“Wonder is the desire of knowledge.”

“Wonder is the desire of knowledge.”

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Breaking down Unicode characters encoded in UTF-8

Breaking down Unicode characters encoded in UTF-8

Lately, I have been doing a lot of work with UTF-8 character conversions. I spent a good deal of time scratching my head trying to figure out how to convert database tables encoded in a latin1 charset with UTF-8 encoded data to a UTF-8 charset. I ended up accomplishing this by following the method described here:Converting Database Character Sets « WordPress CodexEssentially, you convert all text…

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The shared courtyard never gets swept

The shared courtyard never gets swept

“With DevOps, quality becomes everybody’s concern. In theory, that’s great news. However, there’s a great Chinese proverb which translates to “The shared courtyard never gets swept”. If something is everybody’s problem, then it’s really no one’s problem. And therein lies the danger.”

…

“DevOps is a worthy path to bring the whole business into making better software quicker, and one of the keys to…

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Pragmatic Programmers get the job done, and do it well.

Pragmatic Programmers get the job done, and do it well.

“Programming is a craft. At its simplest, it comes down to getting a computer to do what you want it to do (or what your user wants it to do). As a programmer, you are part listener, part advisor, part interpreter, and part dictator. You try to capture elusive requirements and find a way of expressing them so that a mere machine can do them justice. You try to document your work so that others…

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"Make People Awesome"

“Make People Awesome”

“When we say “make people awesome,” some people think we mean “make people feel really great” instead of “give people the ability to do great things.”  I mean the latter. If I meant “make people feel great” I would say “make people feel awesome” and would not bother with actually creating any enablement. Feelings matter, but there is more to this than feelings.”

― Feeling Safe [Tim Ottinge]

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“Any improvements made anywhere besides the bottleneck are an illusion.”

“Any improvements made anywhere besides the bottleneck are an illusion. Astonishing, but true! Any improvement made after the bottleneck is useless because it will always remain starved, waiting for the work from the bottleneck. And any improvements made before the bottleneck merely results in more inventory piling up at the bottleneck.  ” ― Gene Kim, The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT,…

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Can Emotional Intelligence Be Learned?

“FOR AGES, PEOPLE HAVE DEBATED if leaders are born or made. So too goes the debate about emotional intelligence. Are people born with certain levels of empathy, for example, or do they acquire empathy as a result of life’s experiences? The answer is both. Scientific inquiry strongly suggests that there is a genetic component to emotional intelligence. Psychological and developmental research…

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A skill that can make you be seen as less than what you are

Being able to program is one of the few skills that can make you be seen as less than what you are. I have been a product manager, project manager, SCRUM master and product owner, usability and requirements engineer and plenty of other things. I can interview users and design user interfaces, I can lead and coach teams, manage deadlines and set up projects. I’ve done all those things, and I’ve…

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The Costs of Failing Are Great

The Costs of Failing Are Great

How do you build a team that trusts each other to speak their mind and take risks?

How do you make it possible for the team to engage in passionate and sometimes emotional debate, knowing that they will not be punished for saying something that might otherwise be interpreted as destructive or critical?

Establish vulnerability-based trust.

“Teams that lack trust waste inordinate amounts of time…

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“If you want to attract and keep developers, don’t emphasize ping-pong tables, lounges, fire pits and chocolate fountains. Give them private offices or let them work from home, because uninte…