Technology Intelligence

Technology intelligence is the best way to stay sharp and aware of what’s going on in your fields of interest. By being open to new content you explore knowledge that may be helpful down the road. When facing new challenges you may recall reading a blog post about a similar one.

As a lead developer, I’ve seen junior developers trying to learn new skills in the wrong way. Trying to learn a new language every month is not a strategic move. You’ll be generic. You’ll be an Expert beginner, an expert in trying new things, an expert in not getting deeper understanding.

What I advise is to master a stack that allows you to deliver features fast. The web development stack requires you to know a server-side language, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and a Database (I would advise an SQL based DB).

I advise choosing battle-tested languages and framework. If they have been here for a decade and are still active, chances are that they will still be here for another decade.

Once you master your chosen stack build on top explore: testing, learn best practices, design patterns, architecture, performance troubleshooting, continuous integration, continuous delivery, DevOps, monitoring, writing Documentation.

Mastering those new skills you’ll easily be able to replicate your craft on any stack in any language, you’ll bring value to any team. This is not the case when exploring a new language, you just learn to do things you already know differently.

Beware of Hype-driven, you’ll always need to try this new shiny thing, it may be tempting at first, it is a bad bet in the long rung. You’ll have a hard time maintaining a project that uses libraries requiring constant updates and handling deprecation. Hype-driven libraries grow and disappear rapidly.

How to do it?

It is a practice that requires dedication, it takes time, practice. There is no tutorial, this is not generic. It is tailored to your current needs. It must be adapted to your current skills and help you get new ones.

There are few things to keep in mind:

• Your sources will evolve as your skills evolve.
• Don’t crawl through sources, select a few good ones, and start with that.
• The information must come to you, use an RSS reader to be notified of articles

My sources

I use a mix of different mediums, there is one medium that requires specific treatment: Books.

Here are my main sources

RSS wikipedia

Here is the list of technical blog I follow using Feedly

Mailing lists

There is only one technical mailing list I read every week, it is RubyWeekly

Podcasts

I select the episode I want to listen to based on the title. I don’t listen to all of them.

• Remote ruby
• Rails with jason
• Ruby rogues
• Ruby on rails podcast
• build your SASS (by transistor fm makers)
• full stack radio (by adam watham)
• founder quest (by honeybadger makers
• maintainable
• indiehackers

Videos

The screen casts I follow are:

• GoRails
• Drifting ruby

• Tailwindcss

  I select some videos from the following conferences

• Railsconf

• Rubyconf

  To find conferences about specific programming subjects, I use Confreaks.tv

MOOC

I don’t use them much, it is hard to keep up and consume it all.

There is one I recommend Master the Object-Oriented Mindset in Ruby and Rails by Avdi Grimm

Twitter

I almost use twitter daily but I can’t recommend it for the technology Intelligence. Every time I notice something interesting on twitter it is also delivered through newsletter or RSS flux.