch/hotbits/ – Get random numbers from Radioactive decay

Credits:

https://audionautix.com/ – Music

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Nix News: Embedded Linux Update

Today I’ll cover my major take-homes from a couple embedded Linux conferences that I (virtually) attended.

Subjects:

Let’s be positive
All about embedded linux
Be prepared: Containers are coming! (Someone please make docker-lite for embedded!)
Risc V is up and coming real soon now
Learn VSCode if you want a common IDE experience
Diversity thoughts – there’s a person behind the email
Open Source maintainers ask for our patience
Check out Virtual Conferences in 2020

Resources:

https://www.raspbian.org/ – The Raspbian Linux Distribution
https://www.yoctoproject.org/ – The Yocto Linux Project
https://www.docker.com/ – Yep, it’s coming to the embedded world. Time to learn it.
https://theia-ide.org/ – An alternative that’s compatible to VSCode
https://vscodium.com/ – VSCode without Microsoft’s proprietary brew
https://open-vsx.org/ – Alternative extension store for Theia or VSCodium

Special Thanks to:

https://audionautix.com/ – Rockin’ zombie track

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Hope for the Camel’s Second Hump

Today I offer some advice for those currently staring down the barrel of failing midterm grades for CS and Engineering students.

The Camel Doesn’t Have Two Humps – Commentary on the retraction of the oft-mentioned article on Computer Science being bi-modal.
Reforming Mathematics – A detailed paper on Mathematics pedagogy, including coverage on educational theory and peer reviewed studies.
DOJ vs Google – Washington Post story on the DOJ vs Microsoft
Edge For Linux – Edge for Linux announcement and information