Notes for my talk at Engineers4Engineers at Constant Contact on 6/28/13.

gistfile1.txt

My name is Ben Orenstein and I work at thoughtbot in Boston.

Notes will be published. 

I'd like to tell you a story. (5:42)
  I've never talked about this publicly.
  Umass.
  Second job.
    Version control.
  Successful since then.
  Why this story?
    People love embarrassing. Not about them.
    I'm sharing stuff that I learned the hard way because I used to suck at it.

Admit instantly when you don't understand. (4 mins)
  How many people have pretended to understand a coworker?
  We are a brain-powered profession.
  Soccer team vs engineering team.
  Smart and gets things done.
  Bad: you've lied.
    Nothing builds a relationship like honesty.
  Worse: you've missed an opportunity to address your ignorance.
    You've chosen to create the temporary impression that you know something,
    rather than learning it and knowing it permanently!
  Please promise to do this.
  Do this especially when it's embarrassing.
  People who mock you are their own problem.
  I have learned so much by following this rule.

Be intolerant of extra typing
  Everything you type is a waste of time
  What does this do?
  history | awk '{a[$2]++}END{for(i in a){print a[i] " " i}}' | sort -rn | head
  "I work on too many servers"
  Walk through some aliases

Divide and conquer.
  If a todo item gives you anxiety, it's too broad
  We break up user stories.
  Pretty sure this strategy would have kept me in school.

Keep a tool-sharpening list.
  Show mine. <Leader>pn
  Spend 5 minutes in the morning fixing something.
  Cultivate the habit.

Ask for more money. (started at 19:15)
  How many people wish they were paid more?
  How many people have asked in the last 6 months to be paid more?
  If you think you're underpaid you are correct. 
  Talk to your coworkers about how much they make.
  The taboo hurts you.
  US govt agrees with me.

Relativenumber
  Moving 
  Deleting
  Indenting
  + and -
  Reset with C-o if you screw up to train muscle memory.
  
Respect your body.
  Brain Rules
  Exercise MAKES YOU SMARTER.
  Stand. Check feet alignment. Racecar analogy.
  Skin fold squat test
  Standing desk
  Your best position is your next position
  Check out mobilitywod.com

Guard your attention. 
  How many people work better when they're free of distractions?
  How many people have some sort of chat or instant message program open all day?
  How many people keep their email open in a tab all day?
    "I have to have it open all day" - No you don't. Be undeniably effective
    and you can get away with almost anything.
    I know that's true because I have been INEFFECTIVE and gotten away with a lot.

Learn to type
  Programming IS typing.
  What % of your programming time do you NOT have you hands on the keyboard?
  Making code look how you want is wasted time.
  Typeracer demo.

Save your money.
  Assumptions
    No net worth today
    5% after inflation
    4% withdrawl rate (your $ lasts forever)
  US Savings rate at 3.7%

How to avoid technical debt.
  Microcleans.
  Boyscout rule.

Wow, looks like that was a great talk!

In some cases, since so many commands are already short, it may be worthwhile to see the first parameter passed to the command to alias both (ex: git commit).

Something like:

history | awk '{a[$2 " " $3]++}END{for(i in a){print a[i] " " i}}' | sort -rn | head