A gRPC primer from a non-gRPC dev

I keep hearing about gRPC those days; not sure if the existing trend is soaring or it is a coincidence. In any case, as I have never dug to the concept, I thought it is a good time to do so. High-level view of gRPC gRPC is an RPC framework, created by Google. Interestingly enough, the initial “g” stands for “general (purpose)” and not for “google”. So gRPC is an RPC framework that can be used in any kind of situation where an RPC style communication is required. Continue reading

Git Bisect, the Undervalued Debugging Machine Gun

Git bisect is a fantastic tool that could make debugging a breeze. Yet, very few people use it actively. In this quick article, I will showcase how git bisect can point out the where your bug cause lies, fairly fast. But first, lets talk about… Delta debugging Delta debugging is a process where you do many steps and in each one your plan is to eliminate half the “problem”. You can think of it as the binary search of debugging. Continue reading

How to get certified as a professional scrum master, the fast and the slow way

A few months ago, I got the Professional Scrum Master Certification (PSM I). As this is a trending certification nowadays, because most companies operate in some kind of agile methodologies, I would share some tips that helped me get 98% on the first try. I will provide a fast and a slow track. I would urge you to lean more towards the slow track, as the fast track, most of the time, will give you just enough knowledge to pass the certification; but this is totally not enough to solve business day to day team problems with scrum, which is what a big part of what a scrum master does. Continue reading

12 Ways to Keep Up With the Software Trends

I’m getting the question of how to keep up with the trends of the field quite often. So I’m writing this article as an answer to any future questions towards me as a cheat sheet because I am getting older and you never know :) For ease of future reference, I will separate them in time-based categories. Those categories will indicate how often you need to check up on the resource. Continue reading

30 Tips for Software Engineering Careers, After 30 Years of Life

I turned 30, a few days ago. An interesting decade, where I did and learned a lot of things came to an end. I tend to keep track of such “life lessons”, so I thought it would be a good idea to publicize the most related to our work life as software engineers. Here we go: 1. Work really hard No one will grant you a promotion, salary increase or a better position for nothing. Continue reading

A Primer on Python Partial Functions

Partial functions are one of the most “terrifying concepts” I hear people talking about. Personally, I think the idea is fairly easy to grasp. That is, I will try to explain in a few paragraphs with python and help you escape the math labyrinth of “official documentation”. What is a partial function Partial functions are a computer science concept where we can derive a function with x parameters to a function with fewer parameters and constant values set for the more limited function. Continue reading

Oh Podcasts, Why Do You Have to Suck

I find podcasts extremely overrated. Yeap, I know this is an extremely selfish and biased opinion, especially given the popularity of this “means of entertainment”. But on the other hand, most things that suck have traction. I can’t recall something that was super ugly and didn’t have fanatic and passionate friends. I will try to explain my view. Bad equipment Too many podcasts have bad equipment. I find it extremely disrespectful and annoying to hear only half of what is discussed, due to low quality microphones. Continue reading