Category: Newsletter

The eli4d Gazette – Issue 004

Hello Friend,

Welcome to Issue 004 of the eli4d Gazette. You can find the newsletter archive at http://tinyletter.com/eli4d/archive and the blog at eli4d.com.

Have a great day!

Eli (@eli4d)

The eli4d Gazette

Issue 004: 2016-04-27

Tech Pick

In the previous issue I jokingly mentioned the difficulty of choosing among JavaScript frameworks and the fact that every day there seems to be yet another JavaScript framework. I’ve been thinking about this, and how to choose a framework (whether in JavaScript or another language) and I wrote this article where I discuss a more ‘feeling’ based approach besides the pragmmatic approach that I wrote about previously.

Media Pick

What do economic majors speak about at a bar? You can find out the answer by listening to this Imaginary Worlds episode discussing the economics of Game of Thrones, Firefly, and The Martian. It is 19 minutes of gold for those that are interested in fiction with a slight dab of economics on the side.

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The eli4d Gazette – Issue 003

Hello Friend,

Welcome to Issue 003 of the eli4d Gazette. You can find the newsletter archive at http://tinyletter.com/eli4d/archive and the blog at eli4d.com.

Have a great day!

Eli (@eli4d)

The eli4d Gazette

Issue 003: 2016-04-13

Tech Pick

JavaScript! Do you love it? Do you hate it? Sometimes JavaScript and especially the latest JavaScript frameworks remind me of our current presidential race. Pushing this analogy to its limit – in the JavaScript framework world – which framework would be the equivalent of Trump? What about the Hillary one? Or the Bernie one?

Of course, I’m kidding because it’s all fun/sad melodrama. What’s not melodramatic is the fact the ECMAScript 6 aka ES6 is here. It’s not fully adopted by by everyone, but we’re getting there. Some neat articles about ES6:

Media Pick

Season 1 of the disturbingly dark and technically accurate Mr. Robot series. It’s like a cyber-space/security version of Dexter.

The eli4d Gazette – Issue 002

Hello Friend,

Welcome to Issue 002 of the eli4d Gazette. You can find the newsletter archive at http://tinyletter.com/eli4d/archive and the blog at eli4d.com.

Have a great day!

Eli (@eli4d)

The eli4d Gazette

Issue 002: March 30, 2016

Tech Pick

I’ve been following the Laravel framework for quite a while and on a recent episode of The Laravel Podcast there is a great discussion about open source software, and whether whoever uses it should pay for it.

There is an inherent (bad) assumption that “open source” means “free”. Nadia Eghbal has been exploring this very issue. I came across Nadia’s work through the (excellent) Changelog podcast where Adam and Jerod interviewed her about her investigation into open source funding.

Edu Pick

I’m a big fan of Alton Brown’s cooking shows because of the brilliant way he explains things. In the same vain, comedian John Oliver did a brilliant job in explaining all of the issues around the Apple/FBI encryption through this 18-minute video: https://youtu.be/zsjZ2r9Ygzw. Oliver’s comedic explanation is brilliant in covering the nuances of this case and the overall issues of encryption and privacy. The Apple/FBI battle may be over, but unfortunately the war is just beginning.

Podcast Episode Pick

My pick is related to the Apple/FBI encryption issue and it comes from the brilliant Note to Self podcast. The episode (13 minutes) covers the issue from an author’s point of view. It’s a different perspective that is very eye opening and refreshing (as are most of Note to Self’s episodes).

Introducing The eli4d Gazette

Hello Friend,

Welcome to Issue 1 of the eli4d Gazette. This will be my way to keep in touch with former students and new friends that I have made through eli4d.com. My intent is to keep this short and sweet and pick some interesting things related to tech and non-tech. This will be delivered every two weeks, and it may change to a weekly delivery depending on how it goes.

I value your time and attention and I hope you find this to be worth your time. If you are interested, you can subscribe through the following url: https://tinyletter.com/eli4d

The eli4d Gazette

Issue 001: March 16, 2016

Tech Pick (JavaScript related)

Brendan Eich, creator of JavaScript, discusses his view of JavaScript’s direction at the Fluent Conference (click the ‘x’ to get past the “you need to login screen”). His message is the same as other years – “don’t bet against JavaScript”, but this year he added WebAssembly to the betting phrase. Apparently Ash from Evil Dead is his spirit animal (so the programming approach of jumping into JS and ‘hacking’ is built into the language’s DNA :-O ). Is Brendan right about JavaScript future? Who knows? He’s a smart guy but JavaScript is out of his and anyone else’s direct control. The battle lines are certainly being drawn in the mobile space between web apps and native apps (so far native has trounced web in terms of performance).

Edu Pick

I tried to provide a comprehensive approach to picking server-side software through my “Using the Boring / Old / Popular (BOP) criteria for server side software evaluation” article. It was geared towards beginners (developers and those that need to pick server side technologies), since experienced devs will have a “gut feel” and wont need such a numerical approach.

Podcast Episode Pick

Eric Molinsky created an amazing episode called “Why They Fight” where he connects superhero battles to D&D character alignments. I know it sounds ridiculously geek but once you listen to this episode, you will never again look at TV/movie/story heros/villains in the same way. If you’re a writer, the character alignment table may give you a new twist/angle on how you view/build characters in your writing.