fuzzygroup

No. While there has always been corruption, this is a different order of magnitude.

No. Large numbers of Americans aren't. Corruption and abuse of power is why we we have millions of people protesting. It may not be covered on the mainstream news but I was on the ground in Chicago where I easily saw a quarter of a million protestors. New York, Los Angeles and other big cities had similar numbers.

I have three techniques that never seem to fail for me in increasing order of complexity.

1. Write a blog post about it. I'm an old school blogger and my best learning tool is to immediately start writing about it. I'll do this even before I've used the thing in question. Another writer here talks about producing versus consuming and that's the magic -- this shifts you immediately into being a producer. Most things you try and learn aren't that hard when you start actively engaging with the topic by writing about them.

2. Write test coverage. If it is a software technology then I'll start to use it by writing out the tests needed to use it. I find tests always make software technologies much more understandable because, inherently, they force you to think very atomically.

3. If I really, really want to understand something in depth then I'll create a side project about it or that requires it. Just for example I'm currently doing this as a way to force myself to build better web apps. I've chosen HotWrite and Turbo as enabling technologies and now I've got the core of a neat little app that avoids full screen redraws, uses CSS I actually understand and so on.

This is utterly fantastic and you are to be commended for your Crazy Mad Scientist genius!

Yes they should absolutely be banned.

This is a fantastic podcast. I'd recommend it for any developer. Thank you Adam.

2 and 3 along with constantly building side projects. you build enough side projects, to completion, and you get much, much better.

One of my side projects even got venture funding (and not in 2021 when things were overheated -- back in 2003).

I'm a very, very happy HogBay customer. Two comments: the product is high quality and the support is outstanding. Recommended.

I find the lack of string interpolation to be the one thing that kills me about javascript. The lack of it feels wrong and I can't get behind languages that don't have easy interpolation.

Yes Ruby has ruined me.

Amen!