Understanding AWK

awk is powerful, and standard on all unix flavors. Its syntax is not immediately obvious. Adam Gordon Bell wrote an excellent tutorial on how to get started and write increasingly useful awk programs. I particularly found the summary boxes with “What I learned” at the end of each section. They serve to cement the knowledge, and quick reference when coming back to the tutorial later.

How We Got to LiveView

Chris McCord, maintainer of Elixir’s Phoenix framework explains how LiveView came to be, and why it leans on the features of the BEAM (which powers Elixir). I am continue to be excited about the feature for Elixir and Phoenix.

The Two Types of Knowledge: The Max Planck/Chauffeur Test

The anecdote in this post is cute. It is funny because the chauffeur is quick-witted. The point is that real understanding about a topic, is more than just knowing the words, or memorizing some of the tenets.

True experts recognize the limits of what they know and what they do not know. If they find themselves outside their circle of competence, they keep quiet or simply say, “I don’t know.”