I’m a 52 years old French guy, father of 2 boys and a princess.
I’m an entrepreneur paid to solve complex problems involving computers, usually by building tools (software) or manipulating huge quantity of data, or sometimes coaching or managing people. On my free time I like to do the exact same things as it’s my passion. (More references on my Linkedin profile)
I’m an unorthodox person, so instead of trying to paint an inaccurate portrait of myself, here are some facts:
If you prefer more conventional information or need references, see my Linkedin profile
“Nobody use it. It’s a dead language. It’s a technology of the past…” Are the kind of statement you’ll be likely to hear about Perl nowadays.
Nonetheless, I’ve landed one of the most exciting mission I’ve ever had because of Perl. I’ve met great people, because of Perl. I’ve solved issues in no time, because of Perl.
So, there’s no chance I’ll drop Perl any time soon.
Today I’ll start a series of articles dedicated to Vim:
“Just enough Vim to be efficient”
The main idea should be obvious from the title. Learn the bare minimum to produce useful results (and hopefully motivate you to dig even further)
This article is dedicated to Vim macros, an often overlooked feature of Vim.
But let’s start from the beginning what is a macro? and why is it useful?
And if the answer to the first question is simple: A macro is just a recorded sequence of keys.
That’s more or less what I’ve been asked in a recent (failed) interview. That was more subtle of course, but after being corrected on Scrum terminology, failing to recognize the prevalence of the retrospective over the other rituals probably sealed the outcome of the interview.
I clearly didn’t convinced my interviewer. My last Scrum experience was ten years ago. And would probably be considered as “Faux Agile” in actual terminology. So he was probably allowed to assert that I wouldn’t be a good Scrum Master. But does that mean that I was not Agile?
Originally published in July 2018 on my previous blog, and cross-posted on Medium.
Larry Wall once wrote “The three great virtue of the programmer are: laziness, impatience, and hubris”. I took great care to follow this path to become a programmer. Though I must admit I already had great disposition for laziness.
Now, as an accomplished programmer (cough hubris cough), I think it’s time to improve further. I’ve search for a loooooooong time. And after a week of thinking (cough impatience cough) I’ve decided to talk to you about the fourth virtue of the programmer.
Originally published in January 2018 on my previous blog. Eight years later, Go is still the language I reach for first.
First let me wish you, dear reader, the very best for 2018: May you have health, success, fun and love in abundance!
For some years now, I’ve started learning/using a new computer language every year. 2018 will be no exception: This year I’ll learn and use the Go language.
From time to time, I review my tools/processes to keep what’s useful, ditch what is no longer necessary or even convenient, and improve what can be improved. As a developer, I spend a lot of time using the Vim text editor, so in this article I’ll spend some time rewriting my .vimrc.
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” ― Abraham Lincoln
Originally published in July 2016 on Hello.js, then on my previous blog.
As a Perl coder, I’m a big fan of functional programming.
If that sounds odd to you, think about all that features that are considered as idiomatic Perl:
Functional programming is a fascinating thing but it’s not so easy to use consistently. We all love the concept, feel the inner power. We all use lists, closure, functions as parameter, but how many of us manage to fully apply functional programming everywhere and commit to pure functions and immutability?
This time I feel really qualified to write this article because believe me, I love Perl ! I think in Perl, I dream in Perl, and I really appreciate the whole Perl community. I’ve been in love with this language for more than a decade but I decided that I needed a change.
I’ve already said in a previous article why I chose to learn JavaScript this year (instead of getting involved in Perl 6 for example) but let me tell you why you might also enjoy learning JavaScript if you love Perl. Perl developers form a very unified community that all too often, resist outside influences, but learning a second language like JavaScript can really be a very enlightening experience.
Originally published in May 2016 on my previous blog. It is one entry in a long habit of picking one new language per year: Python in 2009, JavaScript in 2016, Go in 2018, Rust in 2022.
Many of my friends express their surprise when I say I chose to learn JavaScript in 2016.
With so many cool languages to learn, why using a “toy language” of the past instead of, let’s say Haskell, Go, Nimrod, Rust (just to name some)?
Originally published in February 2014 on my previous blog.
In this book, Michael Hugos introduces “gamification” or the process to apply “Games mechanics” to business world.
I was very interested to learn more about gamification, and I was happy to find a book with a title so promising: “Using game mechanics to build a better business” but to tell it frankly, I was a little bit deceived by the content of this book.