Hope things are better now. Yes, this is totally understandable. Coping with a new baby is difficult, but any other complication just makes it super difficult.
But its a real thing - both peer pressure and the pressure of your own expectations.
So the post is definitely worth pondering over and not to be discarded.
I have reviewed multiple intern resumes in the past year and for sure anyone having a solid contribution graph on github would only have stepped up in the shortlist.
So to be dismissive about this issue is just not right.
A bit off-topic here, but still related I guess. I have a 1 year old daughter and I keep wondering what would be the right time to introduce her to computers and programming in the future?
I have always thought that she should spend time reading books, playing in the backyard and lego before she delves into computers.
Have any other programmer parents thought about this as well? Or any other experiences on how they introduced programming to their kids?
On an unrelated note, sad to see altdevblogaday has gone away :( Sure the pages are cached somewhere, but the posts always made for interesting reading.
Its amazing how we think the grass is greener. I have been doing systems programming for the past 7 years and have been thinking about moving over to JS based web development for the past few months.
Making sure that the financial needs of your loved ones are met if you do depart in a sudden manner, is the most selfless thing you can do. It has nothing to do about making you feel happy, it has everything to do with being pragmatic so that they have one less thing to worry about.
Every Saturday, I would step out to do grocery at 10:00am and tune into 88.5FM KQED which would be playing 'Car Talk'. I instantly warmed to the humor and banter the hosts expressed. They were top notch diagnostics as well. No doubt about it, Tom will be deeply missed. RIP.
I think what I really miss is reading web pages which were truly written from the heart. I remember even as far as back in 2005, for a search like "unrequited love", Google's top hit would be a link to a physics Phd's home page who had written about his multiple experiences of being declared 'just a friend' and how to get past being rejected over and over again.
Jump to today and the Google search yields following the obvious wikipedia link, is a whole bunch of wikihow, nytimes, urban dictionary and youtube links.
Those personal web pages with an intellectually rich content have just been lost to the dark internet.