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The Tao of FizzBuzz

An introduction to real-world programming and problem solving for the rest of us

Bjorn Millecam

Total beginners should start here! Learn to embrace the problem-solving mindset you need to help those who depend on you. Learn the steps that lead to much appreciated solutions and why they matter. Face future challenges with confidence.

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About

About

About the Book

About

The main goal of the book is to provide an entry point to real-world problem solving. Do you not know where to start or how to keep going if you encounter issues? This is where you can get the help you need to get unstuck. Or, more accurately, how you can help yourself.

Learn how to build solutions from scratch, do and evaluate self-guided research online, and so much more. The GRIT approach guides the way. These are the four milestones that get featured time and time again: goal, research, implementation, test. GRIT is exemplified throughout the book to instill the problem solving mindset, allowing you to be ready for anything that gets thrown your way.

Notes and updates

July 2024 update: currently on hiatus to figure out what is still useful for beginners and what is not given AI developments.

May 2024 update: the (spin-off) AppliedGRIT primer has been released, it has the core workflow which will be demonstrated in the Tao of FizzBuzz workbook. This should allow for easier updates in the future.

Next for the workbook: rework to focus on the basics, updating to Ubuntu-derivative Pop!_OS 22.04 and .NET 8.0, adding placeholder diagrams, removing unnecessary screenshots, adding notes on local LLM use to second half of book.

Known issues:

* Formatting needs more fixes here and there

The lessons of the book are being applied to the writing, which will lead to further iteration on the content, both in quality and quantity. You may want to hold off on reading if you enjoy the finished product.

The first version of the book dates back to 2018, so I definitely have not been making the progress I wanted to make. I will be adding a section on procrastination, burnout, and other non-technical barriers.

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Agile.NETRefactoringSoftware Engineering

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Author

About the Author

Bjorn Millecam

Bjorn lives in Belgium and is currently a DevOps engineer. He likes to explore fictional universes. Of particular interest is immersion and flow in games.

On a more technical note: Bjorn prefers gradual change, like fixing bugs and updating documentation, over starting from scratch. The non-capitalized agile approach, if you will. He derives great pleasure from speeding up applications, especially if the end users share his appreciation for the improvements.

After graduating from university, he worked for companies of various sizes, both in the private sector and in government. He developed device management software for networked video walls and custom tools for end-to-end processing of large amounts of geographical data. Such experiences fueled his desire to shrink the gaps between tech and business, and the one between formal education and the real world.

When forced to choose, he'd pick chocolate over beer. Or waffles. Everyone likes waffles. Right?

Contents

Table of Contents

Solve problems with code

  1. A brief summary
  2. The overall goal
  3. The assumptions
  4. Related work
  5. WayBack Intermezzo
  6. The reader
  7. Context
  8. The Tao of FizzBuzz
  9. On experience
  10. About the notes
  11. The next chapter

Apply GRIT

  1. On the way forward
  2. GRIT
  3. Goal
  4. Research
  5. Implementation
  6. Test
  7. The next chapter

Hello World

  1. Where to start?
  2. Diving in quickly
  3. Talk to the machine
  4. A paradigm shift
  5. From code to executable
  6. The next chapter

D-actions

  1. The fourth chapter
  2. Do
  3. Define
  4. Divide (and conquer)
  5. Defer
  6. Delegate
  7. Delete
  8. Frequently recurring developer actions
  9. Debugging
  10. Automated testing
  11. The next chapter

FizzBuzz

  1. The fifth chapter
  2. A mildly realistic goal
  3. On research and where to look
  4. A wild implementation appeared
  5. Let’s talk numbers
  6. The next chapter

AI Chatbots and GRIT

  1. The sixth chapter
  2. Getting started with AI Chatbots
  3. Reapplied GRIT

A new Hello World

  1. The seventh chapter
  2. Baseline example
  3. Specific programming language and documentation
  4. Programming language versions
  5. Inline documentation
  6. Iterative improvement and expansion

AI Chatbots and D-actions

  1. The eighth chapter
  2. D-actions revisited
  3. Developer tasks

FizzBuzz Squared

  1. The ninth chapter
  2. Interactivity
  3. Persistence
  4. Other ideas

The future

  1. The tenth chapter
  2. Working with others
  3. Architectural considerations
  4. Abstraction

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