If you can work from home (big if) then you might consider looking into a standing desk + treadmill.
There are some decent options available. The "Autonomous" desk is great, I purchased JUST the legs and use an IKEA top to save money.
Now, I'm looking at the "Treadly" treadmill. Technically, this isn't an "under desk" treadmill, but it's the thinnest treadmill on the market and can be operated without the bars upright. So it's perfect for going under your desk, and then under a bed or a couch when you're not using it.
Uplift[0] also sells treadmills and exercise bikes specifically for standing desks. I purchased one of their desks a few months ago, and while it's a bit spendy, the quality is fantastic. I expect to be using it 15 years from now.
Hey man, I started my career 7 years ago by teaching myself PHP, jQuery, and CSS. First real job was as a "full stack web developer".
I always was in awe of the low level stuff though, so I took every opportunity to move closer and closer to the hardware over the years. I'm now a firmware developer!
Point being, where there's a will there's a way. If you can align some DIVs, you can malloc() some memory and pack bytes efficiently in a struct :) It all comes down to where your interest is.
It has allowed me to work on some very cool robotics, and IoT projects. I've been able to learn a ton in the process about how computers work. Things like having to learn about how our FreeRTOS scheduler works, have been a fun process and provide some insight (albeit not 1:1) on how larger scale OS's work.
I feel like it's also made me a better programmer on the higher level stuff too. Hard to explain why though. It's not the kind of thing that makes obvious sense. It's not like knowing how to efficiently pack bytes into a struct, somehow helps you be a better Scala or iOS developer. That's just not the case. Rather, there's something about knowing the low-level stuff that just eases my mind when it comes to writing higher level code. I've always been the type of person that gets distracted by needing to know the deeper layer of how something works.
Even in undergraduate classes like biology, I needed to know HOW that mitochondria ACTUALLY handles metabolism. That's what I mean when I say that the lower level stuff "eases my mind". I can call a higher level function, or use some higher level framework, with a clear understanding of how it could (and probably) is implemented. That makes me a better developer, because I can stop asking questions and start making things.
And for that, at least in this sort of situation, I'd expect a company to at least temporarily look into the various services that enable you to rent a MacOS device in the cloud for the moments you need it (usually app builds).
Uhg, I'd love to be that 50 year old when I arrive at the age. Sadly, I feel like I'm sliding backwards. Oddly, I feel like I was a better, more thoughtful, certainly more energetic developer in my 20's.
I think some of it may be that each job I've taken has forced me to change language / platform multiple times. I'm an iOS, android, C++, C, Java, and python developer. All on production level code. Never an expert of any.
I decided early in my career to specialize on a technology stack so I could generalize over the entire stack. About a decade ago I got my first job on the Microsoft stack, and since then I've done 98% of my work on it.
It has it's disadvantages I'm definitely looked at as an old fuddy duddy because of my language choices. I'm pretty locked in, so if .net dies I'm gonna screwed while I come up to speed on the next big thing.
But it has its advantages too. I'm able to go deeper on a bunch of different parts of the stack than I would if I were having to jump around more. Web, desktop, services, database, mobile and even vba in Excel. There's no way I could be as proficient across the stack as am if I had to be proficient in different technologies. And it's allowed me to feel pretty confident addresssing any business problems as long as it's on the right stack.
I was wondering if you could give me a little advice as to what I should focus on to more specialize in the Microsoft stack?
I'm on a bit of an unusual track into software engineering, having started in finance and first teaching myself to code via VBA and SQL. That coding led to me getting a second degree in computer science, which I'll be finishing this year (and I now know way too much about VBA).
All that of that preamble to say that I've had a ton of experience with SQL Server, VBA, Excel in my old life. I think I could be a pretty good candidate to fully immerse myself in the .NET stack. However, my school doesn't touch much on the .NET technologies, focusing more on JavaScript, Python, and C++.
Would it make sense to focus on C# and move on from there? Or there other things I should know well? Do you use much PowerShell? Javascript?
I'd be familiar with c# but it's an easy language, and there are tons of devs with c# experience.
But I'd mainly focus on JavaScript/TypeScript. And if you're about to graduate then focus really heavily on react or angular. Microsoft shops are drowning in .net talent/experience but are starving for good front end devs with deep angular or react experience.
And I wouldn't bother with powershell at all, unless you have wanted to move away from development and towards infrastructure.
I can attest to this. Having worked in an finance shop myself, there were numerous .NET engineers there but none of which had relevant experience with Angular/React + Typescript.
This is really helpful, thank you. I've been diving into heavy doses of JavaScript lately -- I'll continue with that and augment it with TypeScript and React too.
I did the same thing for the first half of my career - ASP.Net and C#. But with the fall of WebForms and the rise of MVC, I had to spend a lot more time on front ends (mainly cheap clients didn't want to pay the licenses on Telerik and the ilk), so I had to learn real html and javascript (albeit only jQuery at first).
Now I primarily use those tools on personal projects, and spend most of my day consulting on HOW to develop a project, and only able to get my hands dirty a couple of hours each week. The rest of the time is spent with management "architecting" solutions.
"A 2009 Pentagon briefing summary of the program prepared by its director at the time asserted that “what was considered science fiction is now science fact,” and that the United States was incapable of defending itself against some of the technologies discovered"
Wait, what? What are the "technologies discovered"?
Yet another "solution" that focusses on "affordable" housing, not market rate housing.
The world needs affordable housing, so don't get me wrong. But what's infuriating is how often the conversation stops there. It's always about building more housing and creating affordability programs for the poor. Meanwhile forgetting that even middle class workers are being priced out of the market!
When your middle class can't afford (or can barely afford) the cost of housing, your problem extends beyond just that class.
I don't believe in "trickle down" economies, where consolidation of wealth into the hands of a few "lifts everyone up". What I do believe is important - for everyone - is a healthy, educated, middle class. In a way, the health and success of your middle class is like a barometer for the health of your society as a whole. When your middle class cannot afford to buy a home, cannot afford to begin a family, and cannot afford to live at or above the quality of life of the generation before them something is wrong.
Yes, we need to help the poor. Yes, we SHOULD have programs for that. But the conversation all too often stops there, and market rates are taken for granted.
