"I Don't Understand" Debugging

My definition of “I don’t understand” debugging. ...

February 13, 2025 · 3 min · Jake Worth

How to Start a Meetup Group (Lessons from Running One for 10 Years)

I’ve been organizing Meetups for a decade, starting with Vim Chicago and Chicago Elixir, and now running Maine JS from Portland, Maine. In honor of our most recent Meetup, here’s my practical guide on how to start a Meetup group, based on what’s worked for me. ...

February 3, 2025 · 4 min · Jake Worth

My Annual Review 2024

Here’s my annual review covering 2024. ...

December 31, 2024 · 3 min · Jake Worth

Hard-Won Software Development Habits

This post is about how to write software well. It was inspired by this post with a similar title. Read it and write yours. ...

November 27, 2024 · 4 min · Jake Worth

Ship Earlier to Learn What Matters

TONY: We should take this outside. ...

November 24, 2024 · 2 min · Jake Worth

Being the Third Engineer

I was the third engineer hired by my company, not counting our technical co-founder. I like that position, and it seems to play to my strengths. ...

October 16, 2024 · 3 min · Jake Worth

Getting Comfortable With Discomfort in Software Engineering

Today I’d like to talk about a quality that’s essential to success as a computer programmer. Let’s call it “comfort with discomfort.” As programmers, we live in this unsettling space. Here are some thoughts on discomfort and tips for dealing with it skillfully. ...

September 3, 2024 · 4 min · Jake Worth

Decoupling Design From Engineering

Often, when you work as an engineer on a small team, you don’t have dedicated designers on staff. How can you deliver beautiful, intuitive software without designers? Here’s a trick that helps me: decoupling my design work from my engineering work. ...

August 29, 2024 · 3 min · Jake Worth

The Secret to Being a 10x Engineer

Our industry has a concept of “10x engineers”, individual contributors who have the impact of ten colleagues. How can you become one? I’ll try to answer that in this post. ...

July 26, 2024 · 3 min · Jake Worth

Find Every Debugging Trail Marker

If you’ve ever watched me debug, you might think I’m moving slowly. That’s because I try hard to find every marker on the debugging trail. I believe this is one of the most valuable skills in debugging. ...

June 17, 2024 · 5 min · Jake Worth