Last Thursday we had our first Indie Hackers Milan meetup.
I gave a quick presentation about the meetup and how Valeria, Bignè and I decided to start this adventure, then we jumped headfirst in the discussion.
Continue reading “November Indie Hackers Milan Meetup”
PHP has come a long way since its humble beginnings as a simple scripting language and Modern PHP has several peculiar traits (see what I did there?)
But with a simple Google search along with great material about how to write Modern PHP you will find a lot of outdated blog posts or resources that should be ignored.
In this post, I’ve tried to collect a few outstanding resources that have helped me become a better PHP developer.
But first, the time-lapse.
Continue reading “A PHP time-lapse: tools and resources for Modern PHP”
Little actions, repeated in time, transform us.
I have always been very curious and since I can remember I was interested to know how to learn better.
Obviously, the first question that we have to ask ourselves when we begin a new path should be “Why should I do it?”.
We have already so little time that it would be stupid to waste it with tasks that are not worth to do (and Netflix is coming out with a lot of interesting new series!).
Why should we improve ourselves, then?
Continue reading “How to excel as a developer, designer, marketer (or anything else)”When a scientist runs an experiment, there are all sorts of results that could happen. Some results are positive and some are negative, but all of them are data points. Each result is a piece of data that can ultimately lead to an answer.
And that’s exactly how a scientist treats failure: as another data point.
I really liked the introduction from the book Exercises for Programmers, by Brian P. Hogan:
Practice makes permanent
.
A concert pianist practices many hours a day, learning music, practicing drills, and honing her skills. She practices the same piece of music over and over, learning every little detail to get it just right. Because when she performs, she wants to deliver a performance she is proud of for the people who spent their time and money to hear it.A pro football player spends hours in the gym lifting, running, jumping, and doing drills over and over until he masters them. And then he practices the sport. He’ll study plays and watch old game videos. And, of course, he’ll play scrimmage and exhibition games to make sure he’s ready to perform during the real contest.
A practitioner of karate spends a lifetime doing kata, a series of movements that imitate a fight or battle sequence, learning how to breathe and flex the right muscles at the right time. She may do the same series of movements thousands of times, getting better and better with each repetition.
The best software developers I’ve ever met approach their craft the same way. They don’t go to work every day and practice on the employer’s dime. They invest personal time in learning new languages and perfecting techniques in others. Of course, they learn new things on the job, but because they’re getting paid, there’s an expectation that they are there to perform, not practice.
Brian P. Hogan
Too often software developers complains that their employer should be held responsible for their formation.
That’s so far from the truth! Your employer is paying you to perform, not to learn.
Of course, a learning-friendly environment is something desirable, but that not a strict requirement to continue learning and improve on your craft.
When I was younger, I usually went hiking with my dad.
He had one of those hiking guides that lists all the walks in a certain region; I still remember the name: “Il Cammina Campania. Guida WWF”.
I have wonderful memories of those walks: the early wake-up, me sleeping in the car, the 4+ hours of walking, collecting dead branches to create our very walking sticks…
Since then, though, I didn’t hike so much. Just some random walks in nearby parks, or something like that.
So when I and Valeria were planning our holidays I asked her if she’d like spending a week walking around the mountains. And she said yes!
It was great!
I feel so refreshed and full of energy, that I’m asking myself how I’ve survived without this for all of these years.
We all have been there. That feeling of being pushed by something on our path. The idea that something else could be right for us.
If you find yourself in the middle of a career that doesn’t fit you, do yourself a favor, set aside a few hours, and read this article:
How to Pick a Career (That Actually Fits You)
You will thank me later.
Last year I decided that I wanted to read more. So I set myself a goal to read 53 books in one year. I failed (That’s a recurring theme).
During the challenge, that started the 31st of October 2016, I managed to read ~25 books. Here they are:
So I’ve read less than half my goal but, jokes aside, I don’t consider it a failure. I’ve read more in 2017 than in the previous two years!
Social media has taken a toll on everyone. I discovered myself more than I like to admit browsing endlessly streams of jokes, links, articles (I’ll just save it and read it later…yeah sure), tweets, photos and so on. But I also discovered that I could just stop. I trained myself to stop being a social media zombie and read instead.
Everyone imagines that to read you have to be sitting on your favorite couch, beside a fireplace, drinking hot chocolate while outside the snow falls covering the ground. How romantic. Yes, there are situations like this and they happen in the movies. We live in the harsh reality, we should be guerrilla readers.
The trick is: read everywhere, even if a single page or paragraph. In a queue? Read. Waiting for the doctor? Read. Stuck in traffic? Listen to an audiobook. To the dentist? Run! 😀
My friends know that I swear by Safari Books Online: the thing that I like the most is that it enables me to access and download all the books on my smartphone, so that I don’t need to bring with me yet another device (I’m looking at you, Kindle. It was nice, but you know that it never worked between us)
So have I stopped? Of course not. But only stupids don’t learn from their mistakes.
So for this year I’ve decided to start from January to December (so that I can track my results in Goodreads better). And since I don’t think that I’ll be able to read a book a week, I’ve decreased the target to 40 books. That’s a bit more than last year.
So, are you up to a challenge? Connect with me on Goodreads
This is one of the best books I’ve ever read.
Even if I’m not a designer by trade, I’ve been always curious about the processes behind it. And this book helped me understand a lot about how things are designed and how the design is dependent on the interaction with people using an object.
I liked the first and the last chapters the most: the first because it showed common examples of good and bad design, the latter because it explained how to apply all the concepts from the book in a real context.
Anyway, if you’re involved in product making at any level, you should definitely read this book, even if you skip some paragraphs in the middle chapters.
We clearly need to find ways of encouraging countries to start working together a little bit better. And why won't they do that? Why is it that our leaders still persist in looking inwards?
