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Things that I saw in person In one of the coffee shops where I worked, there was an employee who had been with the company for many years. She mastered all the opening and closing procedures of the store, knew how to prepare all the drinks and snacks on the menu, and had also worked in other franchised stores of the company. In this coffee shop, we worked in three shifts: opening, intermediate and closing. The coffee shop was in a shopping mall, opening before the stores and closing at 11 PM during the week and midnight on weekends. This employee had a son who was about 7 or 8 years old, and she was the only one responsible for him because the father had disappeared or something like that. She had a sister who, when necessary, would pick up the boy from school and take him home until she got off work. One day, she told me that her son’s teacher was very concerned because he was always tired in class, sleepy, and inattentive. The teacher asked her to pay attention to his sleep schedule. The problem was that the boy could only sleep when his mother got home. He stayed awake waiting to do his homework and spend some time with her. Although she had asked him not to wait for her, he said he needed help with his homework and couldn’t sleep until she arrived. She was very sad because she didn’t know what to do, especially since the following week she would have to work the night shift again. So, I suggested that we talk to the bosses, who were responsible for making the schedules, and proposed swapping shifts with her so that she would always have the morning shift and I the night shift. I lived just three minutes from the mall, and my wife also worked late, so it wouldn’t be a problem for me. In fact, I would be happy to help. We talked to the bosses, explained the situation, and requested the shift change. They said that, unfortunately, they couldn’t change it because the shifts had to be rotating to be “fair” to everyone. In another restaurant where I worked for about six months, we had three bosses who took turns in command. Each was very, very different from the other, and I remember one day in particular when one of the more irritable bosses was in charge of the store. Clearly, he wasn’t having a good day. From what I understood of the situation, the pasta machine had jammed, and according to him, it was because one of the cooks hadn’t put enough milk in the dough. He simply threw a box of milk in her face. I clearly remember seeing that woman, black and strong, all soaked in milk, with tears in her eyes. She didn’t quit because she couldn’t; she had a child to raise. There was another case where the restaurant owner was quite sadistic with the employees. When someone resigned and gave the one-month notice, he made that person’s life a living hell, assigning the worst tasks, at the worst times, and humiliating them in front of others in the most cruel way possible. And of course, there was that other incident where a boss pushed me because I was arranging the refrigerator with my shirt sleeves rolled up. He had previously warned me that I shouldn’t leave my tattoos visible to customers, even though the restaurant was still closed and there were no customers. Things that I saw online I’ve seen many reports on Medium, LinkedIn, and YouTube from people working in the tech sector, mainly, talking openly about how they feel purposeless in their remote, well-paid jobs with flexible hours, good work-life balance, company stock options, annual bonuses, and even office toys… Not to mention the free coffee and snacks. Just a small parenthesis: the coffee in the coffee shops where I worked wasn’t free for employees. These people have talked about how they want to work in a place that gives them more purpose in life, such as in a supermarket as shelf stockers. They really believe that these jobs are stress-free, but guess what: work is not stress-free. Let’s take the example of someone who quits everything to work in a supermarket. This was the case that recently appeared on my timeline. Work in the market is also divided and rotating shifts, to be “fair” to everyone. This means you won’t have time to organize yourself to take a course, practice a sport, or even pick up or drop off your kids at school at the same time, because you won’t have a fixed routine. Your weekly organization will need to be done according to the rotation of shifts, which means you can forget about medium-term commitments. Additionally, you rarely earn more than the minimum wage, have to deal with cleaning the supermarket (yes, it’s not just the cleaning team that cleans, everyone cleans), and you have to control what leaves the stock first and the order of expiration dates on the shelves. And all this while customers are on top of you, wanting to grab the items you just placed, often literally over your head, as if you didn’t exist, as if you were just an obstacle to the product. I find it very difficult to understand how this job, as dignified and necessary as it is, can bring purpose to someone who previously had all the freedom, money, and benefits I mentioned before. The intersection I believe people have this out-of-touch thinking because, for the most part, they have never worked in other areas. They don’t know that when the restaurant closes, the employees have to stay there for at least another hour cleaning and restocking everything for the next day. I currently work at a tech company as a software engineer, and most of my colleagues have never had another job besides IT. They often complain that they don’t have enough freedom, even though we don’t experience micromanagement, and we have paid days off and many other perks. Many believe they would be happier doing something “simpler”. And I think that’s where the problem lies: work should not be your main source of happiness. It’s not work that brings purpose to life. Work is there to support you, so that you can provide what you and your family need to live, so that you can make choices. Money may not bring happiness, but the lack of it to the point of not being able to put food on the table brings a lot of unhappiness, that I can guarantee. My thoughts I really like what the character Tina from the series The Bear says in episode 6 of the third season: “ I’ll clean a dish. I’ll wash a floor. I’ll sell some bullshit. I gotta cover this ass, right? Just look, I don’t need to be inspired. I don’t need to be impassioned. I don’t need to make magic. I don’t need to save the world, you know? Just - I just want to feed my kid, you know? ” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wK4GVfSqeQ&embedable=true This doesn’t mean we should become a bunch of conformists who hate work. Quite the opposite! Most people will need to work for the rest of their lives, so if you’re unhappy and can make a change, do it (“unfortunately, most people can’t”)! I was miserable working in restaurants and I could change. I can guarantee it was the best decision of my life. Today, I have freedom, a job I enjoy doing, and the peace of knowing that I can provide everything my family needs. I didn’t change because I needed more purpose, I changed because I needed better living conditions. People with great positions, salaries, and benefits want to abandon their fields to do something with more meaning, with purpose, with impact on the world, maybe… Without realizing that the only purpose of work is to enrich the boss. In case it wasn’t clear, the purpose of work is to generate wealth for the company, not to create a life of happiness for you. Happiness and purpose change from person to person. For my former co-workers, the purpose was to take care of their children. For others, it may be helping their parents, spending more time with friends, traveling, playing an instrument, or sleeping 8 hours a night in a warm bed. Work wasn’t THE PURPOSE; it was a means to get there. So, don’t romanticize other people’s professions so much, and try to see your work with a bit more optimism. As NBA player Giannis Antetokounmpo responded to a reporter: “There’s no failure in sports. There are good days, bad days, some days you are able to be successful, some days you are not, some days it is your turn, some days it’s not. That’s what sports is about. You don’t always win.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mXGSjnUvSM&embedable=true And you can trust me when I say that this applies to far more than just sports. If you enjoy my content and want to support it, you can share and subscribe or you can buy me a coffee! Things that I saw in person In one of the coffee shops where I worked, there was an employee who had been with the company for many years. She mastered all the opening and closing procedures of the store, knew how to prepare all the drinks and snacks on the menu, and had also worked in other franchised stores of the company. In this coffee shop, we worked in three shifts: opening, intermediate and closing. The coffee shop was in a shopping mall, opening before the stores and closing at 11 PM during the week and midnight on weekends. This employee had a son who was about 7 or 8 years old, and she was the only one responsible for him because the father had disappeared or something like that. She had a sister who, when necessary, would pick up the boy from school and take him home until she got off work. One day, she told me that her son’s teacher was very concerned because he was always tired in class, sleepy, and inattentive. The teacher asked her to pay attention to his sleep schedule. The problem was that the boy could only sleep when his mother got home. He stayed awake waiting to do his homework and spend some time with her. Although she had asked him not to wait for her, he said he needed help with his homework and couldn’t sleep until she arrived. She was very sad because she didn’t know what to do, especially since the following week she would have to work the night shift again. So, I suggested that we talk to the bosses, who were responsible for making the schedules, and proposed swapping shifts with her so that she would always have the morning shift and I the night shift. I lived just three minutes from the mall, and my wife also worked late, so it wouldn’t be a problem for me. In fact, I would be happy to help. We talked to the bosses, explained the situation, and requested the shift change. They said that, unfortunately, they couldn’t change it because the shifts had to be rotating to be “fair” to everyone. In another restaurant where I worked for about six months, we had three bosses who took turns in command. Each was very, very different from the other, and I remember one day in particular when one of the more irritable bosses was in charge of the store. Clearly, he wasn’t having a good day. From what I understood of the situation, the pasta machine had jammed, and according to him, it was because one of the cooks hadn’t put enough milk in the dough. He simply threw a box of milk in her face. I clearly remember seeing that woman, black and strong, all soaked in milk, with tears in her eyes. She didn’t quit because she couldn’t; she had a child to raise. There was another case where the restaurant owner was quite sadistic with the employees. When someone resigned and gave the one-month notice, he made that person’s life a living hell, assigning the worst tasks, at the worst times, and humiliating them in front of others in the most cruel way possible. And of course, there was that other incident where a boss pushed me because I was arranging the refrigerator with my shirt sleeves rolled up. He had previously warned me that I shouldn’t leave my tattoos visible to customers, even though the restaurant was still closed and there were no customers. Things that I saw online I’ve seen many reports on Medium, LinkedIn , and YouTube from people working in the tech sector, mainly, talking openly about how they feel purposeless in their remote, well-paid jobs with flexible hours, good work-life balance, company stock options, annual bonuses, and even office toys… Not to mention the free coffee and snacks. Just a small parenthesis: the coffee in the coffee shops where I worked wasn’t free for employees. LinkedIn YouTube These people have talked about how they want to work in a place that gives them more purpose in life, such as in a supermarket as shelf stockers. They really believe that these jobs are stress-free, but guess what: work is not stress-free. Let’s take the example of someone who quits everything to work in a supermarket. This was the case that recently appeared on my timeline. Work in the market is also divided and rotating shifts, to be “fair” to everyone. This means you won’t have time to organize yourself to take a course, practice a sport, or even pick up or drop off your kids at school at the same time, because you won’t have a fixed routine. Your weekly organization will need to be done according to the rotation of shifts, which means you can forget about medium-term commitments. Additionally, you rarely earn more than the minimum wage, have to deal with cleaning the supermarket (yes, it’s not just the cleaning team that cleans, everyone cleans), and you have to control what leaves the stock first and the order of expiration dates on the shelves. And all this while customers are on top of you, wanting to grab the items you just placed, often literally over your head, as if you didn’t exist, as if you were just an obstacle to the product. I find it very difficult to understand how this job, as dignified and necessary as it is, can bring purpose to someone who previously had all the freedom, money, and benefits I mentioned before. The intersection I believe people have this out-of-touch thinking because, for the most part, they have never worked in other areas. They don’t know that when the restaurant closes, the employees have to stay there for at least another hour cleaning and restocking everything for the next day. I currently work at a tech company as a software engineer, and most of my colleagues have never had another job besides IT. They often complain that they don’t have enough freedom, even though we don’t experience micromanagement, and we have paid days off and many other perks. Many believe they would be happier doing something “simpler”. And I think that’s where the problem lies: work should not be your main source of happiness. It’s not work that brings purpose to life. Work is there to support you, so that you can provide what you and your family need to live, so that you can make choices. Money may not bring happiness, but the lack of it to the point of not being able to put food on the table brings a lot of unhappiness, that I can guarantee. My thoughts I really like what the character Tina from the series The Bear says in episode 6 of the third season: “ I’ll clean a dish. I’ll wash a floor. I’ll sell some bullshit. I gotta cover this ass, right? Just look, I don’t need to be inspired. I don’t need to be impassioned. I don’t need to make magic. I don’t need to save the world, you know? Just - I just want to feed my kid, you know? ” The Bear https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wK4GVfSqeQ&embedable=true https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wK4GVfSqeQ&embedable=true This doesn’t mean we should become a bunch of conformists who hate work. Quite the opposite! Most people will need to work for the rest of their lives, so if you’re unhappy and can make a change, do it (“unfortunately, most people can’t”)! I was miserable working in restaurants and I could change. I can guarantee it was the best decision of my life. Today, I have freedom, a job I enjoy doing, and the peace of knowing that I can provide everything my family needs. I didn’t change because I needed more purpose, I changed because I needed better living conditions. People with great positions, salaries, and benefits want to abandon their fields to do something with more meaning, with purpose, with impact on the world, maybe… Without realizing that the only purpose of work is to enrich the boss. In case it wasn’t clear, the purpose of work is to generate wealth for the company, not to create a life of happiness for you. Happiness and purpose change from person to person. For my former co-workers, the purpose was to take care of their children. For others, it may be helping their parents, spending more time with friends, traveling, playing an instrument, or sleeping 8 hours a night in a warm bed. Work wasn’t THE PURPOSE; it was a means to get there. So, don’t romanticize other people’s professions so much, and try to see your work with a bit more optimism. As NBA player Giannis Antetokounmpo responded to a reporter: “There’s no failure in sports. There are good days, bad days, some days you are able to be successful, some days you are not, some days it is your turn, some days it’s not. That’s what sports is about. You don’t always win.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mXGSjnUvSM&embedable=true https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mXGSjnUvSM&embedable=true And you can trust me when I say that this applies to far more than just sports. If you enjoy my content and want to support it, you can share and subscribe or you can buy me a coffee! If you enjoy my content and want to support it, you can share and subscribe or you can buy me a coffee ! buy me a coffee buy me a coffee

The Pursuit of Purpose: Why Are So Many People Quitting Their Jobs?

In on cognitive distortions, I wrote about the 5 cognitive distortions that impact your decision-making by impairing your ability to think clearly. part 1 In this article, I will cover 5 cognitive distortions that impact communication: Heaven’s reward fallacy Curse of knowledge Fundamental attribution error Fallacy of change Bikeshedding Let’s get started. Heaven’s reward fallacy We all expect to be praised for our hard work and effort. We all want to be appreciated, noticed, and rewarded. But a large part of the work we do often goes unnoticed. Always doing good to others does not always come around. Working hard, sacrificing, and exhausting ourselves with endless work does not make success more likely. Seeking external rewards and external approval only leads to disappointment with feelings of anger, frustration, and resentment because reality often does not align with our expectations. Those under the influence of heaven’s reward fallacy have a hard time saying no. They think that if they keep doing good to others, others will do good to them or if they are always helpful, others will also help them out when they need it. But the world isn’t fair. Constantly giving to others does not guarantee a return. Example of Heaven’s reward fallacy cognitive distortion Let’s say you’re leading a big project. You consider this project as your chance to show your skills, prove your worth and get to the next step on the career ladder. So, you work extra hard, compromising on your family time, working even weekends and late nights to ensure nothing gets in the way of its success. But just a few weeks before the final delivery, the company decides to pull off the plug on this project. Restructuring within the organization leads to a change in the company strategy and your project, which was once considered highly valuable, is no longer useful. The thinking mistake — I did what I was asked to do, it’s not my fault that the company changed its strategy — that you must be rewarded for all the hard work and sacrifice you’ve made thus far will only lead to feelings of anger, disappointment, and bitterness when the rewards don’t come. How to tackle it To avoid the effect of this cognitive distortion, don’t think of your effort in terms of the specific outcomes you want to achieve. Rather, frame it in terms of the progress you’re making, what you’re learning, and how you’re improving. By seeking internal validation as opposed to the external measure of your worth and redefining your rewards from performance to learning, you can align your actions with your principles and values, and direct your energy towards getting better as opposed to seeking a specific job title, reward, or recognition. In short, detach inputs from outputs. Curse of knowledge The curse of knowledge is a cognitive bias in which people who are experts in their specific fields or those knowledgeable in certain areas make the flawed assumption that others have the same background and knowledge on the topics as they do. Being cursed with knowledge makes sharing it with others ineffective — most people either don’t get it or the information does not stick. This happens because knowing something makes it harder to imagine that others are not at their level and they still have a lot of catching up to do. Not knowing others' state of mind creates a disconnect between what they convey and what others understand. Those under the influence of the curse of knowledge use abstract language, switch between topics without establishing a clear connection or use phrases and jargon that only people with deep knowledge of the topic understand. Lots of us have expertise in particular areas. Becoming an expert in something means that we become more and more fascinated by nuance and complexity. That’s when the curse of knowledge kicks in, and we start to forget what it’s like not to know what we know. – Chip and Dan Heath Example of the curse of knowledge cognitive distortion Let’s say you are a senior engineer tasked with the responsibility to mentor a junior engineer who just joined your team. Under the curse of knowledge, you may skip giving the context, explaining the terminology, or how certain things are done in the team. Being an expert at your thing and having spent so much time doing it well makes you forget that you were not an expert when you first started. As the junior engineer acts clueless about what you just said or how to do a certain thing, their inability to keep up with your plan adds to your frustration. How to tackle it To avoid the effect of this cognitive distortion, use the Feynman technique — communicate as if you’re speaking to a 5-year old. Focus on the basic concepts and their relationships, stay away from complicated vocabulary and jargon, and use easily accessible words and phrases. In short, if you’re an expert in a particular area or a leader who wishes to communicate effectively, remember the gap between what you now know and what you knew before and use simple language to communicate your ideas and strategies. Fundamental attribution error Fundamental attribution error or attribution bias is a cognitive distortion in which we pass judgments or stamp people as “this is who they are” without analyzing the situational factors that contribute to their behavior. The less we know about someone, the easier it’s for us to label them, attribute their behavior to their character, and then stick with those assumptions without taking into account the limitations and constraints within which they might be operating. When a coworker declines your meeting invite, do you think they’re rude? When a colleague refuses to help out, do you call them arrogant? Judging character this way is a flawed line of thinking. Using limited or incomplete information without considering alternative perspectives or other factors that might have contributed to their behavior can break down communication, impact collaboration, and even cost someone their job. The mistake we make in thinking of character as something unified and all-encompassing is very similar to a kind of blind spot in the way we process information. Psychologists call this tendency the Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE), which is a fancy way of saying that when it comes to interpreting other people’s behavior, human beings invariably make the mistake of overestimating the importance of fundamental character traits and underestimating the importance of situation and context — Malcolm Gladwell Fundamental attribution error occurs because our brain runs on autopilot and it chooses personal attribution, which is easy and automatic over situational attribution, which is complex and deliberate. Without engaging in deliberate thinking, we fall for shortcuts. When we tag people as difficult, incompetent, lazy, careless, or stupid, we don’t see anything wrong with our judgment because we believe in our version of reality. Example of fundamental attribution error cognitive distortion Let’s say you’re an executive for an online education company. You have a new team member, Rhea, joining today to head your new business initiative. In an early morning meeting with Rhea and other executives, you notice that Rhea is constantly distracted. She appears lost and keeps checking her phone instead of trying to engage with others. Rhea’s mom is hospitalized. She came to the office since it was her first day at the job, but is now worried and waiting to hear back from her husband who’s at the hospital looking after her mom. Without speaking to Rhea and understanding why she’s distracted, you may declare her as unreliable, arrogant, or someone who’s just not suited for the role. How to tackle it You can’t completely eliminate the fundamental attribution error because it originates out of your brain's necessity to apply shortcuts which are often necessary and helpful — deliberate thinking in all your interactions is simply not possible because it’s too slow. But, you can learn to avoid fundamental attribution error when the stakes are high by asking these questions: Why does this person behave this way? Under what circumstances can I see myself or others behave in a similar manner? What situational factors could have contributed to it? Slow down and pause to find evidence that can point you in a different direction than your default setting. In short, the map is not the territory. There’s always more to the story than you think. Fallacy of change This cognitive distortion is accompanied by the belief that our success and happiness depend on those around us and that changing them is the only way to get what we want. I can be happy in my job only if my boss stops micromanaging me. Or My work can be so much more meaningful only if my teammates stop disagreeing with me and start listening to what I have to say. Expecting others to change is a fallacy—pressuring others, manipulating them, or encouraging them to change does not guarantee happiness because true happiness is not external, it comes from within. Thinking others are the source of your problems and expecting everyone else around you to change except you makes you focus on other people’s behaviors and actions — things you can’t control — as opposed to your own behaviors and actions — things within your control. This is different from showing disappointment in someone’s behavior or pointing out their mistakes — you’re not interested in their improvement for their own sake, but out of the desire to get them to do what you want. Trying to control others creates conflict — they may feel attacked or pushed around which further increases the conflict and makes them more resistant to change. Example of the fallacy of change cognitive distortion You may believe that your team does not appreciate your ideas and reject them without hearing them fully. This makes you resent them. You start withholding and stop sharing your ideas with the belief that there’s no point in sharing unless your team changes their attitude and starts listening to what you have to say. Resenting them or expecting them to agree with you is not going to happen. Instead, shift your focus from “how can I make myself heard?” to “how can I contribute value?” Identify what must change about how you convey ideas. Is there a gap in your understanding of what the team needs? Speak to them about what they dislike about your ideas and how you can improve. How to tackle it Instead of demanding others to change by assuming that your misery is their fault or your needs can’t be met unless others behave the way you expect them to, take responsibility for your own actions and decisions — things you did or did not do. Expecting others to change is futile, the only person you can change is YOU. There’s nothing wrong with a person’s temperament. But there could be a lot wrong with their behaviors, attitudes, and choices. They’ve been making those choices for a long time, so it’s not something we can easily change. We can’t guarantee that they’ll make good choices, but we can choose how we respond to those choices — Mike Bechtle In short, direct your energy towards your own behaviors and actions, and don’t waste it trying to change others. Bikeshedding Bikeshedding cognitive distortion, also known as Parkinson’s law of triviality shows up when we devote a disproportionate amount of our time to menial and trivial matters while leaving important matters unattended. We have all been part of meetings where minor or unimportant issues take up the majority of time leaving less time for more complex issues or where the discussion gets sidetracked to trivial matters leaving complicated problems to receive little attention. This happens because discussing a simple issue feels comfortable — it’s easier to understand, within our circle of competence, requires fewer cognitive resources, and gives us an opportunity to share our opinion with others. Complex issues, on the other hand, need more work — unknowns, uncertainty, and the nature of a problem demand careful analysis you may not fully understand the complexity of or find it risky to voice your opinion. Bikeshedding also affects you personally when you keep putting off complex tasks while ticking off easier ones on your to-do list. Prioritizing trivial work over more important ones only gives you an illusion of productivity — tasks that seem easier take less time to complete making you believe that you are being productive, but putting off work that’s more valuable in the long run while allocating more time to menial tasks is a waste of your time. Example of bikeshedding cognitive distortion Let’s say you’re a senior engineer in a software company tasked with the design of a new product. The task is complex and involves many unknowns. Instead of spending the majority of your time with those complex elements (what are the failure points, what’s acceptable fault tolerance, tech stack to use), you spend more time thinking about the name of the database tables, deciding API endpoints, refactoring existing code or taking on other easy tasks. Bikeshedding is in effect if you keep doing easy work at the cost of putting off important and complex tasks which are difficult to deal with but add more value to the project. How to tackle it To avoid bikeshedding in a group setting, set a clear purpose for all meetings with a single agenda item and ask the group to point out when the discussion goes off track. In The Art of Gathering, Priya Parker says that “specificity” is a crucial ingredient for a successful discussion. In other words, every meeting needs to have a focused and clear purpose. Thinking about the purpose of the meeting also helps you decide who to invite — better keep those without relevant knowledge and experience off the list. Personally, for your own work, being aware of bikeshedding is a starting point to counter its effect — stop prioritizing trivial matters over important work. In short, difficult problems may take longer to solve, but are also more effective — they are the ones that move you forward by helping you get over your fears, embrace challenges, and master new skills. Summary Cognitive distortions limit your ability to communicate effectively. Under the effect of Heaven’s reward fallacy, you expect to be rewarded for all your hard work, effort, and sacrifice — showing disappointment, frustration, resentment, and dissatisfaction when those rewards do not materialize. The curse of knowledge makes it harder to realize that others don’t share your level of knowledge and expertise. You communicate in a manner that others find very difficult to understand. Fundamental attribution error makes you tie other people’s behavior and actions to their character without taking situational and other factors into account. The fallacy of change keeps you focused on improving others as opposed to looking internally at your own behaviors and actions. Bikeshedding makes you spend more time attending to trivial matters as opposed to prioritizing complex problems. Previously published . here

The 5 Cognitive Distortions You Need to Overcome to Communicate Effectively 

Things to Learn as a Novice Programmer to Find a Good Job Quickly

When you start learning how to code your main focus is writing code that works correctly for the problem you are solving. Yes, code needs to work correctly and that is a good place to start learning. However, in a real work environment, you also want to ensure you write clean code. Clean code is readable, extensible, changeable, and maintainable. These are all important qualities for a codebase to have. In many professional settings, you are not writing code in complete isolation. There are other people you work with on a team. Your teammates need to be able to easily understand the code you write. They need to understand what it does, how it works, and why it was written that way. It may also be your future self coming back to code you wrote in the past and you will also need to easily understand your code. Code is read more than it is written. To write code we are constantly reading it. So even if readable code is harder to write we should invest time to do it instead of writing easy unreadable code. Writing clean code is an important skill for any professional developer. In this article, we are going to learn about the importance of in writing clean code. Naming Naming is a crucial and daily task for developers in any programming language. It can either make code very hard to understand or if done well, easy to understand. Names are all over the software developers write. When coding, you should consider naming variables, functions, arguments, classes, packages, source files, and directories that contain those source files, etc. Below are some popular quotes on naming in programming. “There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things.” - Phil Karlton “Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand” — Martin fowler Names are the smallest building block of code. Names are the basic building block of clean code. There are some recommended rules for good naming in code. Let us discuss these rules for the rest of this article. Use intention revealing names The names you use in your code must be clear and understandable. Choose descriptive and unambiguous names. You should focus on the . Aim to write code that other people would expect and try not to surprise them with some clever complexities. principle of least surprise The name of a variable, function, or class, should answer all the big questions. It should tell you why it exists, what it does, and how it is used. If a name requires a comment, then the name is not intention revealing. Below is an example of code that is not intention revealing because it requires a description comment. Just below it, you'll find a cleaner version with better naming that does not require a description comment. let rf = 5000 //the rental fee paid by the tenant use the cleaner version below let rentalFee = 5000 Classes and objects should have noun or noun phrase names Classes and objects describe things so their names in code should be a noun or noun phrase. Names such as User, Student, Account, and ErrorLogger are good names for classes and objects. Avoid words like Manager, Processor, Data, or Info in the name of a class. A class name should not be a verb. Methods/Functions should have verb or verb phrase names Methods/Functions perform an action in the code so their names should be a verb or verb phrase. Names such as , , or are good names for methods/functions. By design, a function should have only one responsibility. If the name is anything other than a verb, then either you are naming it wrong or there are some problems in the architecture. deleteApplication createUser save Make meaningful distinctions You should try to use the same word for the same purpose across the codebase. Avoid using different but similar words to define the same concepts. For example, the three method/function calls below could mean the same thing. FetchResult() vs GetResult() vs RetrieveResult() Don’t use , and in the same project for the same responsibility. fetch get retrieve Use pronounceable and searchable names When naming things in your code use words that can be pronounced rather than using non-pronounceable words. Below is an example of a variable name that is not easily pronounceable and a cleaner version with a more pronounceable name. Date modymdhms; use the cleaner version below Date modificationTimestamp; Replace magic numbers with named constants When you are using some constant values define them using searchable words. It makes them more understandable to other developers. Instead of writing code like this: let totalLoanDays = gracePeriod + 7; create a named constant and use it like this: const NUMBER_OF_DAYS_IN_WEEK = 7; let totalLoanDays = gracePeriod + NUMBER_OF_DAYS_IN_WEEK; Don’t append type information When you name your variables avoid appending type information to them. It should be clear from the name of the variable what data it stores and developers can infer the type from there. There is no need to mention the data type in the name. Instead of writing code like this: let firstNameString; let lastNameString; Use the cleaner version below: let firstName; let lastName; Don’t Be Offensive / Don’t Be A Comedian Remain professional in how you name things in your code. Do not be offensive or try to be a comedian by giving a variable a funny name. Remember, you are writing production code that other software developers will need to understand easily in the future. Your naming conventions should be generic and should not include any cultural slang. Avoid writing code like this: function killThemAll(); use the cleaner and professional version below function deleteAllUsers(); Closing thoughts In this article, we have explored some of the best practices for naming things in your code, and some things you should avoid doing. Naming may appear to be a small part of a software developer’s job but it is very important and can be the main difference between having a clean codebase that is a joy to work with or a complex codebase that is difficult to understand and navigate. "One difference between a smart programmer and a professional programmer is that the professional understands that clarity is king. Professionals use their powers for good and write code that others can understand." You should never ignore the importance of naming practices in your codebase as bad names will become a big hurdle in future development plans. Changing the codebase at that point is unnecessary overhead and can be avoided in the very beginning by following good practices. The New Developer This article was originally published on . Head over there if you like this post and want to read others like it. The New Developer References/Resources: Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship by Robert C Martin.

Writing clean code: Naming

We try, we fail or we succeed but we always learn. I’m going to share some feedback now to help my fellow marketing execs who are looking for their next role. This feedback is based on my experience with the ~130 marketers who reached out to me about a month ago when I posted a message seeking applicants for a senior marketing position. But there are lessons here for all of us who work and live the startup life and the ever-changing reality of being a modern professional. My goal in this post is to in the high-tech industry improve their chances of being hired for other desirable positions. Usually, senior executives change positions less frequently and it’s not like riding a bicycle — you might not jump right back into the job search and be able to recall exactly what to do and nail it. help senior executives in any role For me, the older I get, the harder it is to hear “NO” and the tougher it is to ask for feedback. Can you relate? First, a HUGE disclaimer: Everything I’m sharing here represents my very personal PoV and experience. I was recruiting for a startup that is in the growth stage and that fact was reflected in the requirements for the role. Also, I’m not an HR expert. However, I’ve managed hundreds of people over the last 13 years. I’ve interviewed thousands of candidates and built large marketing departments, but recruiting is not my profession. My advice is probably best suited for companies that are seeking to hire their first few executives and the executives competing for those roles. Job searching is self-marketing. It is convincing someone that you are the solution to their problem. So I assessed applicants by sorting their qualifications into the three pillars that make up a marketing strategy: , in the case of seeking a new role, becomes self-branding Brand Marketing represents the person’s LinkedIn profile, their CV, the emails that they send, etc. Product Marketing for executives looking for their next placement is using existing job search efforts to uncover more opportunities Lead Generation Self Branding The way you present yourself, directly and indirectly, influences the recruiters’ decisions, how they score your application, and the impression you leave about yourself with the organization. 1. Prepare and practice your own elevator pitch My most important tip: Build yourself a pitch that is made up of the gold medals that you have accumulated in recent years that is very relevant (!!!) to the role you are aiming for. and For example , in meetings with investors and clients of zest , I point out that I started my professional career by co-founding a web marketing agency that reached XX employees around the world and generated $XX million in ARR. don’t is I say that before the agency experience, Yaeli (my wife) and I operated the biggest mobile smoothies bar for festivals and events in Israel. While it a gold medal, it adds no value to my fundraising or sales efforts. 2. Never under deliver yourself. NEVER. Sending the recruiter a message that starts off with: “I may not be a perfect fit for this position because of lack of experience in [field_name]”, weakens your presentation and delivers a negative impression to the recruiter before they have even had the chance to review your LinkedIn profile. For example, imagine this UVP on a given homepage: “We are Not Sure that this is the Best Product” or “It May Not Be the Product you are Looking For”! This advice is especially relevant for marketing execs. Candidates who have an issue with messaging or self-branding aren’t what recruiters for marketing roles want to see. 3. Try to burn as fewer bridges as possible Review the job description (JD) before sending a message. If there are 2–3 elements in JD that disqualify you, move on for these two reasons. Understanding “fit” is an important skill that any executive should have. If your gut feeling indicates that you are a miss-fit for this or that role, it is perfectly OK and very responsible of you to move on. Fitting or not into a role equals being strategic. Sometimes it’s better to stay on the safe side rather than trying your luck. You might hurt your brand name if the fit-gap is too big Souring yourself- If you keep applying to jobs for which you aren’t a good fit, you are souring yourself like milk. Your personal brand is taking damage each time you ask friends for introductions or headhunters and HR agencies to help you get hired and overreach. You and your advocates will feel less and less engaged and motivated as time goes by. I know it is not easy to hear. But it is better to make your reaches in reasonable increments. For example , In the past year or so, I have helped a few dozens of my friends and colleagues who had been looking for new roles and had not had success for various reasons. As time went by and they didn’t find the right job, I was less and less certain that I could help. Was I not pointing them in the right direction? Maybe they didn’t perform well in job interviews? It is very human to feel less motivated when you aren’t able to make a positive impact. I kept pushing and introducing them to recruiters, but the more times it didn’t work, the more my doubts that I could actually help, increased. In short, do not “spray and pray” but rather, “aim and nail it.” Make sure your qualifications fit the JD and, more importantly, develop more relationships. Try new channels and recommendations instead of using the same connections every time. 4. LinkedIn Vs. CVs #1 It is easier to click on a link than to open a file. It is easier to quickly scan a LinkedIn profile than to look for quick anchors like job titles, name of companies, and years of employment when skimming through hundreds of PDF files. 5. Chats and DMs Vs. Emails Chats and DMs are better than emails. They are more human, more conversational, shorter, faster, and increase your chances to engage. Try to be accurate and focused when you message a recruiter. Stay human and understand that they might be dealing with gazillions of messages. 6. Think twice before calling Be careful with the phone. Do not immediately call the recruiter. On the receiving end, I can tell you it is kinda weird and exhausting to get calls about a JD you published. If you really want to call, go the permission marketing route and send a text message to get consent doing so. before 7. Use the correct lingo Following my post about the marketing role, I received 17 messages and emails that opened with words like “I saw the ad you posted.” But, I didn’t post an ad. I published a post. Knowing the industry lingo and using it correctly is important. Your chosen first words can help or hurt your efforts. Product Marketing You, your email address, your LinkedIn profile, and your CVs. They all must be neat, tidy and aligned. 1. Keep your Linkedin profile picture sharp Make sure you smile in your image and that it is clear and uncluttered. Use a recent image so that recruiters aren’t surprised in the interview :) (Yes, many of us used to look different a decade ago.) Also, try to make sure that the picture is close enough to see your facial features. You want to be recognizable and memorable 2. Don’t use buzzwords in your LinkedIn profile and CVs Going crazy with buzzwords is not likely to impress recruiters who are themselves senior marketing people and it can hurt you. Keep it real and use numbers to fill out your profile rather than fluffy words. For example , look at these two sentences I could add to my profile based on what I’m doing at Zest: “I conceptualized and executed a bootstrapped marketing strategy from scratch” OR “I brought 120,000 users and 40,000 monthly active users to the platform” Which of the above do you think recruiters prefer? Data tells your story. The second statement makes it clear that I can generate traction demonstrating that I know how to develop and execute a strategy. Also, it’s more clear, straightforward and authentic than the first one, IMHO. 3. Make sure that your LinkedIn profile is aligned with your CVs Even if you send only a PDF with your CV, every recruiter who receives it is going to check your LinkedIn profile. So make sure they match. It is an absolute m-u-s-t to make sure that the years/roles/titles/company names are aligned on both your CV and LinkedIn. A mismatch lowers your credibility and professionalism, especially when it comes to senior marketing professionals. 4. Be honest with yourself about Applicant-Job Fit Understanding “fit” fits in here as well: Just like in product-market fit, you should feel a high degree of confidence between your experience (Product) and the job (Market). For example , if the JD states that you must have 6 years of experience in an executive role and you were self-employed for 6-year as a freelancer, you have no fit. But it goes beyond what is explicitly stated in the JD. Be realistic about whether your experience in one role or industry is transferable to another. If the company that opened the position is a product-based company (e.g. a startup) and all your experience is with agencies, chances are you aren’t going to have a high applicant-job fit. Marketers with experience in a product-based company and marketers with experience in an agency are different types of animals, in my opinion. I was fortunate enough to work in both types of companies . In addition, I have recruited for both types. Crossing from agency to startup or the reverse isn’t necessarily a deal-breaker, but the roles are very different, especially when it’s about senior marketers. It may be worth trying it out and applying, but understand that your chances might be lower. 5. Your email address should be generic or branded, but not weird Keep your email address simple. Use a Gmail email address or one from another commonly used service. You can also use a branded email, just keep these following rules in mind: Personally I find it a bit odd to receive an email from a hotmail.com email address. Not even sure why Don’t try to be funny or too disruptive. For example, applying as is a nope yamthemaverick@gmail.com 6. Keep your emails short and use bullet points to break things up If you decide to send an email to a recruiter, keep it concise. 2–3 prominent bullet points to highlight your core message should be enough. The recruiter might think that you aren’t able to convey your thoughts succinctly if you send them an email filled with lengthy paragraphs. Also, sometimes they don’t have the time/patience to read a long email. 7. Get feedback: Ask for rejection reasons #1 If you don’t get invited for an interview or you do but aren’t hired, of course, you want to know why. (You actually deserve to know why!). Feel free to ask the recruiter the reason for your rejection, where you fell short, and how can you improve. Just like product managers seek their users’ feedback, then iterate to make their product better. 8.Demonstrate professionalism Demonstrating professionalism is not about showing off what a great marketer you are, but what a great human being you are. Here are the minimums to show that you understand the behavior an executive role requires (I demand the same things from myself as an interviewer): Arrive 10 minutes before the meeting starts Do not call to ask questions such as where to park a few minutes before the interview starts. This is something you should find out yourself before the interview date Do not interrupt another interview by knocking on the door to announce your arrival or make a request During the interview, sit upright but relaxed in your chair Understand the dress code of the company and choose your interview attire. accordingly. If you are meeting with a growing startup, showing up in a suit and tie might be awkward Demand Generation Maximize your effort by using each point in your job search to generate more job opportunities 1. Get introduced When entrepreneurs raise a fundraising round, they know that getting the right introductions to investors can make all the difference. It’s the same for job seekers. If you have an indirect relationship with the recruiters or someone in the company, ask for an introduction and do not contact them directly. A recommender can also point you toward a company you didn’t know was looking. Keep yourself in their minds as they can be a great tool to “generate leads” for you. 2. Push for an interview You didn’t make the cut through the first or second screening? So what! Give it a shot and ask the recruiter to invite you for an interview. Be crystal clear about why you think you deserve it. If you get the interview, you will be able to create a relationship with the recruiter or someone else from the company. They may refer you to other positions within the company or in other companies. 3. Ask for rejection reasons #2 I mentioned before that you deserve it. A 10-minute phone call with the recruiter will help you sharpen yourself and also make personal contact with the recruiter. This will increase the likelihood that the next time a similar job opens or the recruiter hears about something, they will think of you and you’ll be prepared for the opportunity. 4. Spread the word that you are on the hunt, but be wise about it Increase your number of “leads” by making sure your friends and colleagues are aware that you are looking for your next gig. Update your LinkedIn profile if it’s already public. But, be careful not to post too much about your search on social media. You don’t want to appear desperate. One post on each social media network should do. If it doesn’t, try other channels. 5. LinkedIn Vs. CVs #2 Making connections lasts longer than just sending a CV via email. If you are applying to a company why not send a LinkedIn message so you can connect there? Engaging with someone on LinkedIn produces a long-term connection that may pay off in the future. You never know what might happen if you connect to key people in the company, including the recruiter. If you send an email application be sure to add a link to your LinkedIn profile. In the image below you can see the parameters I used to score candidates during my recent recruiting effort. This scoring system was a guide for choosing who would progress to each next level. But, recruiting isn’t pure math. You can’t make a cold decision based on hard skills and experience only. I used this scoring system to help me keep track of each candidate. Because, when asking myself why a given candidate fit or not, I needed a clear answer and did not want to let my memory fool me. So for each of the parameters you see, I used a binary metric to help- either 1 or zero for each parameter, summing them up at the end. These are the parameters I used to score candidates during my recent executive recruiting effort Finally, a word for the recruiters amongst you Keep your candidates informed. Communicate with them and update them in the same way your company communicates with your users. You are representing your brand. Remember that they are real humans and humans need to be informed and updated. I tried to do my best to keep everyone informed and updated. I sent them feedback, had phone calls with whoever asked and I also tried to introduce most of the candidates who didn’t make it to my own network. Any kind of help is SO needed in this situation and I know that if my time comes to ask for help, these good people will be happy to give me a hand. Below is a Thank You email reply I received from one of the candidates I sent a rejection email to March 10, 2020 Previously published at my account on LinkedIn Pulse on

“Looking For My Next Challenge”: How Tech Executives Should Do It

Trading crypto manually sucks and you know it. Stop wasting your potential and make the transition once and for good. Here is how… Before we start, rest assured I’m not advocating throwing year's worth of accumulated knowledge and experience down the drain to go out and find the latest hyper-hyped AI bot promising to take over your duties while you sleep. That’s a fantasy. That’s not the way it works. Automating your trading is not about getting some mysterious intelligence to think for you. It is about using your knowledge and experience for the creative aspects of trading — the one thing machines are not good at —leaving only the mechanical, repetitive tasks to your algorithm. No worries if you can’t code. There are solutions for non-coders and I’ll address that rather important matter head-on later in this piece. And, no, those solutions do not require learning to code. Automating your trading has nothing to do with having to trust a black-boxed algorithm either. That would be crazy! Never—ever—should you trust your hard-earned cash to an obscure algorithm some random guy coded, or that you don't fully understand. Now, if you'd argue you wouldn't trust , then I'll be quick to challenge you on that. Your bot will do whatever you tell her to do. And she will do it exactly as you tell her, with machine efficiency. So, why exactly wouldn't you trust her? your own bot After all, we trust algorithms and all sorts of computer systems all the time, with things a lot more valuable than cash— like our lives. Need an example? Does air-travel ring a bell? Jetliner pilots have rather little understanding or control over how modern aircraft do everything they do to take to the sky and go from A to B—let alone us, passengers. It's algorithms running the sky-borne show of thousands of aircraft dancing through the atmosphere every day. And we trust them. It's not algorithms that make mistakes... it's programmers. Industrial-grade systems and algorithms may be trusted because they go through lengthy testing, quality assurance, and certification processes before they go live to do their mission-critical jobs. Something similar happens with broadly-used open-source software. There are so many eyeballs looking into the code that most significant bugs are weeded out on the first few iterations. Now that we have established what trading bots are , clarified a few of the popular misconceptions, and debunked some of the myths around trading algorithms, let's make a quick list of what your trading bot may do for you and the reasons why you would want to automate your trading... not 1. To increase efficiency. Trading bots may work 24/7, make a thorough evaluation of the market every other second, identify programmed situations and conditions across different  markets and exchanges, evaluating strategy rules and taking immediate action on every opportunity that arises. 2. To remove the emotional factor. When trading is automated, the decisions on when to enter and exit positions are made ahead of the moment in which the actions take place. This removes the anxiety, fear and greed factors that may cloud your judgment when making trading decisions on the spot, in realtime. 3. To minimize stress. Trading manually entails making swift decisions on the fly, while being fully aware of the possibility that you may be making a mistake, with the associated monetary cost. If you don't move fast enough, you may miss the opportunity. But if you make rushed decisions, you may miss some crucial piece of information and make the wrong choice. This dilemma makes manual trading a stressful activity. 4. To increase opportunities for diversification. There's only so much you can do when trading manually. Your physical limitations—best-case scenario being a pair of hands, a pair of eyeballs and one brain—set a rigid constraint to your capacity to monitor different markets or work with multiple strategies. On the other hand, automated trading allows you to conceive, develop, test and put to work one strategy after the other, allowing to explore different markets, different tactics and uncorrelated strategies—a key to true diversification. 5. To avoid risking your health and emotional well being. Physical health hazards associated with the sedentary lifestyle of traders who spend all day staring at a screen are well documented. When trading is automated, the time spent seating in front of a computer is drastically reduced. Also, automated trading saves you from the emotional roller-coaster produced by the ups and downs of alternating success and failure events. When trading is automated, you periodically evaluate the bot's work and focus mainly on the big picture and overall results. This makes you a more balanced person than you would be if having to deal with the emotions triggered by each trade. Now that we have set the right expectations, let's go on and get you started on the path to automating your trading. First thing is to do a little reprogramming of your brain so that you can grasp the key concepts behind the automation of your job as a trader. Step 1: Understand the New Paradigm You need to stop thinking of trading as the collection of decisions you make and actions you perform to enter and exit positions. Instead, you will think of trading as a two-step process: and . strategy design strategy execution You will use your knowledge and experience to design your strategies, and you will leave the execution — the actual act of trading — to your algorithm. This means that your new job is not going to be about staring into the screen, scanning the market and placing orders. Your new job is going to be about squeezing your brain for all the juice it can give. It'll be about extracting your trading wisdom and using it to create, tune and polish the strategies that you will feed your algorithm. On the other hand, the algorithm’s job is mostly about acting on a certain set of rules. What rules? The ones you came up with during your learning process and trading career. You tweaked and polished those rules over and over through your experience trading manually, even if you never got to write them down. Of course, you may still be polishing your skills and there’s always new stuff to learn and ideas to explore. As soon as you have switched to trading in an automated fashion, you will have plenty of time to upgrade and enhance your education, and come up with new rules to explore new opportunities. Your rules are your body of knowledge; your toolbox. You will think of your algorithm as your trading assistant. She will do whatever you tell her to do. And she will do it exactly as you tell her. This means that you will need to think very carefully what you will instruct her to do! Now, bear in mind that your trading assistant does not speak English. She speaks math and computer code. The kind of instructions she understands well is of the type resulting from ; for example: conditional statements If a certain arises, then you must take this . situation action Think of a as a specific state of the market that can be described in mathematical terms through a set of that need to be true. Put in other words, when all the specified are true, then your assistant will assume that the market has entered into a specific in which she needs to take a certain . situation conditions conditions situation action No need to go into further details at this point. All you need to do now is to acknowledge that you have been following this same kind of logic throughout your trading career. You have been monitoring the market until certain situations arise, and have been taking certain actions in response to those situations. When I say that you will need to squeeze your brain to extract trading knowledge, I mean that you will need to sit down and describe — as precisely as possible — how it is that you make your trading decisions. It is those rules that you will feed your assistant. Step 2: Structure Your Trading System To structure the set of rules that you will feed your algorithm, you will need to follow some sort of framework. This is fundamental in all types of automation. It is quite straightforward to automate a very specific process with a clear structure. However, it can be quite complex to automate an unknown or undefined process. In my article , I propose a specific framework that you may use to structure all your trading strategies in the same manner. Developing Your Own Trading System: A Step by Step Logical Guide This framework will put you a stone’s throw away from automating your trading! Step 3: Choosing the Right Trading Platform for You I have to admit this is where things get a bit tricky. Choosing a trading automation platform is a very personal thing, as the software needs to fulfill your personal needs, which certainly defer from the rest of the crowd. Are you a tech-oriented person or your seven-year-old handles your phone better than you? Can you take on a complex software installation? Can you manage the execution environment yourself? Would you rather use a kind of solution, which will certainly require to trust a third party with your exchange API keys and/or funds? platform-as-a-service Can you handle the learning curve of an elaborate product offering great flexibility? Do you prefer a simple, therefore constrained solution instead? Are you a developer? Will you develop your algorithm? As you may now figure, there is no one-size-fits-all solution for crypto-trading platforms. To get you up and running as fast as possible, I'm going to share a bit of my research on some of the platforms I've looked into. By all means, take my views with a grain of salt as they certainly are subjective and may even be biased, in particular, because I do have a horse in this race, which I'll tell you about later on. Haasonline It's one of the few long-lasting commercial platforms out there and likely one of the market leaders, although it's impossible to tell in such a young market with little credible public information. They started in 2013 specializing in bitcoin trading bots. Since then, they have amassed experience, which shows in their product. They offer configurable trading bots which you launch from an interface that runs on your machine. The bots run in your local machine too, so you will likely need to hire a Virtual Private Server from a cloud provider to get bots to run 24/7, in a stable environment. Some of their bots are black-boxed, so you don't know what they are doing. To the best of my knowledge, there are no published records or metrics of past performance either. plug-and-play However, their flagship product, Haasbot, does support an array of possible configurations that allows you to create strategies with some flexibility. The company markets the product to accomplished traders with enough experience to handle all the concepts involved in technical analysis and trading in general. If you don't mind paying 0.066 to 0.187 BTC for a beginner or advanced yearly license respectively, you should . check them out Gunbot The software offers several strategies that users may configure to a certain extent. It certainly is not an open platform in the sense that it does not allow enough flexibility to create all sorts of strategies. In turn, it constrains the use to specific use cases, which leads me to believe that the platform is oriented to unorthodox or beginner traders that lack the knowledge or understanding to create their strategies from scratch. The software is sold in different versions for a one-time fee ranging from 0.04 to 0.25 BTC. 3Commas It combines an advanced manual trading terminal with a few bots automating strategies which may be customized. In terms of assisting manual trading, it allows for placing orders with trailing stops, target take profit, and a few other interesting features most exchanges do not offer. In terms of actual automated trading, the platform offers different kinds of bots, each for specific market conditions (bull, bear and sideways). These bots need to be configured with a choice of signals and trading parameters. Again, like with Gunbot, the automated trading features seem to be constrained to specific uses, not allowing flexibility to freely create strategies. Access to the service is sold on a monthly license basis ranging from 37 to 75 USD. Gekko Named after the infamous Oliver Stone's fictional character in the 1987 Hollywood blockbuster Wall Street who openly defended that " ", is an advanced trading bots platform oriented to developers. greed, for lack of a better word, is good Gekko It's been around since 2013 and is probably the most popular open-source solution available at the time of writing. It started as side-project of Mike van Rossum , and has since evolved into a community effort, and also a business. The platform is rather hard to install and manage, requiring advanced technical skills from users. However, there is a hosted solution, , run by the software maintainer, made available for up to 40 USD per month. GekkoPlus The platform offers many strategies that may be configured, but creating new strategies requires advanced coding skills. If you are into coding or don't mind the technical challenge, you may want to . check their Github Superalgos This is my horse in the race! We started in 2017 as a group of friends who'd had enough of making money for banks. We decided our time would be better spent creating the technology required to automate our own trading instead. Then more people started joining us and the emerged: an open-source project developing and freely distributing trading tools while building a . Superalgos Project Collective Trading Intelligence We recently pre-released an early-stage (alpha) version of the , a piece of free, open-source software designed to help traders develop and automate trading systems, even if they have zero coding skills. Superalgos You may create strategies from scratch and with great flexibility, following the framework described in the article, implemented as the Superalgos Protocol. You may also start with open-source strategies maintained by the community. Developing Your Own Trading System: A Step by Step Logical Guide Strategies are created in a visual setting, feeding your rules with simple formulas and statements and analyzing the effects of each rule directly over the charts. You may use the built-in simulation engine with historical and up-to-date market data for backtesting and paper-trading. Once happy with the output of the simulations, you may deploy your strategies as fully automated bots, and trade live. Because all strategies are based on the same protocol, traders may seamlessly share and exchange strategies or even specific parts or components, enabling collaboration among groups of friends, partners, and even large communities—a first step in the direction of building a Collective Trading Intelligence. Take a look at the and to interact with developers and the rest of the community. Superalgos Platform join our Telegram Disclaimer : I am not a financial advisor and this is not financial advice. I share strategies and my own trading experiences as a means to disseminate knowledge. You are responsible for whatever you choose to do with the information I share. Disclosure : The author is a core team member of the Superalgos Project . Featured Image Credit : PopTika, shutterstock.com

Switching From Manual to Automated Crypto-Trading in 3 Steps

If you were ever searching for a job during the past two decades, there’s a good chance you’ve used an online job board; a website that lists jobs supplied by employers. Such a “board” could’ve been found on shop windows, in newspapers, and now on the Internet. If at first there were only one or two such websites, now there are thousands of job boards that feature open positions for candidates to consider. Each has evolved in its own way; some are focused on a particular industry, others functioning in certain geographical locations. But they all have the same goal: giving job seekers as many choices as possible. All of these digital solutions implemented sorting and filtering functions. BUT: given the increasing number of job openings, isn’t this becoming a problem bigger than a geographical or skill-level filter? In the US last year there were job openings and in China, but with only new jobs created only at the beginning of 2019, you can tell that the problem of job-seeking becomes bigger on a global scale. 6.7 million 4.8 million 1.7 million Source: https://tradingeconomics.com/china/job-vacancies In regard to technology, when there are millions of records that need to be analyzed and matched, artificial intelligence is the de-facto solution. Anyway, the recruiting industry’s problem is not as simple as mix and matching everything into one bowl and get good results. People don't have so much time and patience to spend on the interview, while employers don’t have so much money to spend in the process. A recent survey by the Society of Human Resource Management found that the average cost per hire is . So, if technology alone can save their time and money, what’s the solution? over $4,000 Surprisingly, the industry itself, with a little push from technology. That’s why we are going to introduce the characteristics of a three-sided market model where candidates, employers, and a network of referrers can share the best opportunities with the help of a technology implementing the best parts of AI and the blockchain, while still not eliminating the most important part: people. Job boards still rely on 1990s ideas and technology In the past, the market leaders didn’t get the importance of the human factor. , the largest and best-known job board, is splitting the job postings by industry and overwhelming their users with an infinite amount of job adverts. organized their job adverts based on the different types of work; (work-at-home, summer jobs, volunteer work), but in the end, the candidate is the one who needs to do the time-consuming groundwork. Monster Indeed The niche players, such as , a technology-focused job board, and , an advertising and marketing focused job board, aren’t adding much value to their users other than taking specific jobs from , one of the world's largest job databases, and presenting these jobs on their websites. Jobfeed is a subsidiary of its . While some seekers are glad to access these job boards because they’re catered exactly to their needs (or at least the niche players are making it feel that way) these websites are just 1/50th of what Indeed or Monster is. Enterprise employers and job agencies will post their job adverts on most of these job boards ( , , , , and ) because, guess what, the entry barrier is low. Therefore, the same job vacancies are packaged and presented differently on each website. And it gets even more interesting... Have you heard about ? Apparently, this is a job board for “oil” rig engineers. Dice TalentZoo Jobfeed textkernel Monster Indeed CV-Library TotalJobs Dice Rigzone.com Source: xkcd.com Job boards are still popular because college grads are still looking to enter the workforce and professionals looking to change careers, and these websites are still the go-to place for finding jobs. When you’re just getting out of college and you don’t know anything about the job market and recruitment industry, Google becomes your friend. A friend who is recommending to you those online job boards that started early enough to rank up in the Google search algorithm and now have to pour into their business to ensure they remain there. Imagine someone clicking on the first entry (usually an ad from Monster or Indeed) and finding a list of 4,000+ job openings. That’s enough to keep them occupied for life! enough money What else is occupying your life? Social media; another channel used by companies to recruit talents. Of which, is the most popular one, a platform being custom-designed for professional recruiters to discover candidates, but it does not support social recruiting, personal recruiting, or referral hire. But more to the point, LinkedIn is yet to solve the B2B, B2C, and C2C use cases - closes those gaps. The other less career-centric social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Google and , are all “ok” to connect employers and job seekers, but they are not made for this purpose, which can create a lot of unwanted mismatches. LinkedIn Canlead so on Job boards, social media and recruiting websites are where employers and candidates are trying to game the system at each other’s expense. Employers are trying to gather as much information about the candidates as they can, and candidates are trying to apply to as many jobs they think they are suitable for, regardless of whether they’re qualified or not. The service is free for the candidates; the employer pays the job boards approximately $0.5 USD per click and circa 20% placement fee to the agencies for each successful hire. The job boards and agencies have less incentive to change their business model because the employers will always need their services. The job market and recruiting industry are heading toward a point where no solution can handle we’re seeing today. the number of applicants Blockchain, the opportunity sharing economy and referrals When taking into consideration, employee referrals and referral hires beat hiring from job boards in nearly every category. Employees know good employees and people know good people! That’s a well-known fact and companies want to use their employees’ recommendations to build a manageable candidate pool. While big companies are flirting with this idea because they have the budget to reward successful referrals, there are millions of small to medium-size enterprises that are relying on the low-cost job boards due to their budget. hiring metrics And that’s where today’s technology can shine. A decade ago, when Uber was trying to compete with the taxi industry, the yellow cab, without owning a single cab, sounded insane. When Airbnb was trying to offer an accommodation service with a spare room in their San Francisco studio office, that too was considered insane! Today, Uber facilitates and Airbnb connects with hosts in more than 190 countries every day. Why would the same sharing economy model not allow you to refer talents to opportunities or candidates to employers through a global network of referrers and personal recruiters? 15 million rides a day 140,000 travelers Source: pwc.com We already have companies developing similar solutions for the recruitment industry, so let’s look into some of their solutions. is a company aiming to connect and reward all participants in an online referral program powered by the blockchain. Cryptocurrency is a go-to technology when it comes to payments and rewarding participants, referrers in this case, but if that’s the only novelty the problem of overwhelming job openings and bad actors gaming the system will still be there. The same allegations can be brought to the project, which is actually introducing a protocol that can be integrated directly into companies’ applications. But what’s the point if the whole network is based on a reputation score that can easily be exploited by bad-intentioned users. You can see these shortcomings in most blockchain-based projects that are offering a way to reward peer-to-peer recommendations, such as . That’s because a cryptocurrency-powered payment system alone is not enough. Plentix Aworker WOM The most innovative solution comes from , which improves the concept of the social networking that LinkedIn was built on, the sharing economy where Uber and Airbnb found their monumental success, and the token ecosystem in which all these aforementioned companies are hanging on. Canlead Let’s understand how the multi-party incentive system can motivate a three-sided market of employers, candidates, and referrers to collaborate and create a new “opportunity sharing economy,” as envisioned by Michael Quan, Founder and CEO of . Canlead Canlead Canlead can be described as a blockchain-based online job and business opportunity sharing and referral marketplace. A marketplace because the recruiters, or referrers (which can be any one of us), are working together within a network of interconnected peers. This is the human factor involved in connecting prospects with opportunities (this is called a referral). And, as a decentralized platform, there are built-in incentives for everyone to be motivated to participate with their best intentions. In the future there’ll be a network of millions of active referrers (recruiters, agents, leads) trying to snatch a piece of the pie, right? Well, Canlead has a solution for this challenge, too. In order to provide personalized, engaging, and timely recommendations (be it a job or a business opportunity) to millions of candidates (seekers, friends, ex-colleagues) and customers (employers, owners, providers) referred by millions of referrers, Canlead FEEFER Artificial Intelligence will give each opportunity a corresponding weight. This will be one of the primary metrics for sorting opportunities. The most committed and recently interacted opportunities will have higher weightings while opportunities from a long time ago will have lower weightings. How does Canlead reward successful referrals? Canlead simplifies the payment process with a set of advanced smart contracts hosted on the Ethereum blockchain. One of these contracts is the Canlead Fee Staking System Smart Contract (FairOp) where the customer or employer is spending tokens to advertise their job opportunities, the referrer is staking tokens with the expectations of getting the offer, and to claim the referral (success) fee directly within the trustless system that the blockchain provides. Finally, how did Canlead addresses the Proof of Opportunity and Referral challenge? This is expressed in a formula where the whole system enforces good behaviours using a combination of the Fee Staking System and new user roles. The staking fee confirms the commitment of the opportunity provided, the referral made and, at the same time, provides liquidity to the Canlead ecosystem and its CAND token. The additional user roles such as the Verifier who verifies the authenticity of the opportunity and referral, and the Mediator who mediates conflicts between multiple parties; customer, candidate and referrer. Canlead not only solved the Proof of Opportunity and Referral problem but offers a self-governed ecosystem, so no more phoney user profiles, fake opportunities and rip-off fees! is on the right track, with an experienced team and a working , but only time will tell if their combination of technologies and the creation of a network of referrers will solve the job searching, recruiting and hiring frustration. There will still be millions of jobs and users available on the Canlead platform as these “traffic” could be sourced from and other services but only the five most suitable candidates are allowed to be referred to each customer’s job opportunity by each referrer. By design, the customer or employer gets to choose from a small pool of high quality talents and pay a referral fee on each successful hire. So, in the end, human decides, AI supports, and Blockchain pays. Canlead is just joining the market, while Monster, Indeed, and LinkedIn failed to innovate in all these years of being in the lead. At least we are seeing something different than just the old job boards. Canlead MVP Jobfeed Conclusion Uber stayed focused on the speed, convenience, and cost of their service. Now, Uber is a unicorn with more than in revenue by keeping only 20-25% of the fare and giving their drivers the rest. Airbnb gave hosts the opportunity to run a side hustle that has little overhead costs. Now it rakes in in revenue by charging a fee as small as 5-15% from their guests and only 3% from the hosts. Both these companies leveraged growing markets for their success, just as is doing today. $11 billion $2.6 billion Canlead Source: aier.org What’s needed in the recruitment industry is an opportunity-sharing and referral platform allowing any two willing parties to transact directly and cost-effectively with each other without the need for a third party. It’s clear that job boards are far from being dead, but with the introduction of decentralized platforms we can hope for a much healthier economy where companies are finding their best candidates and you can find your dream job without even actively seeking it. Because someone is already doing that for you!

Future of Job Sharing Economy: Human Decides. AI Supports. Blockchain Pays.

Everyone seems ecstatic about Bitcoin right now, and for a while I’ve been interested in writing about — the cool frontend tool for building analytical applications. The reason I like Dash is it allows me to remain in my comfort zone: Python. And it boasts of being lightweight, easily customizable, you know, all those good things. Dash by plotly are a pretty useful indicator in stock trading. It’s still a as to whether Bitcoin is like a stock. As such, I’m using the term loosely here. help identify trends, provide trade signals, and smooth out price action by filtering out the “noise” from random price fluctuations. There are various variants of, and ways to calculate moving averages. Simple Moving Average is simply the average of the last values with being the period to average over. Weighted Moving Average and Exponential Moving Average are less simple in that they introduce weights and also take into consideration the fact that more recent values may provide a better indication of the trend and thus apply some form of decay to the weights. Moving averages (MAs) grey area MAs (SMA) N N (WMA) (EMA) Here, I’ll give a brief tutorial on how to visualize Bitcoin prices, the and the using Dash. SMA EMA Our first challenge is getting real-time Bitcoin prices. Thankfully, provides an that does just that. Coindesk API $ curl https://api.coindesk.com/v1/bpi/currentprice/USD.json {"time":{"updated":"Dec 31, 2017 19:26:00 UTC","updatedISO":"2017-12-31T19:26:00+00:00","updateduk":"Dec 31, 2017 at 19:26 GMT"},"disclaimer":"This data was produced from the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index (USD). Non-USD currency data converted using hourly conversion rate from openexchangerates.org","bpi":{"USD":{"code":"USD","rate":"13,935.3500","description":"United States Dollar","rate_float":13935.35}}} Nice. The prices are updated every minute so we need a service that calls this minute by minute. What we would like is a process that schedules the call every minute which is then executed in the background. API REST According to Heroku: Scheduling a job and executing a job are two related but independent tasks. Separating a job’s execution from its scheduling ensures the responsibilities of each component are clearly defined and results in a more structured and manageable system. As you would expect, Python is up to the task. The Advanced Python Scheduler (APScheduler) is a Python library that lets you schedule your Python code to be executed later, either just once or periodically. We also need a queuing system. We’ll use simply because it makes it easy to add background tasks to Python code on Heroku — my favorite . RQ (Redis Queue) PAAS $ pip install apscheduler rq redis We also need to install . There is a comprehensive guide . All I had to do from my Mac was and from my Ubuntu Redis here brew install redis sudo apt install redis-server We can then go on to create a process that listens to, and processes queued jobs. import osimport redisfrom rq import Worker, Queue, Connection listen = ['high', 'default', 'low']redis_url = os.getenv('REDISTOGO_URL', 'redis://localhost:6379') conn = redis.from_url(redis_url) if __name__ == '__main__':with Connection(conn):worker = Worker(map(Queue, listen))worker.work() This is simply a worker process that reads jobs from the given queues in an endless loop, waiting for new work to arrive when all jobs are done. Name the file worker.py Now we can go ahead to author a file named that would serve as our scheduler. We’ll use the class which is quite simple, and obtain a connection to our queue. scheduler.py BlockingScheduler from apscheduler.schedulers.blocking import BlockingSchedulerfrom rq import Queue scheduler = BlockingScheduler() from worker import connq = Queue(connection=conn) Having created and obtained a connection to the queue in our worker process, we can now schedule our job i.e making a REST call to Coindesk’s API. We’ll go ahead to author a file named You may want to install the following packages first utils.py $ pip install iso8601 requests And then import requests, calendar, timefrom iso8601 import parse_date def retrieve_current_price(endpoint): response = requests.get(url=endpoint)  
data = response.json()

updatedTime = data\['time'\]\['updatedISO'\]  
currentPrice = data\['bpi'\]\["USD"\]\['rate\_float'\]  
  
parsed = parse\_date(updatedTime)  
timetuple = parsed.timetuple()  
parsedTime = calendar.timegm(timetuple)

return Nothing groundbreaking here. We are simply making an request to the endpoint and extracting the needed information from the JSON response formatted as shown earlier. What we would like to do next is save these values to a datastore. We’ll use — a straightforward document oriented DB. http GET TinyDB $ pip install tinydb We’ll then go on to add the following snippets of code into Notice that the prices are stored in a file named utils.py bpi.db from tinydb import TinyDB, Query db = TinyDB('bpi.db')BPI = Query() db.insert({'updatedTime': int(parsedTime), 'QueryTime': int(time.time()), 'currentPrice': currentPrice}) So that looks like this utils.py import requests, calendar, timefrom iso8601 import parse_datefrom tinydb import TinyDB, Query def retrieve_current_price(endpoint): response = requests.get(url=endpoint)  
data = response.json()

updatedTime = data\['time'\]\['updatedISO'\]  
currentPrice = data\['bpi'\]\["USD"\]\['rate\_float'\]  
  
parsed = parse\_date(updatedTime)  
timetuple = parsed.timetuple()  
parsedTime = calendar.timegm(timetuple)

db = TinyDB('bpi.db')  
BPI = Query()  
db.insert({'updatedTime': int(parsedTime), 'QueryTime': int(time.time()), 'currentPrice': currentPrice})

return Now that we’ve defined our job, we can go ahead to schedule it in our file. Let’s dig up the file again and add the following snippet of code just underneath everything else in the file. scheduler.py from utils import retrieve_current_price endpoint = "https://api.coindesk.com/v1/bpi/currentprice/USD.json" #To attach the needed metadata we use a decorator#Coinbase publishes prices every minute (60 seconds) @scheduler.scheduled_job('interval', minutes=1)def retrieve_current_price_job(): q.enqueue(retrieve_current_price, endpoint) scheduler.start() Sweet. Notice that we first import the method that executes our REST call. This method is then added to the redis queue with and another such job is added every minute. q.enqueue(retrieve_current_price, endpoint) Running and should begin to populate the file every minute with the Bitcoin price indexes. scheduler.py worker.py bpi.db We now need to move over to visualizations using Dash. As a teaser, here is a look at the expected final output from this tutorial. Its dynamic, so this just gives a peek. Dash is written on top of , , and . Flask Plotly.js React.js Snip of the Dash app As you can see, it does use a bit of styling here and there and most of the styling code is borrowed from . That said, we won’t go over the styling. Go ahead and download the stylesheet. https://github.com/plotly/dash-wind-streaming Stylesheet for the Dash app A bit annoying to install but we also need to download the file that contains packages for the application . You can install them using requirements.txt here $ pip install -r requirements.txt Once that is done, we can go ahead to author a file named that would contain the code for our Dash application. app.py As usual, import a few modules. We’ll describe the functionality of some later on. import osimport datetime as dtimport time import dashimport dash_core_components as dccimport dash_html_components as htmlfrom dash.dependencies import Input, Output, State, Event import plotly.plotly as pyfrom plotly.graph_objs import * import numpy as npfrom scipy.stats import rayleigh from tinydb import TinyDB, Query from flask import Flask, send_from_directory We’ll go ahead and create our object which takes a instance as an argument. Dash Flask server = Flask('BitcoinMAvgs') app = dash.Dash('BitcoinMAvgs-App', server=server, url_base_pathname='/dash/', csrf_protect=False) Voila! we have a Dash application. Pretty useless I know but all we need to do now is define our and . To get a comprehensive dive into Dash head . layouts callbacks here The Dash describes what your app would look like and is composed of a set of declarative Dash components. On the other hand, make Dash apps interactive using Python functions that are automatically called whenever an input component’s property changes. There are components and components. layout callbacks core html we’ll go ahead to start defining our layout. First we define the root div app.layout = html.Div([...], className='main-div') We can then add sub-components to this div If you look at the final layout you’ll notice the banner. We’ll go ahead to add that. Replace the ellipsis in the snippet above with the code below html.Div([html.H2("Bitcoin prices with moving averages")], className='banner'), This basically creates a , sets the reference to its styling and adds a text. div header The next thing we need to do is create the container for our graph, its title, and the corresponding components. Go ahead and add the snippet beneath the banner component. html.Div([ html.Div([html.H3("Price(USD) " + str(dt.datetime.now().date()))], className='Title'), html.Div([dcc.Graph(id='bpi'),],className='twelve columns bpi'), dcc.Interval(id='bpi-update', interval=12000) ],className='row bpi-row'), A few explanations. As we’ve seen already the and are simply components as we know them. But now we have 2 core components. and . The component shares the same syntax as written in the open-source library. The element allows you to update components on a predefined interval. In our case, every or . Also note that these components have IDs. We’ll use these IDs when writing our callbacks. divs header html dcc.Graph dcc.Interval Graph plotly.py Interval 2 minutes 12000 milliseconds Beneath the that contains our , we’ll add 3 more components —all wrapped in their own each having a corresponding label. div graph Dropdowns divs html.Div([ html.P("Period"), dcc.Dropdown(id='period',options= [{'label': i, 'value': i}for i in ['5', '10', '15']], value='10')] style={'width': '31%', 'display': 'inline-block'}), html.Div([ html.P("Box plot Period"), dcc.Dropdown(id='box_plot_period',options=[{'label': i, 'value': i}for i in ['5', '10', '15']], value='10')], style={'width': '31%', 'margin-left': '3%', 'display': 'inline-block'}), html.Div([ html.P("Time frame"), dcc.Dropdown(id='timeframe',options=[{'label': i, 'value': i}for i in ['1', '2', '3', '4']], value='2')], style={'width': '31%', 'float': 'right', 'display': 'inline-block'}) These will dynamically control the for our averages, the grouping for our and the timeframe in hours for which to show the averages respectively. dropdowns period box-plots Having defined our layouts, we can then go ahead to write what happens when we interact with the layouts — callbacks @app.callback( Output(component_id='bpi', component_property='figure'),[ Input(component_id='period', component_property='value'),Input(component_id='box_plot_period', component_property='value'),Input(component_id='timeframe', component_property='value')], [], [Event('bpi-update', 'interval')]) What we have here is simply the for our interface which we will define shortly that describes declaratively its and . The are the properties of a particular component. Here, our inputs are the properties of the components that have the IDs , , and i.e our and our output is the property of the component with the ID which is our . decorator input output inputs value period box_plot_period timeframe dropdowns figure bpi graph Now, we can code up the method to load the data from our datastore and return the figure based on our arguments. Beneath our , we’ll add the code below graph decorator def get_bpi(N, bN, T):T = int(T)curr_time = time.time()begin_time = curr_time - T * 60 * 60 db = TinyDB('bpi.db')  
BPI = Query()  
data = db.search(BPI.updatedTime > begin\_time) First we need to determine what slice of the data to process. And this is controlled by the argument; . We simply query the datastore for the last hours of data. Now that we have the raw data, we want to extract the prices and also build a friendly format of the — we’ll show the and for each data point in our graph. timeframe T T timestamp hour minute for bpi in data: prices.append(bpi\["currentPrice"\])  
a = dt.datetime.fromtimestamp(int(bpi\["updatedTime"\]))

dtime.append(str(a.hour) + ":" + str(a.minute)) plen = len(prices) So we would like to build for our prices but remember that we have parameterized the grouping of these so that we can group our prices into various chunks — , or as you wish. box-plots box-plots 10 minute 15 minute boxtraces = []names = [] for i in xrange(0, plen, bN): y = prices\[i:i + bN\]  
ind = i + bN - 1

if (i + bN) > len(dtime):  
       
     ind = len(dtime) - 1

name = dtime\[ind\]  
names.append(name)

trace = Box(y=y, name=name, showlegend=False,  
x=\[i for j in range(len(y))\])

boxtraces.append(trace) Some explanations here. We loop through our list skipping over in steps — the parameter and for each of these data slices, we associate a label — which is the of the last datapoint in that slice. We then build a graph object using for each slice and append all those objects to a list. prices bN boxplot period timestamp Boxplot trace = Box(…) Now, we can calculate and plot our first moving average. The . The is just as its called — simple. We take an over the prices as we move across the data in chunks — which is our parameter. SMA SMA average N period SMA = []if plen > N: SMA = \[None for i in range(N - 1)\]  
  
for i in xrange(0, plen - N - 1, 1):

    y = prices\[i: i + N\]  
    sma = reduce(lambda x, y\_\_: x + y\_\_, y) / len(y)  
      
    SMA.append(sma) The Exponetial moving average — is slightly different and has the following formular EMA new EMA = [Closing price - previous EMA] x (2 / N+1) + previous EMA where N = period With that, we can go ahead and code up its implementation EMA = []if plen > N: EMA = \[None for i in range(N - 1)\]  
y = prices\[0: i + N\]  
  
avg = reduce(lambda x, y\_: x + y\_, y) / len(y)  
EMA.append(avg)

for i in xrange(N, plen, 1):  
       
    new\_ema = ((prices\[i\] - EMA\[-1\]) \* 2.0 / 11.0) + EMA\[-1\]

 EMA.append(new\_ema) Now to some things. plotly Just as we did for our traces, we also create a using the our and data. box-plot line-plot SMA EMA trace = Scatter( y=SMA, x=[i for i in xrange(0, plen, 1)],line=Line(color='#42C4F7'), mode='lines', name='SMA' ) trace2 = Scatter( y=EMA, x=[i for i in xrange(0, plen, 1)],line=Line(color='#32DD32'), mode='lines',name=str(N) + '-period-EMA' ) Nothing spectacular here, we’re simply creating a object and passing and properties. Scatter data styling With that done, we can create our plotly layout layout = Layout( xaxis=dict(tickmode="array",ticktext=names,tickvals=[i for i in xrange(0, plen, bN)],showticklabels=True), height=450,margin=Margin(t=45,l=50,r=50) ) traces = []traces.append(trace)traces.append(trace2) boxtraces.extend(traces) return Figure(data=boxtraces, layout=layout) The here is simply the list of our human friendly and our boxplots are grouped by so we want to use that too to set our . After which we can create a object instantiated with the and the . names variable timestamps bN tickvals Figure traces layout And that’s it! What’s left is to reference our the way. Just go ahead and copy the code below, and place it beneath all the code in stylesheet Flask app.py external_css = ["https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/skeleton/2.0.4/skeleton.min.css","https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Raleway:400,400i,700,700i","https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Product+Sans:400,400i,700,700i"] for css in external_css: app.css.append\_css({"external\_url": css}) css_directory = os.getcwd()stylesheets = ['BitcoinMAvgs.css'] static_css_route = '/static/' @app.server.route('{}<stylesheet>'.format(static_css_route)) def serve_stylesheet(stylesheet): if stylesheet not in stylesheets:

    raise Exception('"{}" is excluded from the allowed static files'.format(stylesheet))

return send\_from\_directory(css\_directory, stylesheet) for stylesheet in stylesheets:app.css.append_css({"external_url":"/static/{}".format(stylesheet)}) This snippet of code assumes the local is located in the same directory as stylesheet BitcoinMAvgs.css app.py Finally! we can run our application. if __name__ == '__main__':app.run_server() Start your server if its not already running Redis $ redis-server and execute these in separate shells $ python worker.py $ python scheduler.py $ python app.py Your application should be accessible via [http://localhost:8050/dash/](http://localhost:8050/dash/) There we have it. Dynamic moving averages of prices without writing a single line of . The complete code can be found on Bitcoin Javascript GitHub https://github.com/Viktour19/BitcoinMAvgs Drop a comment if there are any thoughts on how to make this better. Cheers!

Visualizing Bitcoin prices moving averages using Dash

Yet more code smells? More? Isn’t 13th bad luck? We see several symptoms and situations that make us doubt the quality of our development. Let's look at some possible solutions. Most of these smells are just hints of something that might be wrong. They are not rigid rules. Previous Parts Part I Part II Part III Part IV Part V Part VI Part VII Part VIII Part IX Part X Part XI Part XII Let's continue... Code Smell 61 - Coupling to Classes Classes are handy. We can call them and invoke them any time. Is this good? Problems Coupling Extensibility Hard to mock Solutions Use interfaces or traits (if available). Use Dependency Injection. Favor Loose Coupling. Sample Code Wrong public class MyCollection { 
     public bool HasNext { get; set;} //implementation details 
     public object Next(); ////implementation details 
}

public class MyDomainObject sum(MyCollection anObjectThatCanBeIterated) {
 //Tight coupling 
}

//cannot fake or mock this method since it always expects an instance of MyCollection Right public interface Iterator { 
     public bool HasNext { get; set;}
     public object Next();
}

public Iterator Reverse(Iterator iterator) {
    var list = new List<int>();
    while (iterator.HasNext) {
       list.Insert(0, iterator.Next());
    }
    return new ListIterator(list);
}

public class MyCollection implements Iterator { 
     public bool HasNext { get; set;} //implementation details 
     public object Next(); ////implementation details 
}

public class myDomainObject sum(Iterator anObjectThatCanBeIterated) {
 //Loose coupling 
}

//can use any Iterator (even a mocked one as long as it adheres protocol) Detection We can use almost any linter to find references to classes. We should not abuse since many uses might be false positives. Tags Coupling Conclusion Dependencies to Interfaces make a system less coupled and thus more extensible and testable. Interfaces change less often than concrete implementations. Some objects implement many interfaces, declaring which part depends on which interface makes the coupling more granular and the object more cohesive. More info Coupling: The one and only problem Wikipedia When your code depends on an interface, that dependency is usually very minor and unobtrusive. Your code doesn’t have to change unless the interface changes, and interfaces typically change far less often than the code behind them. When you have an interface, you can edit classes that implement that interface or add new classes that implement the interface, all without impacting code that uses the interface. For this reason, it is better to depend on interfaces or abstract classes than it is to depend on concrete classes. When you depend on less volatile things, you minimize the chance that particular changes will trigger massive recompilation. Michael Feathers Code Smell 62 - Flag Variables Flags indicate what happened. Unless their name is too generic. Problems Readability Maintainability Coupling Solutions Use meaningful names Try to avoid flags. They generate coupling. Sample Code Wrong <?

function dummy() {

    $flag = true;

    while ($flag == true) {

        $result = doSomething();
        if ($result) {
            $flag = false;
        }
    }
} Right <?

function dummyFunction()
{
    $atLeastOneElementWasFound = true;

    while (!$atLeastOneElementWasFound) {

        $elementSatisfies = doSomething();
        if ($elementSatisfies) {
            $atLeastOneElementWasFound = true;
        }
    }
} Detection We can search all the code for bad-named flags. Tags Readability Conclusion Flags are widespread on production code. We should restrict their usage and use clear and intention revealing names. More Info Wikipedia ] What exactly is a name: part ii rehab If you lie to the compiler, it will get its revenge. Henry Spencer Code Smell 63 - Feature Envy If your method is jealous and you don't trust delegation, you should start to do it. TL;DR: Don't abuse your friend objects. Problems Coupling Low Reuse Low Testability Bad Responsibilities Assignment Bijection Fault Solutions Move method to the appropriate class. Sample Code Wrong class Candidate {

 void printJobAddress(Job job) {

   System.out.println("This is your position address");

   System.out.println(job.address().street());
   System.out.println(job.address().city());
   System.out.println(job.address().ZipCode());
 } 
} Right class Job {

 void printAddress() {

   System.out.println("This is your job position address");

   System.out.println(this.address().street());
   System.out.println(this.address().city());
   System.out.println(this.address().ZipCode());
  
  //We might even move this responsability directly to the address !
  //Some address information is relevant to a job and not for package tracking
 } 
}

class Candidate {
  void printJobAddress(Job job) {
    job.printAddress();
  }
} Detection Some linters can detect a sequential pattern of collaborations with another object. Tags Coupling Conclusion We should assign responsibilities according to real object and avoid abusing other objects protocol. mappers More info Refactoring Guru C2 Wiki Wikipedia We argue that design practices which take a data-driven approach fail to maximize encapsulation because they focus too quickly on the implementation of objects. We propose an alternative object-oriented design method which takes a responsibility-driven approach. Rebecca Wirfs-Brock Code Smell 64- Inappropriate Intimacy Two classes entangled in love. Problems Coupling Bad Responsibilities Assignments Bad Cohesion Class Interfaces too Public Maintainability Extensibility Solutions Refactor Merge . Replace Hierarchy With Delegation Sample Code Wrong class Candidate {

 void printJobAddress(Job job) {

   System.out.println("This is your position address");

   System.out.println(job.address().street());
   System.out.println(job.address().city());
   System.out.println(job.address().zipCode());
   
   if (job.address().country() == job.country()) {
        System.out.println("It is a local job");
   } 
} Right final class Address {
 void print() {
   System.out.println(this.street);
   System.out.println(this.city);
   System.out.println(this.zipCode);   
 } 
 
 bool isInCounty(Country country){
  return this.country == country;
}

class Job {
 void printAddress() {

   System.out.println("This is your position address");

   this.address().print());
   
   if (this.address().isInCountry(this.country()) {
        System.out.println("It is a local job");
   } 
 } 
}

class Candidate {
  void printJobAddress(Job job) {
    job.printAddress();
  }
} Detection Some linters graph class relations and protocol dependency. Analyzing the collaboration graph, we can infer rules and hints. Tags Coupling Conclusion If two classes are too related and don't talk much to others, we might need to split, merge or refactor them; Classes should know as little about each other as possible. More info C2 wiki Refactoring guru thecodebuzz.com No matter how slow you are writing clean code, you will always be slower if you make a mess. Code Smell 65 - Variables Named after Types Names should always indicate role. Problems Declarative Design for Change Coupling to accidental implementation Solutions Rename your variable according to the role. Sample Code Wrong public bool CheckIfStringHas3To7LowercaseCharsFollowedBy3or4Numbers(string string)
{
  Regex regex = new Regex(@"[a-z]{2,7}[1-9]{3,4}")
  var hasMatch = regex.IsMatch(string);
  return hasMatch;
} Right public bool CheckIfStringHas3To7LowercaseCharsFollowedBy3or4Numbers(string password)
{
  Regex stringHas3To7LowercaseCharsFollowedBy3or4Numbers = new Regex(@"[a-z]{2,7}[1-9]{3,4}")
  var hasMatch = stringHas3To7LowercaseCharsFollowedBy3or4Numbers.IsMatch(password);
  return hasMatch;  
} Detection This is a semantic rule. We can instruct our linters to warn us from using names related to existing classes; types o reserved words since they are too implementative. Tags Declarative Conclusion The first name we can come across is related to an accidental point of view. It takes time to build a theory on the models we are building using our . Once we get there, we must rename our variables- MAPPERS More info Whats is in a name xunitpatterns.com Credits This idea came from this tweet Types are essentially assertions about a program.  And I think it’s valuable to have things be as absolutely simple as possible, including not even saying what the types are. Dan Ingalls We are done for some time (not many). But we are pretty sure we will come across even more smells very soon! I keep getting more suggestions on , so they won't be the last! Twitter Send me your own!

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