Start your project right and reap the rewards for years — Python is a superb language used for everything from building websites to doing complex scientific research. But getting your project set up can be a challenge. That’s where this guide comes in! In this article, we’ll show you how to organize your project, set up virtual environments, manage dependencies, format…

Tools I use that are cheaper than Netflix — I care a lot about the tools I use. Especially when they aren’t free. Some tools are too good to keep to myself. I have to share them! Here’s what I’ve spent my money on in 2022–23 that has genuinely improved my life as a software engineer. Please note: None…

Top 0.2% of solutions — This is an easy LeetCode problem (source). Jump to the solutions ↓ Given an array of integers nums and an integer target, return indices of the two numbers such that they add up to target. You may assume that each input would have exactly one solution, and you may not…

SOLID refactors, easy debugging, and practicality — Can you really refactor a module without breaking downstream dependencies? Is it possible to track down every last place a value gets updated? As your code evolves, you need to refactor logic written days, weeks, or years ago. Python makes it easy to refactor without breaking existing APIs. Keeping in…

Top 0.7% of submissions — This is an easy LeetCode problem Implement a first in first out (FIFO) queue using only two stacks. The implemented queue should support all the functions of a normal queue (push, peek, pop, and empty). Implement the MyQueue class: void push(int x) Pushes element x to the back of the…

Run better code reviews as a senior engineer — Good code reviews are fast and thorough. Reviewing code is a core part of the job. And one of the hardest parts. We, engineers, put a lot of focus on our own productivity and effectiveness, while very little attention is usually paid to the queue of PRs that can pile…

What I wish I knew when I started writing Go — I started writing Go professionally in 2018. Here’s what I wish I could tell myself when I started. Go is pass-by-value Go is exclusively pass-by-value. That means each function receives a copy of the value of what you passed in. No exceptions. Sort of. You can pass pointers, too (you’re technically passing the…

When you get it right, you’ll never go back. — I’ve worked on dozens of projects ranging in size from the common 1–2 dev side project to full-scale enterprise applications. Monorepo architecture is a popular approach that can be intimidating at first but is a surprisingly powerful tool. (As an aside, Medium uses a monorepo for all of its product…

Git is a powerful tool that feels great to use when you know how to use it. — I’ve used these features of Git for years across teams and projects. I’m still developing opinions around some workflows (like to squash or not) but the core tooling is powerful and flexible (and scriptable!). Going through Git logs Git logs are gross to go through out of the box. git log is basic Using git log gives you…