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Charting Our Course

Charting Our Course

by James Edward Gray II (JEG2)

$12
$12
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The limit to what we can accomplish as programmers is very often what we can manage to think about.  Ever wonder how your heroes seem to be able to track endless details?  How do they know what matters and what can safely be ignored?  What superpower do they have and will you need to be bitten by a radioactive spider to get it?

In this installment from How to Train Your Scrappy Programmer, we will dive into strategies for programming our brains before our computers.  Topics covered are:

  • A picture is worth 1,000 LoC (Lines of Code)
  • Automated chart drawing
  • The power of translating problems to multiple different domains
  • A middle school math refresher (with minimal pain)
  • Skipping work with binary search  

No one can teach you your specific problem.  You have to use the tools you have to teach it to yourself.  This interactive guide can help take what seems to be an unscalable mountain and show you how to map out the paths to the top.

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Purchase Bundled with Four Other Chapters

Who Is This For?

This lesson is intended for any programmer who swoons at the sight of X and Y axes. This guide has light references to some topics covered in previous guides. It is assumed that the reader will be comfortable with the use of Kino inputs, Stream iterators, and simple parsing.

Expert level knowledge is not required. The free sample includes a code test that will help you decide if you are ready for this content. For those who aren't, links to free guides are included to help get you up to speed.

* This product requires a Livebook installation. There's a free desktop app for macOS and Windows.

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Try Before You Buy

A free sample is available that includes simple installation instructions, the table of contents, an introduction, one complete guide, a conclusion, and the occasional joke or two. Almost all code samples in the guide are written in the Elixir programming language, but know that this is an interactive environment where you can run, edit, and rerun all the code you see inline and view the results live. You are strongly encouraged to explore this sample to see if this content is right for you.

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About the Author

James has been a developer and manager of developers for around two decades. In both roles, teaching programming has always been a big focus of his work. James cares deeply about design, practical examples, visualization of algorithms, and how to train fluency.

James co-wrote Designing Elixir Systems with OTP with Bruce Tate, who's one heck of a nice guy. He has been a prominent member of the Elixir and Ruby communities, delivering books, documentation, and numerous conference talks. He has trained programmers all over the world.

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