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An insight into how I “learn”. I have a 25 mile commute to work. Due to the vagaries of the traffic, it takes between an hour and an hour and a quarter. That’s as much as 2 1/2 hours a day in the car. I fill that time by choosing to listen to a combination of the radio and podcasts. One of which I listen to on a regular basis is Full Stack Radio [fullstackradio.com] in which Adam Wathan [twitter.com] “interviews” (Although I think has an insightful chat is a better description - and in my opinion, that’s to Adam’s credit) In episode 23 [fullstackradio.com], he interviews Chris Hunt, an employee of Github, who introduced me to a couple of really cool sounding ideas (Including jealousy over tricks to solve Rubik’s cubes blindfolded [chrishunt.co - embedded YouTube video].) 2 of those resonated enough with me to blog. These were:
- The Codecation [robots.thoughtbot.com]
- How Github use pull requests (PR’s) [github.com]
I’ll go into item 2) in a separate blog post as I feel it warrants it own post, but 1) inspired a more interesting thought conception, which I think makes a very powerful piece, particularly for developers who are keen to learn but don’t always have the time (or work/life balance) to be able to do “other code”.
The codcation
I can’t explain the codcation any more concisely than Chris' codecation buddy Ben does on the thoughtfulbot.com link mentioned above so I’m quoting it verbatum below:
How to take a codecation
- Find someone you really like or want to know better.
- Choose somewhere you both want to go.
- Go there, but spend most of your time writing code.
- Ship something.
[https://robots.thoughtbot.com/you-should-take-a-codecation]
This sounds like an awesome idea. Several of my colleagues and I at work have often spoken about doing something like that over a long weekend somewhere when our respective partners won’t mind us disappearing for a weekend. So I hear by say at some point within the next year that’s what I’m going to do. A Codecation. Not entirely sure who with/when, but I have ideas on what to learn or to ship (Outline ideas at any rate). I will definitely keep people apprised of what I am doing to do when, and obviously any product or service that comes out of it will also be announced, probably with my usual rush of enthusiasm, only to be forgotten a month later, we’ll have to see. My only stipulation will be, whatever I do my codecation in, it can’t be Drupal based. Write up to follow, and comments as always welcome.
Coincidentally (I can’t remember which way round I discovered the podcasts) but Adam works for a company called Tighten with another Podcaster I quite like Matt Stauffer [twitter.com]. Matt runs the 5 minute geek show [twitter.com] - which deserves a shout out if only for involving family members in the show and is worth a listen. I will see if there is an easy way to publish the podcasts I listen to or have subscriptions to via pocketcasts (My chosen podcasting service). If not I’ll have to manually maintain a list of my regular listens (as it updates constantly).