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Speaking: ACCU 2015

Pete Goodliffe from Pete Goodliffe

I'm pleased to announce that I'll be delivering the opening keynote at the awesome ACCU 2015 developer conference in Bristol this April. The talk is called "Becoming a Better Programmer" (it's no coincidence that this is the same title as my new book and my magazine column).

I'm really looking forward to it. I think it'll be great fun and, hopefully, really useful.

The session synopsis is:
You've come this conference to improve your skills. You're here to learn: to learn new technologies, to learn new techniques, and to fuel your passion by meeting like-minded people. 
Becoming a better programmer means more than just learning new technologies. It means more than practising techniques and idioms. It's about more than passion and attitude. It's the combination of all these things. That's what this session will look at. 
Pete Goodliffe, author of the new book Becoming a Better Programmer, unpacks important mindsets and techniques that will help you improve as a programmer.
You'll discover specific tools that will help you review your current skillset, and you'll learn techniques to help you “become a better programmer”.

More info about my session is available here.
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Videos: MPC Sneak Peeks

Pete Goodliffe from Pete Goodliffe

In my day job I am the software lead for Akai's MPC product line. This is a product I'm immensely proud of, and I'm very proud of the the work the software team puts into this iconic music controller.

Over the last few months we've been producing in-house videos for the new releases we've been baking here at Akai towers.

We recently released the latest in this series for the 1.8.2 update. Check it out on YouTube here:

MPCv1.8.2 sneak peek

If you fancy seeing the whole set, we have also produced videos for:

The more recent of these have been shot completely in-house; I purchased a Canon 70D and some lights, and rigged up a Heath Robinson autocue. It's all shot in our development offices. Usually unnecessarily late into the night.

We love creating these videos, and connecting directly with the passionate MPC users.
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Writing: Coders Causing Conflict

Pete Goodliffe from Pete Goodliffe

My latest Becoming a Better Programmer column is published in the March issue of C Vu magazine (27.1). It's called Coders Causing Conflict and investigates how "conflict" can be a driving force for good in software development. It's quite an interesting topic, and one worth thinking about.

I realise that I failed to announce my previous few C Vu columns here. So, as a recap:
  • In January (C Vu 26.6) I published Advice for the Young at Heart, considering how to give career advice to new programmers.
  • In November 2014 (C Vu 26.5) I published Playing by the Rules which looks at developing "tribal rules" for your development team to help it work most effectively.

C Vu is a magazine produced by the ACCU - an excellent organisation for programmers. It has a great community, great publications, and an awesome conference. Check it out.
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Writing: Becoming a Better Programmer

Pete Goodliffe from Pete Goodliffe


It's finally here!

My new book, Becoming a Better Programmer, is fully edited, laid out, and is now available as a final product for your reading pleasure, published by O'Reilly. You can purchase it in printed form or as a digital version for your e-reader of choice.

Find out more about the book from the O'Reilly product page. You can view the full table of contents there. Or head over to Amazon to purchase. If you are a Safari subscriber, you can read it here. Grab your iBook here.

The cover image is a flying fish. I'll leave it to your imagination to work out the significance.

It's great to finally see this labour of love come to fruition, and I do hope that stands as a useful resource for programmers today.

One of my favourite parts of the book is a family in-joke in the "advance praise" at the front. Nestled amongst the luminaries and expert programmers who graciously contributed their honest thoughts on the book is another very honest opinion:


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Writing: Testing Times

Pete Goodliffe from Pete Goodliffe

My latest Becoming a Better Programmer column is published in the September issue of C Vu magazine (26.4). It called Testing Times and surveys the world of developer testing, covering the what, why, and how of programmer-driven testing. We look at feedback loops, TDD, unit testing, integration testing, system testing and more.

C Vu is a magazine produced by the ACCU - an excellent organisation for programmers. It has a great community, great publications, and an awesome conference. Check it out.

Meanwhile, my book: Becoming a Better Programmer, is nearing print. It's gone through tech review, copy edit, and layout is almost complete. You can still access the early release at http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920033929.do.
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Really useful Xcode plugins

Pete Goodliffe from Pete Goodliffe

I'm a happy Xcode user, mainly using it for C++ programming. It's a relatively nice IDE (except for when I need to break out the big guns and fire up Vim for heavy lifting).

There are a few plugins that make it an even nicer IDE.

This is as much a note to myself as anyone else.

Backlight
One of the plugins that highlights the current cursor line. I have no idea why Xcode still doesn't do this by default.
https://github.com/limejelly/Backlight-for-XCode

Fuzzy Autocomplete
Makes autocomplete work on steroids, like the Open Quickly fuzzy matching. Nice.
https://github.com/FuzzyAutocomplete/FuzzyAutocompletePlugin

SCXcodeMiniMap
Puts a wee "mini map" beside your scrollbar. Can be useful if you write insane unnavigable source files. (Hint: aim for code that doesn't need it)
https://github.com/stefanceriu/SCXcodeMiniMap

BBUDebuggerTuckAway
Hides the debugger view as soon as you start typing into the editor. Handy. Saves a common keystroke.
https://github.com/neonichu/BBUDebuggerTuckAway

AdjustFontSize
Quite keyboard shortcut for adjust font sizes. Useful as I switch between a retina display and various monitor sizes depending on where I'm working.
https://github.com/zats/AdjustFontSize-Xcode-Plugin

BlockJump
CTRL-] and [ navigate up and down by block.
https://github.com/tyeen/BlockJump

Xcode4_beginning_of_line
Command + left arrow goes to the first non whitespace character, like any sane editor should.
https://github.com/insanehunter/XCode4_beginning_of_line

XAlign
One i'm just trying out. I find this kind of alignment can help reveal code intent, although it adds extra work to maintain. So let's make the computer do the work. Command-shift-X
https://github.com/qfish/XAlign
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Writing: Becoming a Better Programmer

Pete Goodliffe from Pete Goodliffe

I am delighted to announce that I have signed a contract to publish my latest book, Becoming a Better Programmer with the excellent folks at O'Reilly.

You can find out more about the book from it's catalogue page at http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920033929.do.

We have now made an early access version available with a number of the chapters. It's already looking excellent, and I can't wait to get the final version out.
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Speaking: Words in Code

Pete Goodliffe from Pete Goodliffe

The slides from my ACCU 2014 talk, Words in Code, are available on SlideShare, from http://www.slideshare.net/petegoodliffe/words-in-code.

Here's the synopsis:

As software developers we do not just write code. We write many, many words too.

We write documentation, comments, manuals, specifications, technical articles, wiki documentation, and more. Maybe even magazine articles and books.

This talk discusses some practicalities of writing well, both stylistically and practically. We'll talk about prose, but also about the right "geek" way of writing, the storage formats, toolchains, and the storage of our words.

We'll cover:
- writing style
- what's appropriate: what to write what not to write
- keeping track: "source control" for words
- toolchains: what toolsets to use to write and prepare output
- markup languages vs "wysiwyg" tools
- sharing your words with non-geeks

At the end of this talk, you'll have a good idea how to put together an example "document toolchain" taking source-controlled words in a humane markup style, and creating high-quality HTML, PDF (fully styled, print-ready) ePub and Kindle output, as well as Word-friendly versions.
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New Book: Becoming a Better Programmer

Pete Goodliffe from Pete Goodliffe

After many years of gestation my latest book is available for purchase as an early-access pre-release.

Called Becoming a Better Programmer, it is a handbook for people who are about code.

This early access edition already contains 14 chapters, and there are many more coming. There is a free "sample" version available so you get a taster of what you'll be purchasing.

As a pre-release, it's available at an introductory price. The price will go steadily upwards as the book nears completion. Buy now to enjoy the best value! (That's the sales pitch - I suck at that kind of thing.)

Get it from gum.co/becomingbetter. Join the book discussion here: moot.it/becomingbetter.

It would genuinely love to hear any feedback, praise or criticism that will help improve the book. Suggestions for topics to cover are also of real interest.

My honest hope is that this book does just what it says on the cover: helps many developers improve their skills, to become more productive programmers.

Buy it now!