Programming lesson #5
When logic becomes too complex to solve mentally while coding, writing the requirements and inputs on paper and coming up with pseudocode is a good approach.

Stand up on Zoom...
Day 1: No one knows who will speak their daily tasks first or last
Day 45: There is mutual order which appears out of the blue and everyone has their own sort of roll number for speaking in stand-up meeting😂

Wake me up when lockdown ends

Programming and listening to music go hand in hand a lot of times...

Sometimes at the end of the day if a solution to a problem seems inefficient I just leave the task rather than writing buggy code. It gives me a day's time, away from the screen, to come up with much better and elegant solution which I eventually code up the next day.
After years of experience I have realised that its better to wait for a day and not write inefficient code rather than trying to fix a hell lot of bugs later.

So I was trying to compare my local website CSS properties to the one deployed on production and realized that font/blocks were a little bit smaller than usual. Tried to debug which CSS changes caused this issue for half an hour only to realize that it was because the browser's zoom level was set to 90% locally 🤦🏽‍♂️
This happened with a guy who just finished 5 years of professional coding yesterday 😂

I have 4 years of front end development experience and I wrote <image> tag instead of using <img> today

My productivity reduces by almost half after lunch and reduces to 10% the day I leave headphones at home. It is only after tea break in the afternoon that slowly I start getting back on track again

I am more enthusiastic and focused while working on side projects than regular office work 🤷🏽‍♂️

Mornings before starting office work
During start of lockdown: Wake up early, freshen up, do daily exercise, get sunlight from the window, write an article or work on side project for an hour, then start off to work...
5 months after lockdown: Wake up just 5 minutes before office work, brush my teeth and start off with office work...

So if you google any pet say 'cat' on chrome browser on phone, there is a section to view it in 3d. And within 3d section there is an option to view it as a live virtual pet via Augmented Reality. I literally spent entire morning browsing through all the available animals and showing them to my family 😁

I think it's more important to have right kind of headphones and music than a good editor to improve productivity as a developer

Most of my time coding in Javascript goes to handling null checks and fixing crashes caused due to missed null checks.
`"abc" is undefined` is an error which I must have seen more number of times than any other bug in console and even in real life.

Anyone here who actually reads these changes before pressing 'OK' button?

Coding experience #1
Even if I can't get committed in real life I make sure to get my code committed daily.

Life is so much more fun when electricity is cut off and you still need to get day's worth of work done from home

I like listening to music from SoundCloud while working. Tried Spotify because I had read about its next level recommendation engine. Honestly felt that Soundcloud provides much better recommendations for the kind of music I like than Spotify.

So I have been using REST APIs since last 4 years and used this term in lot of technical discussions with backend teams.
Learnt that it's full form is 'REpresentational State Transfer' just a few minutes ago 🙈

The first time I accidentally activated multiple cursors(multiline editing feature) in my editor I thought this was a bug rather than a feature and was trying to figure out a way to get the cursor back to normal.
Few years down the line this feature has improved my coding speed a lot and I just laugh at myself remembering the first time I used it 😂
P.S. Screenshot attached for reference

It's quite difficult sometimes to understand whether I am tired, sleepy, bored or just frustrated about doing the same things again and again and again...

Programmer lesson #3
Always focus on a single task while coding...
If you encounter any non blocking bug or additional task add it in `Do-it-later` list...
If you don't...the bug or task might take majority of crucial time which you should actually utilise for the main task at hand...

So Instagram recently launched 'Threads' as it's standalone messaging app... Although it seems like a bad replica of Snapchat I still liked the minimal messaging interface. Have switched my personal account from main app to threads to improve productivity. Let's see how it turns out to be in the next few days.

Today is the day when writing even 5 lines of code seems like a huge task.
Mainly because I am feeling really drowsy in the middle of the day🥱

Friday: I have done a lot of work this week... Should take rest in the weekend
Saturday: Who needs rest? Let's learn new hobbies, watch movies, play games and have fun🤩
Sunday: I think I will take some rest today...But that series is so cool...
Monday Morning: Why did not I take sufficient rest the whole weekend 🥱🤦🏽‍♂️
Monday Afternoon: Slept for two hours in the office time😑

Programming Lesson #7
TLDR: Beating deadlines is difficult
Long version:
There is no easy way to give an estimation or deadline for a particular development task. Sometimes it takes a lot less or often a lot more time to finish a task than estimated deadlines and that's totally fine. Just make sure you have a manager/senior mentor who is well aware of this fact and doesn't scrutinize you regularly for missing deadlines.
I am going to make sure that when I get into a senior management position, I would show understanding and empathy towards my juniors similar to how my seniors show to me currently when I miss deadlines.

!rant
If your manager does not add undue stress on you even if there is a bug in production, then probably you are working for the right company.

Just when I think I have finished all tasks for implementing a feature, there comes along the way a set of additional subtasks blowing the estimated deadlines by a pretty long shot.

With 5 years of programming experience, the only thing I can confidently do without searching online is print `hello world` in four different languages...

TLDR: It's okay to take naps while working from home
Brief:
I feel that there is nothing wrong with taking afternoon naps while working from home. Mainly because after taking rest for a couple of hours my mind is re-energised and I am able to pull off quite a lot of work in much lesser time after waking up and my overall productivity for the day roughly remains same.
This is mainly because if I end up staying awake even when I am tired and sleepy there is not much productive work done even if my number of hours online increase.
And if a company has strict measures set for calculating the number of hour employee stays online while working from home then it will actually reduce overall employee productivity rather than having any kind of actual benefits.

Ideal WFH afternoons...
Listening to the remake of old melodies or other soothing songs while coding without interruptions😌

TLDR: Need for easy to use VR headsets for mobile phones...
Complete story:
There are so many interesting places to explore in this world but sadly the current pandemic situation has brought travel plans to a complete halt. Today I tried watching virtual tours of various cities on YouTube and it felt a bit relaxing.
I was planning to use VR to enhance the experience but it's quite a lot of trouble adjusting my phone in VR headset, controlling playback from my hands when the phone is in the headset.
I wish someone, somewhere would find a way to simplify this problem... Like making mobile-based VR headsets bit easier to use and control while keeping it at affordable to use and allow addition of mobile phones of any sizes...
If someone could actually do this...I think we might have the next groundbreaking startup in the next few years...😄
P.S. Google cardboard VR does not fit this criterion...

Work from home and all is fine for current situation but I still miss working my office. It was a pleasant environment to work, used to meet colleagues, take breaks and engage in fun events. Quite a lot of that is missing right now. Added to that I don't have access to secondary monitor at home and my eyes burn after working for just few hours. It happens sometimes that I would be really in the mood to finish work in afternoon but have to log out to reduce eye strain.It also pretty easy to get distracted at home. I don't like the feeling of being less productive and hope this situation improves soon...

Most of the time staying at home nowadays is simply staring at screens.
Staring at the laptop screen while working
Staring at the phone screen in free time and breaks
And staring at the TV while having lunch/dinner
Eye Opticians are going to get a lot of appointments soon.

TLDR: I don't feel the need to be working at top product companies anymore.
Brief:
The craze to be a developer in top product companies has literally worn off for me in the past few months since I am working from home.
Like if I have to continue this WFH lifestyle it literally won't matter if I am working for a top product company or a startup...
The priority has shifted towards
1. A good team
2. A well-natured and polite manager
3. A flexible working culture which is better suited for remote work
4. And obviously a good salary🤑

Programming insight #4
Even if code is repeating just twice it's still better to add it in a function/submodule and call the function/submodule twice.
In future, if a bug comes in that section it's quicker to fix it at one place than at two different ones thereby reducing the cases of missing unhandled bugs.
TLDR: The lesser the code is repeated the lesser are future bugs in code

Programmer lesson #3
- We can either spend our free time learning about new technologies or building something new out of technologies we already know.
- There is no right or wrong choice between this two and sometimes we even end up doing a mix of both
- Personally I feel it's better to strike a good balance between the two approaches to advance in our field 😄

The best solutions to programming problems come to me mainly when I am away from computer....
especially when taking a dump🙈

This simple task will finish in the next 10 minutes I thought...
4 hours later it is just in workable condition and still needs to be tested for bugs...🥺

It has started raining in my area. Feels so great to work in a cooler and relaxed climate again.

Staying away from social media is quite harder nowadays since it has become quite bad habit. And overcoming this habit is going to take quite a lot of serious efforts and dedication

Programming lesson #8
Nowadays I write tasks for the next day at the end of my shift in the sticky notes app.
That way it's easier to start off for the next day without trying to remember what tasks were remaining from the previous day.
If tasks are greater in number then it's good to go for external task tracking tools. But for me keeping track of just 2-3 tasks is easier by using simple sticky notes app.

So I observed that my screen time was slowly increasing in past few weeks. This was mainly because there wasn't much to do staying at home and I was simply switching between phone and laptop continuously which was increasing my eye strain. Fed up of this never ending cycle I decided yesterday to log out of all social networks and only see all the social updates only once a day.
Let's hope this gradually decreases my screen time and eye strain too...

A note to the team designing recommendations on google ads:
Just because I search for deep learning concepts for personal learning, does not mean I will be purchasing every paid online data science course on the planet.

I either underestimate or overestimate my deadlines...There hasn't been a single time when I have stated deadline in a standup for a feature and finished it on that day...It's either days before deadline or mostly few days or even weeks past it😓

Every solution has a problem
- Ask a developer for a practical example of this quote

I have gotten so used to the copy-paste keyboard short Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V that copying text by right-clicking on mouse felt weird today🤦🏽‍♂️

I was just going hit send on a slack message:
"Issue for this fix is deployed on production"

Just a few moments before I realised my goof up in the text😂

!rant
It's been over a year since I installed elementary OS on my laptop and I still haven't regretted switching from Ubuntu. There were a few issues initially while setting things up but similar issues even used to happen when I was using Ubuntu.
The desktop shell of elementary OS is perfect for my use cases, its easier to switch between virtual desktops and the app bar at the bottom makes it easier for me to transition between my Macbook and Linux based laptop with ease.
The only major issue I found was no proper multi-monitor support.
The closest thing I found to the simplicity of this shell/distro was Zorin OS, although at this point I am just too lazy to try it out.
P.S. Feel free to mention your favourite Linux distro in comments 😁

Finished planned tasks for personal side project early in the morning and overall the day started on a positive note.

Today I spent almost a full hour after office hours debugging my code for an issue only to realise that the local process responsible for live reloading my code did not pick up changes after git branch switch.
So in retrospect, if I had left the bug for the day it would have automatically got fixed tomorrow once my laptop restarted.
But no...I just had to figure out the issue on my own today which wasted a complete hour and I won't get it back 🤦🏽‍♂️

Coming back to work after 3 days long weekend is absolute tiring, why did work start, I was happy doing my side projects in the weekend kind-ish feeling...

Sometimes having no work from office for the day feels like a negative thing.

So I start listening to songs on a local platform in the morning while coding, switch to youtube playlists after lunch and have a developed a habit of switching to yet another platform by evening. It's not just switching genres based on moods and workload anymore but also having preferences between various music streaming platforms. Life is great with so many options available.

Sometimes taking no action is the best course to move forward...
Especially when there is a power cut at home and phone battery reaches below 10%

!rant
Ever had an experience where solution seemed completely illogical, you still go ahead with it and out of sheer surprise, it actually works?
I had one of these experiences today

Programmer lesson #2
First laptop is just like first love...No matter how many others come later...It will always have a special place in our ❤️

Do any of people working on react.js framework have researched how vdom works internally or how fiber is actually implemented?

It took me a month's time to adjust to working in co-working space last year and it took around similar this to adjust to working from home this year. Both working environments have there own pros and cons but somehow we all find a way to continue working.
Don't know what working environment lies ahead of me once this lockdown get's over but I hope I adjust again in similar manner there too :D

I am thinking of taking some random photos and create stop motion videos of desk toys I have at home. Guess it would be pretty fun thing to do during lockdown😄

No one knows when the current pandemic situation will subside...But it's important to be empathetic towards your colleagues and team in this tough times. Every one has their own share of problems and all we can do is at least listen to at least some of them with open minds and little bit of sympathy.

We all complain about bad managers but does anyone here has a really good manager and steps up to take the responsibility of the projects when he/she is on leave?

Github changed the UI on their website today...
What are your views on the revamped design?

Today I don't feel like doing anything...
Don't feel like answering slack on phone...
So leave a notification at the tone...
'Cause today...

Weekends
Before lockdown: Yay...Weekend is here...Time to go for social events, hobby classes and have dinner with friends outside
After lockdown: Yay...Weekend is here...Time to attend social events, hobby classes online and talk with friends on video calls...

I have come to a point in lockdown mode where holiday on a freaking Monday does not excite me anymore 🤦🏽‍♂️

The smaller the code changes the longer the name of PR for the code.
And even more review changes mentioned by the reviewer...

I have totally lost the sense of discipline in work after working from home for the last 9 months.
And there is a lack of contact with people other than immediate family due to new restrictions which is even more frustrating.
I will always be the one preferring to work from coworking spaces than home.
And if anyone wants to bring up the point of reduced travel time then please don't. My office was just 15 minutes away from home via train.

Doing office even when it's vacation day today...
Not because I am a workaholic or there is work pressure from company...
But because I like doing my work as a developer and it's quite peaceful and fun to code for some hours rather than idling around at home figuring out how to kill time especially during this lockdown period...
P.S. Planning to find some time to learn from online tutorials too in the evening 😁

Working from home stupidities...
It's last day before the weekend and I still felt like the weekend is already here. Totally forgot to start off for work while watching web series in the morning.

Engineering days: Wasting the entire semester and studying a few days before exams
Post Engineering days: Wasting the entire day and working just a few hours before the shift ends
Happy Engineers Day everyone😄

Juggling between multiple feature releases is a difficult task but I would choose that anytime over doing no work the entire day.
P.S. Managing each features individual branches is a task in itself too

Yesterday I spent an hour fiddling in network settings trying to figure out why my laptop was not connecting to WiFi.
Giving up on it I started walking away from laptop only to realise the main WiFi adapter was switched off the whole damn time🙈
Moral of the story: Not every issue is a software problem

Stuck in the loop of
...() {
..
..
}
probably for realllly long time

It feels good to jot down tasks for the day in the first 5 minutes of coming to office. I know what needs to be done for the day and what was accomplished the previous day. Also I tend to be on proper track during daily standup. So maintaining a work related TODO list helps a lot.