0. Plan before you code. Document everything. You won't remember either your idea or those clever implementations next week (or next month, or next year...).

1. Don't hack your way through, unless that's what you intend to do. Name your variables, functions etc. neatly: autocomplete exists!
Protip: Sometimes you want to check a quick language feature or a piece of code from one of your modules. Resist the urge to quickly hack in the test into your actual project. Maintain a separate file where you can quickly type in and check what you're looking for without hacking on your project (For example, in Python, you can open a new terminal or IDLE window for those quick tests).

2. Keep a quiet environment where you can focus. Recommend listening to something while coding (my latest fad is on asoftmurmur.com). Don't let anything distract you and throw your contextual awareness out of whack.

3. Rubber ducks work. Really. Talking out a complex piece of logic, or that regex or SQL query aids your mind greatly in grasping the concept and clearing the idea. Bounce off code and ideas with a friend or colleague to catch errors and oversights faster. Read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

4. Since everyone else is saying this (and because it merits saying), USE VERSION CONTROL. Singular most important thing to software development aside from planning and documenting.

5. Remember to flout all of the above once in a while and just make a mess of a project where you have fun throwing everything around all over the place. You'll make mistakes that you never thought were possible by someone of your caliber :) That's how you learn.

Have fun, keep learning!

Its that time of the morning again where I get nothing done and moan about the past ... thats right its practiseSafeHex's most incompetent co-worker!!!

Today I'd like to tell you the story of "i". Interesting about "I" is that he was actually a colleague of yesterdays nominee "G" (and was present at the "java interface" video call, and agreed with G!): https://devrant.com/rants/1152317/...

"I" was the spearhead of a project to end all projects in that company. It was suppose to be a cross-platform thing but ended up only working for iOS. It was actually quite similar to this: https://jasonette.com/ (so similar i'm convinced G / I were part of this but I can't find their github ID's in it).

To briefly explain the above + what they built ... this is the worst piece of shit you can imagine ... and thats a pretty strong statement looking back at the rest of this series so far!

"I" thought this would solve all of our problems of having to build similar-ish apps for multiple customers by letting us re-use more code / UI across apps. His main solution, was every developers favourite part of writing code. I mean how often do you sit back and say:

"God damn I wish more of this development revolved around passing strings back and forth. Screw autocomplete, enums and typed classes / variables, I want more code / variables inside strings in this library!"

Yes thats right, the main part of this bullshittery was putting your entire app, into JSON, into a string and downloading it over http ... what could possibly go wrong!

Some of my issues were:

- Everything was a string, meaning we had no autocomplete. Every type and property had to be remembered and spelled perfectly.
- Everything was a string so we had no way to cmd + click / ctrl + click something to see somethings definition.
- Everything was a string so any business logic methods had to be remembered, all possible overloaded versions, no hints at param types no nothing.
- There was no specific tooling for any of this, it was literally open up xcode, create a json file and start writing strings.
- We couldn't use any of the native UI builders ... cause strings!
- We couldn't use any of the native UI layout constructs and we had to use these god awful custom layout managers, with a weird CSS feel to them.

What angered me a lot was their insistence that "You can download a new app over http and it will update instantly" ... except you can't because you can't download new business logic only UI. So its a new app, but must do 100% exactly the same thing as before.

His other achievements include:

- Deciding he didn't like apple's viewController and navigationBar classes and built his own, which was great when iOS 7 was released (changed the UI to allow drawing under the status bar) and we had no access to any of apples new code or methods, meaning everything had to be re-built from scratch.

- On my first week, my manager noticed he fucked up the login error handling on the app I was taking over. He noticed this as I was about to leave for the evening. I stayed so we could call him (he was in an earlier timezone). Rather than deal with his fucked up, he convinced the manager it would be a "great learning experience" for me to do it ... and stay in late ... while he goes home early.

- He once argued with me in front of the CEO, that his frankenstein cross-platform stuff was the right choice and that my way of using apples storyboards (and well thought out code) wasn't appropriate. So I challenged him to prove it, we got 2 clients who needed similar apps, we each did it our own way. He went 8 man weeks over, I came in 2 days under and his got slated in the app store for poor performance / issues. #result.

But rather than let it die he practically sucked off the CEO to let him improve the cross platform tooling instead.

... in that office you couldn't swing a cat without hitting a retard.

Having had to spend a lot more time working with him and more closely than most of the other nominees, at a minimum "I" is on the top of my list for needing a good punch in the face. Not for being an idiot (which he is), not for ruining so much (which he did), but for just being such an arrogant bastard about it all, despite constant failure.

Will "I" make it to most incompetent? Theres some pretty stiff competition so far

Tune in later for more practiceSafeHex's most incompetent co-worker!!!

Soo... I made a bytecode editor for Java just for fun. On the left you can see the original decompiled class, on the right a slightly changed class which still runs normally. Below you can see the pure ASM bytecode :)
It's pretty awesome for learning how bytecode works (together with a listing like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...)! It also has an AutoComplete feature and some syntax highlighting (which I'm still working on).

What's special about it? It's a pure text parser! It assembles a full class from just a String!
If you want to look at it: https://github.com/SuspiciousActivi...
(I'm new to GitHub, don't judge me :D)

!rant
Does anybody know how Google, Microsoft, Apple etc autocomplete their code demos in live sessions? They tend to type out short codes and voila lines of code appear. They must be doing some sort of code mapping and this is what I am curios on how to do.

I am curios on how to do this in Xcode and/or in Brackets for a Python script.

Watch the next seven seconds of this Google I/O to see what I am talking about.

http://youtube.com/watch/...

PS: At the beginning of the presentation, they have four presenters on stage so I know for a fact that a human is typing out the code and its not a pre-recording of any sorts.

I so want to switch from Eclipse to vscode. It feels so lightweight. But what makes me going back to eclipse everytime I try to switch to vscode are the little details.

why does the autocomplete popup close when moving the cursor left or right? In eclipse it just adapts the contents of the autocomplete content accordingly. Look at this issue to get what i mean: https://github.com/microsoft/...
And maybe vote for it too 😅

#need_help
Dear all,

I'm trying to make a choice, a choice that won't make me regret it for the few years advanced, I'm in a dilemma, I don't know which MacBook should I get for my everyday life, I currently work as an iOS developer (Learned iOS using all kinds hackintoshes, yeah I never bought a single apple computer, yet), and always have motivation to learn new stuff (from machine learning, to web development, to making games with unity (or whatever engine), hell I even like to design stuff from time to time using Photoshop, sketch, I sometimes do video editing using premiere and after effects), and I yet have to choose which laptop to get, I got only one week to make the choice so...

Here are the options:

The new MacBook Pro 2016 (Touch Bar edition):
Pros: 'Latest' and 'greatest', have thunderbolt ports which makes it (sort of) future proof, TouchId for unlocking the laptop using a fingerprint.
Cons: You need a damn dongle everywhere, no escape key (Which I use for the autocomplete feature in Xcode), and this touch bar (Which I really have no idea if i will ever use it other than the nyan cat app for 5 minutes), plus I heard about battery issues with it (don't know if they resolved it or not), fucking huge trackpad, and no fucking MagSafe!

The previous model MacBook Pro 2015:
Pros: Ports, lots of them, small trackpad (Which you don't have to worry about your palm screwing up your work), and MagSafe! (Which I honestly don't know if it'll make any difference for my usage)
Cons: has old CPU from Haswell generation (I know that it won't feel different, it's just that I like to have parts that are the 'latest')

Now some questions, for people who have the old MacBooks and new MacBooks:
For the ones with old MacBook:
If you were given the choice to replace the old MacBook for the new one for free, would you go for it?
After all this time, how's the battery performance? is it still great from the time you bought it?
Foe the ones with new MacBook:
Does the huge-ass trackpad interfere your work day?
Do you miss magsafe to a point where you really want to throw out the new laptop and go back to previous model?
Did you get used to carry out dongles everywhere?
Did you like the TouchBar? Does it help you in your everyday work? from designing to coding to whatever, do you think that now you can't live without it?
How's the battery performance?
Is programming on it joyable? or the new keyboard and touchpad are just a meh?

Strawpoll to make it easier to vote:
http://www.strawpoll.me/12856510

In addition to that I would love that you guys detail me your experience and answer some questions that I posted above, I would be very, very grateful.