The Overflow #41: Satisfied with your own code

Welcome to ISSUE #41 of the Overflow! This newsletter is by developers, for developers, written and curated by the Stack Overflow team and Cassidy Williams at Netlify. This week is pumpkin-spiced so your code can easily fall into your commits. We’ve got bushels of goodies this week: what our chief product and technology officer learned from hiring hundreds of engineers, tiny SSL certificates, and the planet that takes pi Earth days to rotate its sun.

From the blog

What I learned from hiring hundreds of engineers can help you land your next role stackoverflow.blog
A seasoned director shares her process for selecting who to hire and offers insight on how developers can position themselves for success in today’s job market.

Podcast 272: Pull requests are welcome stackoverflow.blog
What gives you that special feeling: a nice, sharp recursive function or a deep, winding ternary statement? Paul and Sara debate the finer points of feeling smugly satisfied with your own code.

How do we create stable and supportive online platforms during the EdTech boom? promotion
The global EdTech industry rallied spectacularly in response to the pandemic, having met immense pressure to scale systems in 2020. But what are the challenges they face in a future where elements of online learning are set to endure long past social distancing restrictions?

Interesting questions

What did code on punch cards do with the other six bits per column?  retrocomputing.stackexchange.com
Computers can do operations that aren’t binary, you know.

Should I respond to an “ethical hacker” who’s requesting a bounty?  serverfault.com
Ethical clearly being a relative term here.

Smallest possible certificate for IoT device  crypto.stackexchange.com
What is this, a certificate for ants?

Should one prefer a generic version of a function, even if it’s not re-used (yet)?  softwareengineering.stackexchange.com
Generic problems require generic solutions.

Links from around the web

Earth-size ‘pi planet’ rocks a 3.14-day orbit  www.cnet.com
If you’re as much of a math and space nerd as we are, you’ll love this news about a “pi planet” floating out in space.

The untold history of macOS system preferences www.arun.is
This is a fun little trip down memory lane, exploring the history of the System Preferences in MacOS.

Content delivery networks (CDNs)  web.dev
You have probably seen them, and you’ve definitely used them! Here’s a great guide on what a CDN is, how to set one up, and how it can improve your site performance.

Accessible web animation: The WCAG on animation explained  css-tricks.com
This is a great explanation from Val Head on how we all can make sure our web animations are accessible!

Want to see who’s still hiring? Check out our job board!