WEBVTT captioned by hannah, checked by sachac
NOTE Introduction
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Hi everyone, my name is Jeremy Friesen, pronouns are he/him,
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and today I'll be talking about
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mentoring VS Coders as an Emacs-ian.
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A little bit of background, since 2015, I've mentored
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about 40 software developers,
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many of them in career-transitioning roles,
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oftentimes from boot camps.
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I've also managed a couple of small software development teams.
NOTE Framing approaches
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So I want to think about mentoring and the framing approaches.
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We all don't know what we don't know.
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So while mentoring, I like to be curious---asking questions,
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I like to be visible,
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and I also like to pair so that we can share.
NOTE What are you looking to learn?
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When I start, I like to ask the following type of question:
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"What have you been wanting to learn more of,
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get better at, and improve on?"
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Then I like to ask further questions to get an understanding
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of where they've been, where they're going,
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and what they'd like to achieve.
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Later I'll ask coaching questions, "what's going well,"
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"where are you getting stuck,"
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and "if you change one thing, what would it be?"
NOTE Make the work visible
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So like many people, I shifted to remote work in 2020,
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and I've noticed a higher collaboration in remote work,
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when folks make their work visible.
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So to do that I host office hours,
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I try to attend other people's office hours,
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and I'll open up a Slack huddle and just code by myself,
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but let folks know, please hop in.
NOTE Hop in and be curious
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I like to pay attention to other huddles that start.
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If they're going still for, like, 45 minutes or so,
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I'll hop in and say hello.
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It's even odds that they're moving along just fine
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or that they're stuck.
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So by hopping into the Slack huddle,
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I'm helping with a common problem.
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How do you know when you're stuck?
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This is something that---as a manager---folks want to know,
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how can I get unstuck faster?
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As a human, it can be frustrating to be stuck for a long time,
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but you also learn stuff
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when you're dealing with the hard things.
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So you really need to balance that time,
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and I find hopping in, just being a gentle presence,
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with yes... an agenda, but just to say hi,
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is crucial to help the team members move along.
NOTE Pairing is for sharing
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Pairing is for sharing.
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When I pair, I like to let others drive.
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They're typing and working to resolve the problem.
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I'm giving guidance, asking questions,
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maybe thinking through a refactor.
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I'm also spending time observing how they interact with their editor.
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In the moment, I try to limit advice to, like, one concept.
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A lot of folks don't know that `Control-a`
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will take you to the beginning of line.
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Just sharing that is huge sometimes.
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Just gently do it and let it float there.
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And assuming we have a regular mentoring session,
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I'll make sure to ask how they're feeling
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about using their tools afterwards.
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I would love to get to the point where they ask,
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"You saw me using my editor, what is something
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I could learn?"
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I'm working on getting to that point.
NOTE Editor functions
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While pairing, I like to pay attention
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to how folks handle the following.
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Where do they want to go?
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How do they get there?
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Here they are, now what?
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How do they summarize?
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I know what I can do in Emacs,
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and I assume that VS Code can do something similar.
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It's a matter of helping the mentees find those packages and plugins.
NOTE Where do they want to go?
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Where to go?
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Search within a project.
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Everybody knows about this, but one thing
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that has been really critical for me
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has been the arrival of `Orderless`.
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A little quick demonstration.
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If I look, and I have this "chicken" and I do "spell",
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I have found one, and they don't have
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to be in the right order.
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In fact, I can go back, and "spell" is there.
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Super easy, helpful, so I don't have to think about it, the order.
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Search across projects.
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Cross-repository searching is super-simple in Emacs,
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and I've never seen anyone do it in VS Code.
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I'm also trying to introduce folks to command-line tools
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such as RipGrep and SilverSearcher,
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not just to look in the project, but to go one directory up
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and look across projects
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because sometimes when you're working on lots of different projects,
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there might be solutions or ideas that come from there.
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Also notice that a lot of people use directory trees to navigate,
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but I favor the fuzzy text.
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So I can do something like `Command-t`
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and start looking for things in there.
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I just type the name of the file.
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I use `consult-projectile`,
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which has a lot of really cool functionality.
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The big one being I can type `r`, recent file.
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I can type `p` and jump to a different project,
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so it's a quick navigation tool that I've not seen in VS Code.
NOTE How do they get there?
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Next up is how do they get there?
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I like to use LSP for the languages,
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and I bound `M-.` to this
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and jump back and forth to definitions.
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I just showed `projectile` or `consult-projectile`
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and its super-amazing multifunction finder.
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Also another one that I am very avid about
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is the jump between definition and test.
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I bind that to `Super-.`
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and it helps me jump back and forth
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between my production code and my test code---
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especially in Ruby, there's an idiom for that.
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There is plugins in VS Code that does this correctly.
NOTE Here they are, now what?
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Next up, now I'm here, what do I do?
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Word completion, Emacs just knocks everything out of the park:
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`dabbrev`, `templates`, `hippie-expand`, `completion-at-point`.
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Sometimes it just hurts to watch people type stuff
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that they could quickly expand
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because there are words within the code.
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Another one is auto-formatting.
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Tree sitter...its arrival is great.
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I assume this is going to get better.
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I love highlighting a region, hitting `TAB`, and it's just formatted.
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I've seen a lot of VS Coders... that doesn't work for them.
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Don't know why, trying to get them to see it.
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Multi-cursor [`multiple-cursors`] and `iedit`...
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took me a long time to explore `iedit`,
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but the practice... but practicing was huge,
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and it has transformed my approach to coding and typing.
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Folks know about multi-cursor editing and editing-in-region
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but make sure that they are aware of it.
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It's important.
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Next up is inline searching.
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My beloved Textmate... it was the first thing.
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In fact, it was why I chose not to use Emacs in 2005
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and went with Textmate.
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This is something quite simple.
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I can do `search` within here, and I can see "introduced",
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and it will show me the line.
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What I like about that is when I'm in code,
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I can see the neighborhood of other things
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and get a good idea of what's around.
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Yes, there is `occur-mode` that can be super useful,
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but I'm used to the Textmate in it.
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I just love it.
NOTE How do they summarize?
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Next up is how they summarize.
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I've seen a lot of bootcamp graduates write commit messages
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by going to the command line.
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In my experience, commit messages written in the command line
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tend to be terse.
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They miss something.
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So I try to really quickly shift folks to use their text editor,
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encourage them and
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teach them about `$GIT_EDITOR` and `$EDITOR` for the environment variables
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so they can make their commits from the command line.
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And if not there, help them improve how they do VS Code.
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My little screed at the top:
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the interface for VS Code's commit is trash.
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It is why I stepped away from VS Code when I was exploring editors.
NOTE General strategies
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Next up, my goal is to encourage folks to use editors for writing,
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to think about owning that tool.
NOTE Commit to one item of learning each week
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I have them try to learn one thing a week.
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Maybe they aren't going to learn it,
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but just not to overwhelm them
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and find those high-value things.
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Jump to spec, jump to code... super-valuable
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because I see folks doing it a lot during the day,
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and it can really speed up the transition time
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and keep the focus between the test...
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what you're trying to test and what you're trying to define,
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which can get lost if you do the tree navigation.
NOTE Practice within your knowledge domain
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Also I encourage people to practice their domain knowledge.
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I learned a lot about programming by doing a bunch of things
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related to RPGs---role-playing games.
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I did this previously in Ruby---dice rollers, note takers,
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random table lookups---and now I'm doing it in Emacs.
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Knowing the domain helps me set aside the problem space
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and then explore how I code
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and how I can implement things differently.
NOTE Note-taking
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Note-taking: pay attention to how folks create a fleeting note.
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It can be excruciating as they try to figure out
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"where am I going to put this?"
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"What file?"
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"Where does it go?"
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Emacs, we have the *scratch* buffer or anything else,
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but ask them about their note-taking habits
NOTE Help them navigate the proprietary software tar pits
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and help them navigate the proprietary software tar pits.
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We know that anything that is venture-capital funded
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will eventually collapse.
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We know that things that don't have a sustainable business model
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without surveillance capitalism
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is going to also have problems.
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Encourage folks to think about how they're owning their notes.
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Do they place true value on those,
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or are they things that are kind of ephemeral?
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And then help them find the thing that makes sense for them.
NOTE Help show the joy of holisting computering
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Put another way, I want people to think holistically
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about their generalized "computering" environment.
NOTE Playing is for staying
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And I also think about the reason why
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I've stayed a software developer for 25-years plus
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is because I approach all of this as play and storytelling.
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Sometimes happy byproduct is that I ship features and documentation
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and help people get stuff done.
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Yet I don't tell folks to use Emacs.
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Instead, I'm doing my best to show a myriad of reasons
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for why folks should consider Emacs.
NOTE Conclusion
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In conclusion, ask questions.
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Find a person who is a VS Coder and just say,
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"hey, I learned something new."
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We play this game all the time, me and my coworker Kirk.
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I love it.
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Another goal is showing the malleability of Emacs,
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how easy it is to extend.
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And obviously there's so much more than what I've highlighted,
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but then again, that's Emacs.
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Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
