Articles for category: Growth

2 hours ago

Greg Thomas

The Skills You Need

In the AI era of development, you might not need to know every single development framework under the sun. But you should still know the ones you are asking AI to build – afterall – whose going to be fixing the bugs? Problem identification has, and always will be, important and will never go out of style. Being able to look at an issue and break it down – “this is important but not urgent” is a skill many lack. Debugging is going to be the #1 skill of any developer – how quickly and efficiently can you diagnose an

Plan Forward

It seems odd: a Plan that moves you forward. But sometimes, it bears reminding – plans are built to move the team forward, to show progress, delivery, and success. They are meant to deliver. If your plan doesn’t move forward, what is it moving to?

The Frenetic Developer

Fast, energetic, and Wild in an Uncontrolled way – that is Frenetic. It sounds like a great word, but when I think of it, I think of rubber balls bouncing off the wall in a completely uncoordinated fashion. It looks like lots is getting done; it feels like process, but what it is is just movement with no goal directed from it. There is no point in trying to “Out-Prompt” someone; there is no value, there is no purpose. With AI and immediate development, we’re moving, not inching, but full on moving, towards a continued world of Frenetic Development where

1 week ago

Greg Thomas

The Flea Market

There is a Flea Market near where I live. Growing up, it was huge, drawing big crowds every weekend, and it was a “thing” to go to it. It’s since shrunk down and gotten shuttled to the side, but it still survived for many years. And now word that it is shutting down completely. There are lots of videos about “amazing finds” at flea markets – I’ve always liked them for the oddities and all the memories you can find when going through old treasures of years gone by. It’s a hard thing to keep going when your climate is

2 weeks ago

Greg Thomas

The Author’s Notes

I never used to read the author’s notes before getting into a book – “Who cared what the person thought when they were writing this masterpiece? Get me to good stuff and let me know how it ends… SHOW ME THAT CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT”. But more and more, I’m fascinated by them in understanding what someone went through in creating this piece of art. Starting a new book today, from 1986, the author had about 10 pages of notes walking you through thought processes and how this book was their first idea but then they needed a prequel (and oddly enough