My selected essays from Medium on Computer programming
“I want thinkers, not followers!”
Internet, social media in general, has this nice feature of making possible for anyone to spread their ideas, as said an online influencer, on TED Talks[1], “everyone has an opinion”, “does everyone has something interesting to say?”
I come from the academic world, I did a PhD and two postdocs, and so far, I have not gotten a professorship position, just private lessons and online courses; as a matter of fact, not even trying for now, since I want to experiment with those online endeavors. Before I started writing this preface, and most likely that influenced my decision on how to follow the conversation, I saw an online discussion[2]. This video grabbed my attention because the person was an academic, with tenure, this is the closed one can get to become a God on the academic world. Remember Friends? Ross got tenured in the end and said “no one can fire me now”. I am mentioning it since this e-book is the output of me throwing the coin, inside a world designed for us to fail, as the TED Talk aforementioned says, “you have to play the game”; and the speaker gave up several times since he could not play the game.
This book is my attempt not to play the game, at least, not on its full length. I do not want followers, I want thinkers. Followers are hard to please, since you need to keep being smart all the time, whatever that means for them. I want thinkers, since I am also a thinker. Thinkers are independent: they take the information, make knowledge of it, and go on with their lives to learn new things, to tackle new challenges! This e-book is for thinkers, mainly. Thinkers do not require you to hold their hands and tell their what to do. I will give you an example of two student of mine from Udemy. I believe one is a thinker; the other is most likely a follower. One attended to my online course, something was missing, and he asked for it, I sent to him right away, my bad; the second, just left me a bad public review, with a short comment, and refused to give me more details regarding his difficulties, which I was anxious to learn, and maybe make it up to him somehow: this is a follower, looking for the next high, next trend, with no thoughts on his own. A thinker recognizes his own weakness, shortcomings, and improve on them independently of the professor, which is a human, a limited sometimes well-intentioned agent; people do the best they can, and the best is never enough, as so we need thinkers to take easy on us, and make our work even better for the next thinkers.
Coming from the academic world, I believe for me it is even harder to “play the game”; we have a quite tough writing process: any article must be approved by two random independent scientists, which are suggested in a random process, it defines a lot about our lives/careers, including tenure. For us, we must be originals all the time, writing new things, and it is quite hard to stay on the comfort zone.
This e-book is my attempt not to play the game completely, just to some extent. Unfortunately, most platforms based on views and followers focus too much on that: leaving context quality to the last on the list of priorities, opposite to the academic world: the aforementioned TED Talk separates content creators into originals and “looking for the next trend”: I want to stay close to the originals. On the other hand, the academic world, as I see it, it is narrowed, and seems to escape from the problems of the society; not saying I am outlier here to save everyone. I am equally incompetent.
With this e-book, I hope:
· Give my readers an opportunity to support my work on a gain-gain gesture;
· Concentrate more on content quality less than view, catchers and so on;
As I write this preface, this is my newsfeed on Medium:
See the pattern of titles? I did not read the articles, no idea if they are good, some actually are. The point here is that I wish to focus on the content, not attention-grabbing titles! For-click-designed titles. Should I fail, I can decide whether I want to play the game or not, for paying the bills.
Further, it is pretty hard to make any money when you are starting: for Medium, you need at least 1.000 followers, which creates a paradox: if you keep the content high quality, and some are able to do that, quite rare, you lose followers, which takes your privileges of earning from it; YouTube requires at least 1.000 subscribers. By buying this book, you are helping me to go on, and make sure I can dedicate to the material with care and minimum concerns about likes, followers and alike.
I will keep publishing on Medium, just want an alternative to make money, and keep my work online! Also, the article will still be on Medium!
Some advantage of the e-book, compared to Medium:
· All the articles reviewed, grammar checked, and more;
· Several topics curated for you;
· No distractions, as you read;
· Extra articles, exclusive for the e-book readers;
· Exclusive discussions, should you want to talk;
Initially, I thought to launch a big volume, but then it occurred to me that narrowing the volumes may be better for the reader, so they can decide what to buy! Should they like my writing that much, they may consider buying all the volumes!
Hope you enjoy this curated set of articles originally written by me on Medium. I have not selected based on applauses, but on quality! Let me know which one you enjoyed the most, and if I should add another one of mine in the future!
How to read this e-book?
Even though I have selected the essays, using coding as center, the writings may still be dispersed, wide-ranging. Therefore, this e-book can be nice for reading, with the hope to learn something new. I would imagine that each chapter may call the attention of different people, not all of them at once.
The book can be nice as well to keep around, give a first read, and from time to time, should you need, just come back!
I would read the book randomly, at first, and keep it around: for me, when I am solving problems, those readings start to come up in my mind, and helps to be creative on my solutions!
Chapter samples here on Medium:
[1] Unfollowers: A mindful approach to social media | Hazem El Seddiq | TEDxYouth@BedayiaSchool. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSQ-72ZW2tk
[2] Quit Your Day Job and Live Out Your Dreams by Dr. Ken Atchity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7yr-za_Meo
Read with no distractions, no need to pay for Medium subscription! No ads, no attention-grabbing tricks, just you and the words! Carefully curated and enhanced stories from Medium for you!
Now, you can support my writings by buying our e-books, as so I can continue writing to you focusing on quality, not followers!
This is a carefully hand-picked set of my assays on Medium to you, with heart, care, and love. The assays here are computer programming related. The links to the original assays are provided.
