Developer on Fire
Episode 041 | Dan Dalrymple - The History Coder
When he is not busy coding, Dan Dalrymple is a history professor at Bethel University, a small liberal arts college in West Tennessee. He received his Ph.D. in History from Michigan State University in 2008 with an emphasis on American, African American, and Caribbean history. He began learning to code in July 2015 a couple of google searches after reading Shawn McGrath's article on kotaku.com on the beautiful source code of Doom 3 (http://kotaku.com/5975610/the-exceptional-beauty-of-doom-3s-source-code). Since making the decision to start coding he has worked in Ruby, Python, and JavaScript and worked through a number of different online resources, books, and tutorials. Dan is currently focusing on JavaScript using a combination of TreeHouse tutorials and Free Code Camp to help him along the way. He writes a daily blog about his experiences learning to code and hopes to be a competent coder within the year. Dan also aspires to be a contributor to the conversation about the ways in which new coders learn, what works, and how best to get started finding your inner programmer.
Chapters:
- - Dave introduces the show and Dan Dalrymple
- - Dan and teaching
- - Getting inspired to learn to code - and to model a passion for learning for students
- - Dan's definition of value
- - Dan's daily blogging methodology and motivation
- - Dan's intentions for coding - process over outcome
- - Quotable quote: "A lot of people say they like learning, but most people like the result of learning."
- - Dan on gaining perspective in becoming the learner with coding after being a teacher of history for a long time
- - The things that "light Dan up"
- - Dan's story of failure, the struggles of the professor as a student
- - Dan's greatest success story, turning around the focus of school and finding a growth mindset
- - Thoughts on pair programming
- - How Dan stays current with what she needs to know
- - Dan's book recommendation
- - The things that have Dan most excited about his present and future
- - The greatest sources of pain in Dan's life and work
- - The things about which Dan likes to geek out apart from software
- - Dan's prediction for the future of software
- - The virtue of the command line
- - Dan's top 3 tips for delivering more value
- - Keeping up with Dan
- - Farewell
Resources:
- Dan's Learning to Code Blog - The History Coder
- Shawn McGrath - The Exceptional Beauty of Doom 3's Source Code
- Treehouse
- Free Code Camp
- Code.org
- Tim Ferriss
- The Tim Ferriss Experiment
- Code.org intro video including Drew Houson (DropBox creator) - "It's the closest thing we have to a super power."
- Darth Vader - "When I left you, I was but the learner. Now I am the master"
- Dave on Small and Large Goals
Dan's book recommendation:
Dan's top 3 tips for delivering more value:
1. Enjoy the process
2. Embrace confusion
3. Forget sunk costs