The Beginning

I'm going to challenge myself to learn three things every day. They can be small things like the meaning of a new word or bigger things like a whole new concept, or maybe how to make something, or a new cooking technique or just cementing a concept. So what are today's new things?

1. JavaScript and NaN

JavaScript has so many gems. Consider the following:

var x = NaN;
var y = x === x;

So what is y? Is it true or false? Spoiler (highlight area to read): It's false. I knew what NaN === NaN would give but then I wondered whether using a variable would make a difference? For instance, {} === {} is false, but what is y in the following?

var x = {};
var y = x === x;

In this case what is y? Spoiler: It's true.

2. The Importance of Companies Showing They Care

Yesterday, I finished off the Thinkful Modern Web Design course, and today I had my exit interview. The exit interview was for me to give feedback on the course. Someone taking the time to ask me what I thought of the course, to listen to my feedback and to show appreciation of the feedback, harsh as it was, gave me a very positive view of the company and whether their courses are worth taking. (My mentor was amazing, but I think the course itself needs some work. Given that someone took the time to personally gather feedback by meeting with me, I am confident that Thinkful takes feedback seriously and will actively work towards improving their courses.) For me, this cements the idea that it doesn't matter what a company might say about caring, what really matters to me as a consumer of their services is the action. They showed me they care.

3. Software Engineering Myths

I thought that the 10x engineer term that I've heard a lot recently was just a trendy over-the-top description that didn't mean anything. I found out today that it is based on data from the 1970s, a whole different world in computing. I can imagine that maybe back then, it could be true that one programmer was 10x better than some other since there was no Google, no easy way to look things up, no quick cycle to test and correct your code, and it could even take a day to see if your code runs properly.