Matt

  • Getting my Git On

    For the past week I have been trying to be more active on GitHub.  I’m writing code every single day in an effort to boost my presence and learn a few new things. GitHub has created a social network around writing software which serves as a productive (and necessary) tool and also as a portfolio…

  • 5 Reasons You Should be Free Coding

    Free coding is the practice of writing code quickly off the top of your head.  It should be done as part of a daily ritual for at least 10 uninterrupted minutes.  The goal isn’t necessarily to produce something useful or even complete.  You should strive to open the taps of originating thoughts in your head…

  • Building Things Quickly

    Developer productivity is a  perpetual area of improvement. Finding better tools, new abstractions, learning shortcut keys and using modern project planning is a way to continually get better at your job.  The goal of doing all that is to produce better software faster. Choosing the right tool for the job plays a big part. Lets…

  • Slot Machines

    For the last couple of evenings I have been learning about slot machines and how they work.  There is actually quite a bit more to them than first meets the eye. I have a side project going to build a slot machine server application that can simulate many kinds of slot machine games.  Given the…

  • Building Social Services

    Technology is getting more and more personal. As it does such it becomes easier to make things social in a real way. Bringing a social experience to your application is more than just slapping a like button somewhere. Social is about making people aware that when they use your application they are entering a social…

  • 1 Thing Programmers Should Do More Often

    This past week I found myself with a task of creating pages on this site for all the Mobile Apps that have been developed by Halotis Inc. At the same time I wanted to get the marketing material organized for all of those apps in a consistent directory structure. Which lead me to something I…

  • Life to Old Projects

    Maintenance.  UGH! We live in a world where software is part of an every evolving ecosystem of other software.  Everything is constantly changing and everything you do needs to keep up or risk falling into disrepair and creating technical debt. The maintenance window is a chance to breath fresh life into an otherwise languishing project.…

  • White Shoe Syndrome

    You know what you need to do to launch your business, you have the skills, you have the idea, and yet progress is slow. Maybe you have White Shoe Syndrome. The problem with white shoes is that they are always dirty and need to be cleaned. When it is time to sit down at your…

  • Adjusting to Fewer Blogs

    A couple weeks ago I drastically downsized my list of subscribed blogs.  Going from skimming 200+ blog posts down to fewer than 10 per day.  It has actually made quite a difference.  The time saved was used to read more books, which I’m happy to say has worked out. Being disconnected from the news has…

  • Long Vacation

    For the last 2 1/2 weeks I have been on a long vacation back home to Newfoundland.  This time we seriously lucked out on the weather, getting in two weeks of 25+ degree sunny days. We bookended the trip starting with the Tele 10 at the start and the Regatta to finish things off with…