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Jan 29th, 2016

12. The Zen of Programming

John K. Paul

Champagne

  • Programming is the optimization of the learning process. It is not any particular technology.
  • Frustration is a part of the job. I remember looking at a bug and being pissed off. Now I look at a bug and think "That's a bug. ". I call it The Zen of Programming, that I feel we all eventually get to, and we all need to be talking about more, such that people get comfortable that they're not there and that's OK.
  • I think that we are all culturally programmed to assume that '...going into management means forgetting what life is like and not caring about anything but deadlines.'... Do I still have every bit of the same urge to over engineer? 'Hell yeah I do!'.
  • The reason why human beings, post agricultural revolution, specialized is because specialization is good.

About the Guest

  • John K. Paul is the CTO of InRhythm.
  • He was the VP of Engineering at Penton Media
  • He was the VP of Engineering at Avagen Ventures
  • He was a Lead Technical Architect at Conde Nast
  • He was a Client Side Architect at Happify
  • He was the VP of Development at 76Hudson
  • He was a Lead Front End Software Engineer at TheLadders.com
  • He is an avid speaker with dozens of talks under his belt.
  • He was a keynote speaker at jQuery conference in 2014.
  • He has been doing Duolingo for over 735 days in a row!