The Monday Byte

Welcome to the Monday Byte where I send you 5 things each week so you can improve your English and land a remote dev job.

📖 Word/Phrase - feature flag

Have you heard of feature flags? If we break it down, there are two words here:

1. feature — an aspect of an application

2. flag — like your country’s flag

But now when we put them together, we get “feature flag” which is a technique for hiding application behavior behind specific logic. An example might be enabling voice messages in Twitter DMs for users in South America.

At my new job, we use a product called LaunchDarkly to manage our feature flags. I’ve also been looking into Posthog for my own side projects (they have a generous free tier).

💬 Pronunciation - Learn to analyze yourself

This is something I’m attempting to do for my own pronunciation (in Spanish). Here’s how I’m approaching it:

1. Pick a TV show that has accurate subtitles

2. Download subtitles

3. Record myself reading them out loud

4. Watch and analyze for words that sound off

5. Practice pronouncing until they’re correct

I recorded myself last week and this week I’m planning to go through and watch the videos looking for mistakes. It’s the same type of approach a professional athlete takes when they watch game footage to improve their craft.

Let me know if you try it!

🗣️ Real World Conversation - Recording Your Work

What if we were professional basketball players? We would have professional coaches and trainers analyzing our game footage and giving us specific feedback on how to improve. What if we applied this technique to our programming?

We might not have access or money to pay for professional coaches but here’s what we can do:

1. Download OBS or some video recording tool

2. Hit record and work for 15-20mins

3. While working, talk through what you’re doing (bonus if you do it in English)

Then later, go back and watch it and see where you can improve. It’s weird, I know, but my mentor at work is having us do this and, just the recording alone is improving my productivity.

And for you, it’ll give you an excuse to speak more English! I’m even debating doing mine in Spanish 😂 So it’s a win-win all around!

🔗 Content - Grokking Functional Programming

My mentor recommended this book as a good introduction to functional programming. I plan to start reading this week. What’s exciting though is it uses JavaScript for the examples! This feels rare in the world of technical writing.

Most books use Java, Go, or Ruby, so I’m happy to learn new concepts through a language I’m familiar with.

If you get a copy and want to read with me, let me know!

Enjoy the week, we’ll talk again soon.

- Joe