‘Being ruthless to yourself is having the discipline to become a better developer - not letting yourself get away with the easy or convenient.’

Basically, he advocates shutting yourself off from the world as much as possible for an initial boot camp-style stretch for as long as you can manage in order to really commit yourself to wrapping your head around the concepts of programming (Rails, in this case).

I want to do this, but finding time away from other commitments isn’t something I’m especially suited to do at the moment.

“Full Key Codes is a little utility to display code informations about each key of the keyboard. The developers know why :-)”

I should install this.

“Webmin is a web-based interface for system administration for Unix. Using any modern web browser, you can setup user accounts, Apache, DNS, file sharing and much more. Webmin removes the need to manually edit Unix configuration files like /etc/passwd, and lets you manage a system from the console or remotely.”

“Precision colors for machines and people.”

“Solarized is a sixteen color palette (eight monotones, eight accent colors) designed for use with terminal and gui applications. It has several unique properties. I designed this colorscheme with both precise CIELAB lightness relationships and a refined set of hues based on fixed color wheel relationships. It has been tested extensively in real world use on color calibrated displays (as well as uncalibrated/intentionally miscalibrated displays) and in a variety of lighting conditions.”

“Complain about the way other people make software by making software.”

…

“Worse is when the people doing the complaining also make software or web sites or iPhone applications themselves. As visible leaders of the web, I think there are a lot of folks who could do a favor to younger, less experienced people by setting an example of critiquing to raise up rather than critiquing to tear down.”

I'm going to read and internalize all of this one day. Yes I am.