From the TL;DR in Tech archive, originally sent on Substack. Some links may have died since.

tl;dr in tech by Joe Karlsson - Issue #4

I recently sat down for an interview to discuss my role as a Developer Advocate at SingleStore. We talked about:

1) My mission as a Developer Advocate.

2) Making complex technical content more digestible.

3) Tips for growing technical communities and more

Wanna listen to one of the best playlists I have ever made? It’s music for boppin’ around the Christmas tree, with a mix of totally obscure and timeless Christmas classics.

tl;dr: A common challenge for a leader is expressing themselves effectively when dealing with the poor performance of an employee or team. The key is to convey the feeling, and evoke the right response, so the phrase “I’m disappointed” can be powerful. “It evokes an emotional response in employees, capturing their attention, and mobilizing them to take action, but it does not convey anger or generate distress.”

tl;dr: “Software development teams have a few key characteristics that make them efficient, even at scale:”

1) Specialization of specific roles.

2) Modularization, as problems are broken into chunks.

3) Clarity of ownership.

4) Organizational buy-in that tech debt needs management.

Bryan argues that the structure around data teams is in a different place for each of the above characteristics, and we are at a “tipping point” for this to change.

tl;dr: There are often procedures that need automating. They are focus-intensive yet require little thought. These are a “slog” and can be turned into a “do-nothing script” that “encodes the instructions of a slog, encapsulating each step (that needs to happen) in a function.” Dan provides an example and believes the value is immense

1) it’s easier to power through the slog.

2) It requires less activation energy.

3) It makes future automation easier.

tl;dr: Look at the patterns that come up in these 1:1s to identify what is proving dreadful i.e. how do you speak to each other? What topics do you cover? What’s the timing of your meetings? Which patterns bother you? Then you can reset your 1:1s by “designing your alliance” articulating what each person expects from the relationship, agreeing on how you’ll work together, and being clear about your boundaries. Lara explains in detail.

tl;dr: “How an enduring framework for knowledge-sharing and decision-making helped one team make more informed, egalitarian decisions - and how you can too.”

tl;dr: “This article is my layman’s attempt to sort the basic things out with the minimum words and maximum drawings. The primary focus will be on the Data link layer (OSI L2) of wired networks where the Ethernet is the king nowadays. But I’ll slightly touch upon its neighboring layers too.”

tl;dr: “an advent calendar of small programming puzzles for a variety of skill sets and skill levels that can be solved in any programming language you like.”

tl;dr: “Instead of spending your coffee break scrolling through your social feeds, how about a lovely little website instead? We came across some fantastic ones that are just too good not to be shared. But be warned, your break might take a bit longer than intended.”

tl;dr: An Engineering Fundamentals Checklist checklist by Microsoft to help you with following the most recent best practices around managing code in a software project.

tl;dr: In this post, Josh takes us on a tour of his custom CSS reset. He digs into each rule, and we learn what it does and why we might want to use it!