The Offline Coding Challenge, Theoretical Concepts in Videos, and Beginner Coders Wanted

Confused Chinchilla

The Offline Coding Challenge

I recently read http://www.bfilipek.com/2016/05/coding-without-google.html about a Developer’s workflow before the proliferation of the internet, search engines and developer websites.

It reminded me of an idea I had wanted to write about for a while and this blog post prompted me to drag it off my todo list.

How much of an application could you write without an internet connection to consult solutions to problems?

How about taking that challenge up a notch and trying coding without any offline documentation?

Up for more of a challenge? What about switching off your IDE or text editor’s code prompts and utility tools? That’s right, just you and a text editor.

I’m not sure I could do without most of these aids, well, I couldn’t accomplish anything particularly complex. I can’t even remember how I used to code without them, which is a pretty damning thought.

What about you? What level of the offline coding challenge could you reach? Give it a try for an afternoon and let me know how you get along.

Explaining Complex Theoretical topics in Video

I have worked on a few screencasts and videos, but am still newer to the topic than my writing output.

I started a new series on NoSQL use cases, principles and solutions, but the series got derailed in the second video which was to deal with principles and theory.

Concepts like sharding, ACID, and consistency models are dry, theoretical and often only guidelines that vendors implement in different ways, or ignore completely.

I tried my best to tweak and re-edit this video to make these concepts understandable but also entertaining and not boring, but I couldn’t get it right and the video never made it live.

I’m publishing the video in it’s draft stage, complete with a small section with no sound as I’m interested in hearing from the more experienced vide makers amongst you as to how you would have handled a subject like this. I don’t mean specifically NoSQL principles, but highly conceptual and theoretical subjects with no real practical demonstrations.

Please add your thoughts and ideas in the comments below and I look forward to reading them.

Beginners

My recent post recounting experiences teaching programming to beginners has been getting some great feedback and suggestions, if you haven’t read it yet, please do.

I am getting ready for the second stage of the article and am now looking for a group of enthusiastic beginner programmers to use as guinea pigs learning new languages. Your experience level is unimportant, in fact if you know nothing, that’s even better. Interested? Then let me know in the comments below.

Other Writing

I’ve had a busy few weeks, here’s what else I’ve written recently.

• Teaching Programming to Beginners.
• An Introduction to the Docker Trusted Registry.
• 8 Key Announcements for Android Developers at Google IO.
• Create Cross-Platform Desktop Node Apps with Electron.
• A review of “Generation Xbox: How Videogames Invaded Hollywood, by Jamie Russell”.
• A review of “The Story of English by Robert McCrum, Robert MacNeil”.

Chinch Out xx