The President of the United States. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. My goodness, if I'd have gotten that kind of a reception from the California legislature, I'd have still been governor. But I thank you and welcome to Washington. The last time we met, I think I reminded you that as a former governor, I was accustomed to standing before legislators. The only question was, I going to ask for an appropriation or veto something. But as you're probably surmised from Joe Wright's presentation, these days we don't have the luxury of asking for many additional appropriations. We're in the midst of a budget battle here that will, I think, determine the vitality of the American economy. It's important that you as representatives of state government fully understand the alternatives. Spending restraint is not just a federal issue. We understand that what we do to a great degree will determine the outcome of your effort in state government. Five years ago, with an inflation raging and stagnation sapping the strength of our economy, government at every level was under escalating pressure. Your costs, just like everybody else's, were skyrocketing. Economic decline was at the same time eroding your tax base. There's been a world of change since those days. We've put the economy back on track, and this morning we received the final economic figures for 1984. And I hope I'm not repeating something that maybe Joe told you, but the news is better than we had even anticipated. The U.S. economy grew at a rate of almost 5 percent in the fourth quarter, and the real final sales increased at a rate of eight and a half percent. Economic growth for calendar year 84 measured just a shade under 7 percent, and it was the strongest performance in a single year by the American economy since 1951. Our future, I think, looks very promising. Economic recovery and low inflation have been a boon to our citizens, more people are working now than ever before, and a boon to state government as well. It cut costs and increased the tax base. No federal program or legislative package could be more important to the viability of state government than vigorous economic expansion. If there's one lesson we should have learned, however, it is that we cannot take the economic health of our country for granted. I know that Joe Wright just outlined some of the hard realities about the budget for you. Tax simplification and spending restraints are essential if our economy is to keep moving forward. And yes, cuts will hit programs for the state and local governments. It's incumbent upon us to work closely together during this period. With the spirit of goodwill and cooperation, we can mold the federal-state relationship to receive the maximum benefit from limited resources, to cut waste, and to further reduce the federal regulatory burden. That, I think, is one of the greatest responsibilities we have, although I'd advise anyone in any level of government to take a look at regulations. I was pretty sensitive to them when I came here, having been a governor, knowing what happened at the state level when messages or word came from Washington. We have, in consolidating some 52-categorical grants into 10-block grants, I was gratified to see that we reduced 905 pages of regulations imposed on you down to 31 by that one simple change. I have confidence in the ingenuity and the resourcefulness of those working for state government. There's a parochial view held by too many here in this town that all the sophisticated, competent, and compassionate people working in the public sector are here in Washington, D.C. Well, that type of thinking led to a wasteful concentration of power, authority, and resources. Now is the time to reverse the power flow, to decentralize authority and to streamline government in America. The founding fathers had tremendous faith in state government, and today that faith is being justified time and again by the innovation and creativity evident in state government throughout the country. The states, for example, are in the forefront of putting enterprise zones to work, channeling the strength of the private sector to people who need it the most. And by the way, any help you can be in prying loose enterprise zone legislation up on Capitol Hill will be most appropriate. We've been three years and we're still trying to get it through the House. I can't help but think that the initiative taken by the states on issues like enterprise zones demonstrates the wisdom of returning maximum power and authority to the states. Now is the time to be bold. With the success of the 1981 block grants in mind, we shouldn't be afraid to consider structural change. We must keep our minds open as well as our lines of communication. And I will seek and appreciate your advice and that should go both ways. I know how difficult it is to take advice sometimes. There's a little story and maybe it's known to you about the fellow that fell off a steep cliff and managed to grab a limb on the way down and he was dangling above the rock several hundred feet below and he looked up and said, Lord, if you're up there, tell me what to do. And a voice from the cloud said, if you have faith, let go. Well, he took another look at those rocks down there and then he turned and looked up again and said, is there anybody else up there? Seriously, though, I'm not asking anyone to do something just simply on faith. There are many more things that we can accomplish by cooperating and communicating with each other. These are exciting times. Together we've started the task of restoring a proper constitutional balance of power between state and federal government. And I'd like to thank the National Conference, state legislators and each of you for all that you've contributed to this effort. Now it's time to build upon what we've already accomplished. You know, in meeting in the summit, meetings with leaders of the other nations that I have had to do now for several years, I have to tell you that I'm aware of the most unique difference about our country and all the others, even including our closest allies, is that we are a federation of sovereign states. And that's very hard for some of our friends and neighbors to understand that sometimes when they say something to us that they think we should do and we say, that is a matter that belongs to our states. No, we cannot do what you ask. They're astounded, but I still think it's the greatest part of the secret of America's success. As long as we keep that federation intact and keep it on that basis, that you are not just participants in administrative districts of the federal government. You are legislators of sovereign states within this federation. And that is the basis of our strength. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to be with you. God bless all of you. And now as the little girl said in her letter when I first got here, get back to the Oval Office and go to work. That's what I'll do. Thank you all very much.


Top 10 cities in Asia with the highest demand for English language teachers Asia is the most popular destination for teaching English in the world with dozens of exciting regions to choose from. Moreover, Asia offers teaching jobs to people of all backgrounds, including native and non-native English speakers, and those with or without a degree. Here are the top 10 cities in Asia with the highest demand for English language teachers Bangkok, the city of angels. The capital of Thailand is a great place to start your TEFL journey in Asia. The city is known for its many ornate temples and vibrant street life. The demand for qualified teachers is very high in the city and even non-native English teachers can find employment here. The low cost of living in Bangkok also allows for a comfortable lifestyle, with teacher salaries ranging between $1,000 and $1,500 per month. Hanoi, the city of lakes. Hanoi is the capital of Vietnam and is famous for its architecture and vibe influenced by Southeast Asian, Chinese and French styles. The old quarter is the heart of the city filled with street markets, restaurants and lots of small temples. Similar to Thailand, you can live quite comfortably in Vietnam due to the low cost of living. A new teacher usually makes around $1,000 USD per month while those with experience and a TEFL certificate can make around $2,000. Hong Kong, the pearl of the Orient. Hong Kong is often referred to as the pearl of the Orient due to its significant role in the region. As a major commercial center in Asia, the opportunities available for qualified English language teachers are plentiful. While the cost of living in Hong Kong is much higher than in Thailand or Vietnam, the salaries are also higher. On top of that, Hong Kong has a teaching scheme in place that places qualified teachers from overseas countries into state-run schools. Kuala Lumpur, the city of contrast and diversity. Malaysia's capital Kuala Lumpur is an exciting melting pot of cultures, predominantly Indian, Chinese and Malay. The 451 meter tall Patronas twin towers are the city's main landmark along with traditional buildings such as this Sultan Abdul Samad building. Due to this mix of cultures, English is commonly used in Malaysia for mutual communication among the country's ethnic groups. Kuala Lumpur has a lot to offer visitors from historic sites to modern attractions and year-round warm weather. Seoul, the city of fortune. South Korea is among the most popular destinations for teaching English as a foreign language and most teachers work in or around its capital Seoul. The city is another great example of a bustling Asian metropolis that combines modernity with tradition. The center of the city is home to Gyeongbokgung Palace, the largest of the city's four palaces. In contrast, Lotte World Tower is the city's newest landmark in Korea's tallest building with 123 floors. Teachers make a competitive salary in Seoul and many are able to save $1,000 a month or more after expenses. Shanghai, the city that never sleeps. As a global financial hub, it's no wonder that Shanghai has a place on this list. China is the largest market for ESL teachers in the world with more than 300 million English learners, many of which live in Shanghai. The city attracts millions of visitors with its colonial-era architecture, famous skyline at the Bund and the beautiful Yu Garden with traditional pavilions and ponds. The cost of living in Shanghai is on the rise, but teachers can still earn a high salary allowing them to live well. Salaries range between $6,000 rmb and $12,000 rmb per month which equates to around $1,000 to $2,000 US dollars. Siem Reap, the city of temples. Over the past few years, Cambodia has become a fruitful location for EFL teachers from across the world. Due to its importance to the tourism industry, many jobs can be found in Siem Reap. The city is not only a major commercial hub of the country but also a spiritual hotspot as it is home to the famous Angkorawa Temple complex. As demand is high, non-native English speakers can also find employment here. Even though the salaries are not as high as in some other countries in the region, Cambodia does offer a friendly and vibrant culture which creates a perfect environment for gaining valuable classroom experience. Singapore, the lion city, since English is one of Singapore's four official languages, the opportunities for qualified English teachers are very rosy indeed. Moreover, Singapore is an important international trade hub which provides even more openings. Salaries are generally very high, with experienced teachers earning a competitive salary of around $4,000 a month. What is also exciting about Singapore is the mix of cultures which is particularly visible in places such as Chinatown, Little India and Kampong Glam. Taipei, the city of possibilities, Taipei is an exciting metropolis with tall high rises, like the landmark Taipei 101, as well as traditional streets and temples, one of the most significant being Long Shan Temple. English language teachers can find a healthy EFL job market in Taipei and experience the rich cultural heritage of the island. Moreover, the city offers good pay and benefits for TEFL certified English teachers with a salary between US $2,220 and US $2,730 per month. Tokyo, the pulsating city. It is no surprise that the city with the largest population within its metropolitan area with over 31 million people offers great opportunities for EFL teachers. Mixing the ultra-modern with the traditional, Tokyo is an attractive location for many people from around the world. A lot of teachers find work through the government jet program which has been successfully in place for decades. Are you ready to start a new career teaching English in Asia? Living and working in Asia is the dream of many qualified teachers around the world. These top 10 cities in Asia with the highest demand for English language teachers are a great starting point for your teaching career in Asia. Apply now for your TEFL TESOL certification course and start teaching in a matter of months. Speak with an ITTT advisor today to put together your personal plan for teaching English abroad. Send us an email or call us toll-free at 1-800-490-00531 to speak with an ITTT advisor today.


Teresa asked a great question and this is one I know we're going to have a heartfelt discussion around. What should organizations do to prepare for the new version of Outlook? Tell us how you really feel. I have thoughts on this. So in Outlook if you had a file and go down to the bottom there's a thing that says feedback. And if you click the feedback button then you can send a frowny face or you could suggest a feature. And in either of those locations you could type about how you feel about preparing about the new version of Outlook. That's my feedback. Yes. And it starts with the frowny face? Is that the default option? Is the frowny face default? Okay, so my opinion on this and having worked with the end users on it. If it is in the consumer space, the simplification of Outlook where it looks a little bit more of a ramped up mail, the mail app that you would actually have on a consumer side of things. So it's kind of ramped up a little from the mail app. And that app that's sort of very similar to the online version, we saw that sort of marrying up of trying to bring the two together so you had one app, one world. And look Microsoft did this with OneNote. They created the app for OneNote but then they didn't get rid of the old version. And the enterprise side of things absolutely lost their nana. And eventually of course now what's happening, the two are becoming one and they're maintaining the more advanced versions of OneNote. And that was back in 2018 and the MVPs back then had a real connection around it. Now they're going the same way on the Outlook side of things where it's simplifying down and inside enterprise, the features that I'm actually seeing utilized are just not there. And so many of them are just not there in the new mail, you know, Outlook app. So I'm seeing the likes of executive assistants who need some of those more advanced functionality and it's just not there for them. And I know I've tried and I'm working on stuff and I can't even teach some of the things that I used to be able to teach that are functionality that are needed for more advanced mail work. That is just not there. I have actually had to turn it off. And you know what's the first time ever that I have said that, that I've had to revert back to an old version. I have never done that on any of the technology, but it's become a nightmare for me to be able to help enterprise. So personally, I am not a lover, which is sad. So we're saying to prepare that people need to look at the new Outlook first and decide, but don't get rid of your Outlook. Don't jump ship. Make sure you trial it out first. Make sure it fits your needs. The nice thing about that is at least for the most time being you can run both clients at the same time.  Then both clients are there. You can AB them. You can play with whatever features are available and you will find many, many, many features that the desktop client has that the new Outlook pre does not. They're just not there yet. And many of them are just absolutely business, business critical. There's no common objects, no offline files, no PSD files, just no custom fonts, no. Oh, the list is in there. It goes on and on and on and on. And it makes a great thing for me being in the answers for him. Hey, it isn't doing this. And all I have to say is no, it doesn't do that yet. Okay. And the thing is, there are, I have, I have. In your in the magic column, Christian, I put a couple of links to, there are two pages that Microsoft maintains that pretty much they update with the new features and the new things that they've added on an ongoing basis. So people basically just need to look at those two pages to see whether or not the feature that they want that is missing has been addressed yet. Yeah, well, there I was by no means ready for prime time yet. There, there are some blog posts that are out there. There's I like I pulled one up. So Rudy men's who's the his his site, the lazy admin, he has a comparison, what you need to know kind of goes through each of the features and compares them. So there there is some guidance out there if you're wondering, like I made the comment before we started like how about a year and a half two years ago. I had problems I had a, I had a hacker incident, and it something got derailed and got screwed up in my account, and I the desktop version just stopped working. And in fact, Hal and I tried to figure out going through problems and I, I had just started using the browser version created a PWA just have a pin to the desktop. I was frustrated that there were several features that were missing from that experience. I don't remember what my complaints were. I've now it's, I've been using it for so long. I'm happy with it. It does just about everything that I need it to do. And so it was, it was tough for a couple months. Honestly, now here a year and a half, two years later, I don't remember what those things were that I felt were missing because I'm able to get everything done.  Come on, there's so much that you can accomplish, accomplish in the world if you just lower your expectations. I can't do anything. I can run and win a race against five year olds, but I can win a race. Well, we would have, we would stick with the one night app if we'd lowered out expectations. So that's kind of what I'm hoping for personally is that they, they come to their senses and realize that I mean, you just well, they perhaps can replace all the functionality in the desktop client with a web client, but they certainly are not going to do it in the timeframe that they're suggesting a year or two. It's going to be considerably longer than that. Too many business critical features and functionality, something like that template templates to get used by an awful lot by, you know, executives, assistants and things like that. Taking away those sorts of functionality means you're not going to get them off the desktop client. They will hold on that to dear life until the new version and potentially has some of those core features. Can I ask, as I don't know if anybody knows, but what was the behind this complete rebuild and removing all the features? Like what's going on? Is it just a complete rearchitecture? Is that why? Are they just changing it fundamentally and so that they're having to recreate the entire product? I mean, if you think about modern technology in general, so when they started to reduce SharePoint for SharePoint online, this is one of the things I talked about for a while. Is that with the modern architecture and we think about cloud first and we think about any mobile device and, you know, any product, any platform, any solution, right? So like I want to be able to connect to anything in the cloud and I don't want to have to limit it to a specific device. You have to eliminate all downloadable, all executables if you want to achieve that goal. So from an architecture perspective, I'm not going to speak for Microsoft specifically, but from an architecture perspective for a cloud first world, for a modern first world, you have to eliminate anything that you would actually have as a downloadable, which means that you would have to have everything be app generated with all of the data living in the cloud. So that's the thing I'm thinking of when they do things like this is that it's on a path to get us to where basically you don't have to download anything anymore and everything is stored in the cloud. There needs to be a cloud then. Yeah. That's one of the big problems right now.  No, sorry, how do you keep? Oh, that was just. Yeah, yeah. I'm just saying that connectivity with all the new with the AI, you know, with co-pilot and all that other stuff and how it all connects to potentially that bringing it into mail into teams and as an app and how it all, you know, that move over to, as you said, the latest tech, they're the sorts of things that you kind of go, I understand it, but when it comes to the business critical, they don't. They're not going to take on a lot of those sorts of things when they're quite secure gov environments not going to go that way anyway. So, yeah, beautiful. What does it look like? And then my point was data data maintenance. That's the problem. You've got a cloud. It's a fixed size. Just a personal thing here. I've got the offer the office 365 family subscription, which means I get I get a tool what I think it's the better part of a terabyte of data. But I only get a 50 gig mailbox. And those who get who are in the E3 and E5 worlds, they only get 100 gig mailbox. And that's I subscribe to a good many of the MVP distribution lists. I keep all of that. I keep all of that data. It goes back years. Why? Because people don't immediately upgrade to new stuff. They a lot of people got really old stuff that they got it. They broke. Why do I need to fix it or replace it? I have got data that will help them fix it. If it if there's a problem that data no longer exists in Microsoft's world. So I need some means of keeping that data offline. That's a PST file. You can also there's no such a thing in in the world that you're describing Sharon. That doesn't exist. Well, so so then we start thinking about different options. And this is where I do train some of my users that if they don't want to do PST files, you can actually send your emails directly to one note. And then you can save them in one note as an email architecture. And you can actually resend that email out as an email. So if you didn't know that, like that is a way to archive your emails in a functional way where you can still use them and respond to them and send them back out if you need to. But get them out of your inbox so that you can reduce clutter. So I think when you think about the modern architecture, there are new ways of doing things. So hopefully, even though maybe you're not, you don't have the features that you used to have, you can do it in a different way in the modern architecture. It's just a matter of knowing how to do some of those things. That being the case, then they need to publicize that a good deal more because. Yeah. There's a whole lot of friends if they don't. And I mean, that goes back to part of what Jonathan was saying too. I mean, if the stuff has got to be discoverable. You know, I mean, you don't know how long it's somebody may want to have a legal thing that they want. And it's got to be discoverable and available. So there you have it. You got to put it somewhere and you do have to keep it. Yes. Well, you know, and I don't disagree with you there. How I mean, I'm working with a client that's to know their office 2016. They still got even versions of office right back to 1997. They're some of their old tech. They're still on Skype. Not off. And they're they're slowly moving off and it's and starting with just minimal viable product on teams, which is just purely calling called me chat sort of thing. So, you know, the maintaining of information, they still got on premise SharePoint and multiple on premise SharePoints of old. So their migration path for their 22,000 employees is it's going to be painful. So, you know, when you look at all of that and keeping that information and the PSTs and that that go back forever are going to be a challenge in some of the new world. Well, this kind of goes back to the core question that Teresa posted, which is what what should organizations do to prepare for this change. And so one is how this is you identified being figure out your storage path for that historic data. Maybe have some better knowledge management processes in place than storing all of your past information in email inboxes to when we think about collaboration and we think about content. We think about, you know, tasks and knowledge and things like that. And, you know, are there better ways to take that information and get it into a group place where you can search that information where it's not maybe living in a mailbox. But I do. Yeah, I do think it's, you know, looking at the new tool and seeing if there's tool if there's features that are missing that maybe you use on a regular basis. Look and see if there's a way to get around that in a different way so that when you get to the other side you don't feel like you're missing it so much. And do an impact risk assessment on features that are just, you know, what are the things that are the difference between the two applications. And it depends on the organization. If it was one person, you know, who was just at home, you're probably not going to miss it. But if you're a large organization, then I would actually go, what is it feature parity and what does that look like?  If you do lose that and what are alternatives around it, because there might be an alternative that you might be able to do use or plugins or don't know what that looks like moving forward. But that's going to be a really important part of that change process. In other words, you're going to have a lot of people really upset across potentially across your organization. If you haven't prepared them for what it looks like. And in all seriousness for all Microsoft applications, there's a feedback component in every Microsoft application. And often people don't realize it's there. And anyway, we kind of joke about this, but on all honesty, respond to that feedback, like click on the feedback and tell people what you're missing, what you want, because the product teams really do see that. And they use that to build their backlog so they know what to make next. And then also you can always go to feedbackportal.microsoft.com and go to the individual application and participate in the conversations. Like how I was mentioning, you can go to tech community or you can go to feedback portal and post that information. And it really does help because then they know what that business critical feature is so that they can prioritize it. Well put.


Water covers 70% of our planet. Oceans and rivers are the underlying fabric that bind all our lands. They are our conveyor belts, connecting civilizations and charting the course of human progress. Since ancient times, India, with all our natural wealth, has provided the thrust for sea-bound explorations, voyages that have formed the bedrock of modern-day maritime trade. The Indian Ocean touches the coastlines of 37 nations, spanning three continents. With more than 80% of the world's sea-borne trade in oil, one-third of the bulk cargo, and carrying half of the world's container traffic, the Indian Ocean region is the epicentre of economic activity. And India is strategically placed at the very centre of this network. Every conceivable route along the Indian Ocean region has seen India as a destination for trade. The ancient spice, silk and incense trade routes were inevitably linked to India. Sailors and soldiers from the Iron Age, fortune-seekers and missionaries from the medieval era, to geographers and administrators at the turn of the Industrial Revolution, all have stepped ashore on the Indian land. From cotton to crude oil, India's maritime history beholds some of the most intriguing tales of wars and voyages, conquests and coalitions, events that have defined our world in the 21st century.


thanks for staying for the keynote speech. Okay so this was an idea I kind of had last last fall I put it in wrote some notes on it never really turned it in too much of a talk because it initially wasn't accepted but kind of gone through my notes and put together a bunch of stuff I hope that it goes pretty well over the last few years like well I probably the last like five or six years I've hired quite a few people from both Devpoint and Botega and Dev Mountain and I've seen some of them just do a fantastic job of stepping up and just being really good at at least a few things like and sometimes I've just walked in and been blown away like wow you did that one thing way faster and I could have done that or in some cases like I would have had to Google that or whatever you know and like they apparently just knew it and I mean not to say like you know like with three months of experience someone comes out and knows everything but I mean one thing that really stuck with me on that is that you as long as you can work on a team like you can accomplish like amazing things and like just because somebody doesn't have 10 or 15 years of experience doesn't mean that like they aren't a very important part of the community so obviously I can't I can't really say like how everyone should grow in their careers or how the tricks that would work for everybody but I mean I can relate to my own experience both from being a junior and hopefully growing into a senior everyone says I am so I hope I am and then yeah just try to draw a few lessons from that and then get into the slides a bit more so that's generally the topic here is you belong in a room full of wizards the concept of being you know you walk into a room and like everyone there seems like they know so much more than you could ever know and as I've been within that community more and more and more and I kind of played the game myself I've sort of learned like everyone's actually just kind of compensating and hoping nobody guesses that they don't know everything and so anyway I'm gonna just kind of start back in the beginning about like the the myth I've created around myself and like the myths that other people created around me for some random reason so I mean one of the most common myths like I have encountered especially down in Southern Utah for some reason is that I grew up in a cave and was raised by wolves that is mostly false I was actually raised by humans but because my dad worked for the Park Service we traveled around a whole lot so by the time I was probably like 12 years old I had probably spent less than 20% of my life indoors I got least at night so I had very little exposure to electronics for the first part of my life I mean I had this flashlight I remember finding a big band National Park down in Texas that I had some like corroded batteries and I took it out cleaned it on the river and all that kept that for probably four or five years hoping I could like buy batteries some day and see if it worked it didn't unfortunately but the dream was worth it so yeah and when we finally got a house and settled down we got this like set of encyclopedias from like 1973 or something like that it was missing like ours so like I know basically nothing having to do with like things that started with our but like but most of the other things like I mean I remember quite a bit from back then and one thing I became really interested in was amateur radio or ham radio whatever and that just seemed really quoting me the concept that like I could build something with like fairly few electronic parts and communicate with people like all around the world but they're using a car battery or less power than that even so about time I was 13 I learned Morse code about like I know 20 words a minute and read a lot of audio electronics and stuff in encyclopedias and a few things I could find in like a tiny library was like a bookmobile like the bus would come and you could like tell them next week like next week what you wanted them to bring you and so there is some cool stuff I found in there and finally found someone like up in I guess Green River that was giving the test one time so I talked my parents into taking me there they thought it was crazy but oh we got there's a whole bunch like old guys like World War two veterans and stuff you know they're like taking it like giving the test and so yeah we like do the Morse code and prove that we know how to like not kill people with a gar of energy and stuff and so so yes I got that and like for a while like super cool this through this huge antennas across our yard and it was I'm actually pretty happy it still haven't got struck by lightning because I don't know how that was safe but we yeah so it was kind of crazy because just with like a few watts of power and Morse code like I could communicate with people in Japan I think one of the first people I talked to you was just like in Japan then another one in like somewhere in Russia I guess the Ukraine and I was just like yeah this is so cool I'm talking to these like crazy old people like across the world you know my parents are like what are you doing but yeah anyway so but I guess the segue from that into what I'm talking about is that's one of the first times I was exposed to concepts such as character encoding and like so I mean both character encoding and then just like concepts for like project planning and development and actually kind of ordering all the things you needed and putting it together and sort of like what we do with computers but it's a bit crazier back then and at first I was a little like angry with computers like they're replacing all these things I think are really cool you know when I first like learned about them and found this like old old Commodore 64 and like this old abandoned like school house like was like in a neighboring city and like my friend and I took it back and I got at working we had like these three discs that would like play like some pretty cool games where you like hop horses over trees and stuff pretty much like the current Google game where like if Chrome doesn't give you internet you can just jump over cactus for the dinosaur but I thought I was fantastic back then and it kind of made me start learning basics so that I could like program my own little simple games that would like play on that Commodore 64 but anyway fast forward a tiny bit I finally went to high school when I was like 16 and that was where I met a lot of other people that were into computers and learn some things from other people rather than just reading like largely encyclopedias but so that that was a lot of fun I was actually challenged to like do things like write AIs for tic-tac-toe and stuff like that and we actually convinced the math teacher there to give us some credit on it even though they didn't have a computer science course so that was pretty cool I was like pretty much build a tic-tac-toe game that we can't beat and you'll get a credit in high school I was like yeah I mean tic-tac-toe that can't be that hard right but like that was like one of the first times I noticed you know like what your mind is doing is so much more complex than like what you can do on a computer I mean that's like some you write that with if statements I was like 48 if statements but you know still that's like two pages of code even a basic so I mean you know your go-to is only get up to like maybe 200 but so um anyway um yeah I know Sarah Mays is like don't talk about yourself and like I mean I agree with her she's probably wiser than me but like I don't know about you I mean other than what you've told me I can't draw conclusions from that so anyway you know 2002 I started working on my CS degree and oftentimes like a teacher would explain assignments to me and like he'd use new terms I didn't know and I would look around the class and it would just seem like everybody got it somehow and like you know everyone's like oh yeah yeah that's easy yeah that makes sense and I'm just like that doesn't make any sense and then like I get to the end of that class and I'm like how am I in like the top like 4% of this class that like makes no sense to me and you know I just kept thinking like oh man I must have got lucky you must have got one of the easy TAs degrade me or something and then um I just remember like you know I would go home and just like study all this stuff trying to like make it make sense but I didn't think I got it and just kind of seemed like all these people that like seemed for sure like they got it like I don't know if they thought they got it or like if they I mean my guess is they were at this point in my life is that they were just kind of playing this game we all play where it's just like you can't admit that you're like you don't know the concept you know someone's like oh have you heard of this concept you're like oh yeah sort of I remember that yeah you know that was really cool yeah tell me what you like about it but you know and so I mean a lot of this talk is just I don't think that I don't think we should do that I mean we need to like actually just admit what we know and what we don't know and soak up as much knowledge as we can without pretending that we know it the entire time one specific example I remember from from high school or not high school sorry college is this one guy would come into the class and for the first three or four assignments he'd like pretty much make everybody feel bad because he'd do like 50 50 times more than he needed to on a simple hello world assignment like I mean it was a bit more complex than that but let's just start there and the teacher would be like wow this is fantastic you should demo this to the class and everything and we're just like oh man this guy is just like a genius and then like after like three assignments he just like couldn't finish his assignment because he just like over engineered it like crazy and like as it got more complex it was like impossible so we had like probably six times more code than we had but like he dropped the class because like he couldn't get his assignment and it was like two weeks late and that happened again like another class I was in with like the same guy and and like I mean I still actually respect that have a lot of respect for the guy and just like a lot of his code know what he kind of thinks through something from the beginning but I'm just like it doesn't it doesn't matter if you can't finish it and that's um yeah and that's where I get to my first point like complete code will get you a lot further than my perfect code and I mean that isn't to say don't test it I'm not trying to say it but I mean that being said like testing is great you should definitely test you test because it makes the life of other developers around you easier your boss really doesn't care until like somebody else is working in the code and they come and say like yeah we can't even use this code then they care but at that point presumably you're not there so again I'm not saying don't test so like another thing that when I finally got a job in I guess 2000 2004 well I got one job first working for a radio station wasn't a coding job but I wrote code because I wanted to and made their lives a bit easier so I kind of could count that I guess but anyway 2004 I got my first real job a friend of mine like was looking for someone so we could get like a hiring bonus you know and so he's like oh this guy's kind of good so I got a Java job for like 2010 for about $10 an hour which I thought was like epic all my roommates were making like 650 from like Burger King or something so like that was fantastic and but it was funny because I just remember going in there being like yeah I mean I'm a junior I know basically nothing except for like a year and a half of college and a little bit of stuff I played with when I was a kid you know and like there's like cool do this project and like awesome so how should I do that like what should happen in this case and then they would just kind of tell me something that didn't make sense I'd be like okay sure yeah I guess I know what you're talking about you know and I don't walk away and just do it and I mean that brings me to like this point like don't be afraid to ask questions like just if you don't know something ask the question I mean very rarely is that going to reflect poorly on you like I mean I guess in the case that you literally ask like just something super bizarre like hey what's what does puts do or something you know and like when you have a good job like I mean I can't say like this is always not gonna come back on you but like in that case honestly still ask the question because you might want to get another career at that point but like and you want to probably find that out as soon as possible so and then so then as a second point like as a senior just do everything you can within your team to develop an environment where people aren't afraid you ask questions where like somebody asks a question and you'll sit down and help them figure it out or tell them that you don't know either and let's figure it out together or these are some search terms I think will help us find this or whatever it is I mean don't don't feel like you can't admit you don't know something and I mean another problem it doesn't seem to be as much of a problem now but when I first started there was just like huge culture we didn't really have like junior mid senior so much back then it was just kind of like these are the gods that know everything and don't disturb them and and like I think now we have more of a culture where like at least the people called senior like have more of an incentive to make the people around them also be senior rather than just like I don't want you to be a senior then I won't be smart anymore you know and like that might have just been my perception back then but like it really seemed like you would ask a question and they would just come back at you which is like read the freaking manual and that yeah there's my side for that but really I mean sometimes you're asking a question and it's like a completely valid question like so the way you set the server up is it gonna be a problem if I'm expecting a call on this port and there's gonna be like read the freaking manual let me Google that for you or some pointless useless thing you know it's like yeah sure if I'm asking a really stupid question I mean you don't still don't tell me it's stupid I mean maybe come and say like you know I think that this could help and at that point if it looks really simple maybe I'll just know I was stupid but like there's no reason that you should ever point that out especially like I mean read read the freaking manual and like let me Google that for you honestly it's probably worse because it's even more passive aggressive but like anyway so that brings me to my first main point we're all faking it but in the meantime we are we accomplished great things that's what programmers do and like my point with that is that as we learn to do and say the things that make the people around us think we know what we're talking about we actually do know some of those things we actually do learn some of those things and as long as we can accomplish tasks as long as we can walk home and feel good about like solving a problem that we didn't know how to solve at the beginning of the day we're programmers also I didn't have time to like look up like which pictures I could like legally use I just used all my own pictures so so with all that being said I mean if you're trying to make it in any community become familiar with the common principles within that discipline I mean with within Rails like we obviously I mean TDD I guess right so TDD is an interesting one because from going to a conference I mean literally everybody walks around feeling like wow every single person in this room has a hundred percent test coverage but like and I literally just I must be like the biggest faker in this entire room because like my last project only had like 60% coverage and that like I don't know because like that was the point of like DHH's talk like TDD is dead I mean if you listen to that entire thing he wasn't saying don't test he wasn't even saying don't do test-driven development he was saying like we've turned this thing into like a religion like in the same way of a random diet or fad where it's just like everyone must do this thing oh you're on that diet well no wonder you look like that and I think that it's that isn't in any way helpful I mean like tests are there to give us confidence that our code will pass that our code will continue to work in production that when we make a small change to our code it's not going to break something on the other side of it like that is the intention of tests and I think a lot of this like kind of shaming people with like oh you don't do enough TDD is just resulting in what Sandy Mets referred to as brittle tests where everyone's just like in order to get the test coverage let's go and test everything they can think of and then like the things that are really hard they're like oh I have enough test coverage and everything else I guess these don't need tested and you end up with tests like oh yeah my user has many listings let's verify that that works and that like when I validate that a name must be there it actually is and you're like yeah rails is already testing that you don't need to test that so this isn't a tech talk about testing but um yeah test tests are great so again don't don't use these principles to shame others who maybe didn't memorize the acronyms as well as you help them understand how to make sense of them like a lot of times I mean like everybody learned rails because DHH made a 15 minute video that was like look I made a thing and we were all impressed enough that we like dropped our system dot out dot print lines and went over and started working with this and and then like there became all these kind of topics within that like you must do this you must do this you must do this but there's very little actually explaining how to do that or why to do that or how to know if you did it well I mean even to this day like there isn't really an easy way to set up a test framework for rails I make sure we have some scaffolding that sometimes passes like just on deep by default but usually it's like to set it up write all this work and you're just like but my site works I can see that my site works like why do I need to test it is like well there's a lot of reasons you need to test it but there's not no one that really there like unless you're lucky enough to have a really good mentor or something saying like this is exactly how you do it and yet you go to like a conference and it's still just yeah I mean nobody is like oh shame on you they're just like that doesn't even need to be said so anyway I'm moving on so I mean same with solid principles I mean how many interviews have you been to where they've been like okay like can you explain what every point of solid stands for and exactly what this third one means to you and I mean I've been told like in code reviews like an open source projects other things that like I have a firm grasp on solid principles so I hope that that's the case but um like and I think like eight years ago I memorized them for a couple interviews and tried to like make sure I actually applied them in my code even one time went through and kind of marked the areas I thought I needed to work on I honestly don't remember what like all of those stand for anymore um so yeah you can shame me um so yeah moving on to dry that one's easy to remember just remember that one um I liked your wet one the other day too though I mean that made a lot of sense um so yeah it's so easy to look at somebody's code like somebody could walk up to you and be like look at this really cool thing I wrote and you don't know why they wrote it you just know what they're trying to do that you don't know if they live coded it but you could somebody could easily look at that and be like wow well that isn't dry enough and like following this principle I'd move this up here it's like yeah good code should probably be dry you could help clean it up but you don't always have to just find a problem with somebody's code you could easily find the things you like about the code and then find a way to make it easier for you to read if you're gonna be working in it um and I mean there's nothing probably more rewarding than taking like a bunch of code that you know works and then cleaning it up in a way that it's way easier to work within the future and that you can just call a method and it's now all tested and it looks fantastic so um moving on he he was one at the time I mean I guess to myself maybe I think my phone now puts a copy right on things I think I'm so yeah anyway so that brings me on to my point with working with others again so try to understand each other like I mean I see I see some people they're just like so annoyed with like I just keep interviewing these juniors and they just come in here and they think that like I like they're deserving of my time and like I'm just so annoyed with like I'm just want to find a good program where I don't have to pay any money and um then and you know to some to some extent I understand like they're what where they're coming from like I mean it's pretty easy to understand where they're coming from like I mean they need people to get stuff done they have a budget to work with probably 10 15 years ago when they got into the market straight out of college they weren't paid anything near what like people are getting paid right now and like but at the same time that's what the market is and then like you know as so like as a senior you know understand like you know these people change their careers or they you know they went and spent a whole lot of time learning this new skill trying to like actually do something they could feel passionate about and you know any interaction you have with them could literally be the difference between them walking away and saying I guess I'm just going to go back to like sanitation or something whatever they came from probably but um but um so so like my point here is like you know my son is looking at this lizard and this lizard just thinks he's going to eat him right but like um he just thinks the lizard is super awesome and wants to be friends and he doesn't understand why the lizard like jumps off and runs away and like the lizard like just didn't want to be eaten and like so I mean he could be really offended and be like why is the lizard hate me or the lizard could be like why the heck did this monster like try to eat me but none of those things happened and so I guess just while interacting with each other like try to understand like why they did instead of the things they did and try to figure out like what can I say to change that perspective and moving on so what I think I've often times told my teams is that what matters most on like a team is like what you can accomplish what you do accomplish and what people think you accomplish not actually sure which order those should be in but um I think why I think that those are important is because I've worked with people that like I know are doing 80% of the work on the team and I've seen like budgets get reduced and I've seen like it come down from management like oh we have to let that person go and I've been like but that guy's great like look at all the stuff he does and they're just like yeah I don't know people people look at him there's don't think he's working and I'm just like I mean but he is and so you know and then you know there's people that just like you know they work really really hard but they never get anything done because they don't understand the basic principles and they don't take the time and the beginning to learn those principles so like I feel that honestly I mean at the end of the day I guess number three is probably most important but like at least in keeping your job because I mean if you don't know and do things eventually people will stop thinking that you know and do things so moving on I don't know if that was me I guess it was I don't seem to have a volume control thanks touch bar so that moves me on to my next point for advancing your career or just you know something career contribute to open source that's been mentioned a couple times during this conference in different contexts but I feel like you know whether you get paid or not and I also do agree that it definitely gets it definitely sucks when you get a project to the point that all you have is a million issues asking you to fix bugs that you don't think are bugs but um and you can easily get burned out and possibly getting money on that would help but regardless like just in terms of like in advancing your own skills getting recognition within the community contributing to open source is a fantastic way to do at least both of those things and moving on so I mean some of the biggest projects I have been part of in the last a few years well Petergate actually is one of my older projects which is just a pretty much author basically rails authorization not to be confused with authentication Alan doesn't like it just kidding and then amber is a full-featured web framework that honestly I mean I'd say it was better at law of all at least it doesn't have everything rails dude but it has probably everything rails like 2.3 had so and WebSockets too so um look at that if you feel like it crystal is an awesome language in that it's super fast and has a really cool community and looks a lot like Ruby. Exorcism was mentioned earlier. Exorcism is a really easy thing to get into both in terms of just doing the exercises and getting better but also it's one of the easiest things to actually get a pull request into because you can go and say okay I can do all the Ruby ones or maybe you're coming from another language I can do a lot of these challenges you could then take those same challenges over to a new language you're learning after you do the ones that exist say well here's 15 that exist in like C but don't exist in this in Ruby or vice versa or Elixir or whatever and you could actually say I'm going to take that I'm going to write the test framework for it and what the example code should be make sure that follows a format from the contributors learn about forking and upstreams and keeping all those in sync and contribute and actually get some pretty decent PRs that will probably be more useful to people than a lot of random other open source you could do and I mean the Exorcism team very much depends on people from the community to write these courses so that's an excellent one to kind of get your feet in open source so that brings me up to my next point do magic tricks and I think you kind of take that two ways like you know I kind of just got done talking about how like everyone's just pretending and that's it's not necessarily bad I mean like if you're making other people feel bad then it is but like if you're just doing magic tricks so that like the same thing you're doing is interesting whereas if you were just typing slowly it would look boring then like by all means like do it I mean that's like look at most of the people that give talks all over the place at all the circuits I don't know even though if they have to program anymore but they're really good at pretending so um and I mean most of them actually are doing like really great programming but like they're also really good at the presentation of that and I like to think they enjoy it more because of that so moving on so an Oscar Wilde quote was the truth about the life of a man it's not what he does but the legend which he creates around himself and I mean some people have an issue with that because like basically like your perceptions more than what you actually are but like honestly at the end of the day like if somebody still thinks you accomplished all these things you must have so I've kind of always loved that quote so live coding is a performance art that I personally like and I mean I've seen some really awesome live coding I mean I think I honestly got that from just like DHH is like building a blog in 15 minutes like back in 2005 I was just like this is amazing like he literally just types he obviously didn't like edit this because there's all these mistakes in everything but it's completely usable and I can tell that like it's not just one of those super polished like Pluralsight things where you're like that's awesome but I don't even know if you know these things you're saying you know you know so I feel like like live coding like it makes you like one of those people that like you know like CSI Miami or whatever like makes up that don't actually exist or just like I can type really fast and do cool stuff you know like you get to pretend you're one of them and that's it's rewarding so so yeah I'm moving on so like like any performance art it takes practice but if done while you'll gain the respect of both peers and potential employers I mean your potential employers just expect all programmers to do that anyway right so you might as well the ones that aren't technical I mean which is kind of most of them so in my opinion Vim but I mean this honestly could be like kind of any editor that you're good at I think Vim like has advantage of like looking magic by default if you like can do anything cool in it it probably doesn't actually make you way faster although there are a few things that I like I get in the Facebook and I'm just like what but um so um oh yeah that it might actually just make you so you can't use any other text editor but still look cool so so just say take it out for what it is so then I mean team ox kind of along the same vein like it's really easy it's really easy once you get used to it to move around and do things you'll get carpal tunnel a little bit slower maybe like and also you'll look magic because without ever touching a mouse or moving a mouse curse pointer you'll be able to get from one place to another place accomplish things and people will just see magic happening on your screen and you'll at the very least feel good about yourself and other people will tell you you must be smart so moving on emulate rock stars DHH would say emulate drug dealers I guess but like I obviously I'm not a race car driver but I do there are a lot of things like that DHH has done and said that like I try to emulate such as like her and liking testing but talking crap on it just you know don't use your magic tricks to make others feel inadequate that one can be complex you might not always get it perfectly but as long as I think you're honest about what you're doing and you don't come across is like I literally know more than everybody else in this room that you'll probably be fine how much time I love them oh man they're just go really fast then okay so history is full of examples of oppressed becoming the oppressors and by this I mean like it's really easy to think of yourself as just I'm this person trying to compete in this world that's just so hard to compete and as you like learn things and get better it's hard to stop thinking of yourself as that you might actually be the person at the top that's now putting everybody else down and it's really easy to still think in terms of this is what I have to do to get ahead and I try to be really careful about that like in my own career as like I get to a point where I actually have authority not to still just feel like I need to prove that I am better than the people around me and yeah so the habits you form while building your career could easily be used to keep others down once you get into a position of authority so be aware of that so on to teamwork so as a team member a working project is more important than contributions by individual rock stars moving on however when demoing team projects it's best if team leads give credit to individual ideas and solutions without like those people having to stand up and be like hey that was me so offering deserved praise on others work will get you a lot further than pointing out how smart you are or what you contributed and by that I mean pretty much what I said I guess but um like you know it's so it's so frustrating when like you see somebody else taking credit for your work or you know I worked literally an entire week on this I didn't get any sleep and somebody else is just like look what the team did cool yeah and but at the same time I mean you stand up and say like oh hey no that was all me you know like that doesn't in any way make you look good nobody's going to like call you up after they go to a new job and say hey come work with me but I mean like as long they'll know if you did good work like the people that matter on the team will know if you did good work and if I mean that goes back to my previous point like I mean as a senior take time to acknowledge that but like if that isn't happening to you oftentimes just standing up and pointing that out like which I mean I've been guilty of in the past you know like it isn't going to make somebody say like wow that person is smart look at all the things they think they do so um whereas like I mean if somebody in my life even when I walks around and says wow Isaac solved this problem in exactly this way and it was so great like I'm like I don't even know guys I'm bashful now but like um I feel good I like that person you know because I feel like that person for one understood what I did which makes me feel like maybe they understand programming better and I'm happy because I'm happy when people are nice to me and I'm way more likely to want to work for that person so HDR HDR is in photography where you take multiple pictures of different exposures and use the dark parts from a picture where it would have been too bright and combine it with the bright spots from another picture where it would have been too dark etc I feel like in teamwork it's really important to find like where where you could do your best like the parts that you could fill in better than anyone else and work with people on what their skill at and respect them for those skills and if you're getting started don't let the fear that everyone around you knows so much more keep you from trying if you've ever programmed and want to do it professionally then you are a programmer everyone in this room probably knows something you don't and that's fine because you know things they don't there's more to know than anyone could ever understand and in that way you're the same as the best programmers to ever live the end thank you cool any questions I mean I've definitely noticed a difference but I've kind of seen people from all camps progress I mean I've worked with I've worked on people that came in they were just like super uptight and like super afraid that like anything they didn't know would be held against them and like so because of that it would cause them to like argue like oh I'm right no matter what even when they're just like so clearly weren't right but in some cases I've seen those people when they actually four or five times in a row see that like the solution you came up with was actually better in a way that they could see or you found a solution on the internet that proved it to them or a video that said like this is how you should do it like if you can do that in a way that doesn't make them feel like they're being attacked some of those people have still become some of the best programmers I've worked with I mean obviously the person who like is intelligent and yet like wants all the information they can and have no ego like I mean obviously I mean that's kind of perfect situation but like I've seen many other people excel so open sources and mentioned several times here it looks like based on some of these survey results there's a lot of juniors in this room what I think I've noticed talking to juniors a lot of them said to me like yeah I've looked at open source projects but it's way over my head or I couldn't find anything that made sense that I could help with where would you suggest those juniors get started with open sources they can actually handle that kind of goes back to my point about contributing that to exorcism because like in that case you're actually looking at a pretty small problem in some cases and you know exactly what it is you're trying to do in that like you already maybe solved five or six other problems and now you want to give back and I feel like that's like a very small like palatable thing that somebody could accomplish in anywhere from like 20 minutes to a couple hours and actually get the experience now back and forth on a PR like oh that's great thanks for the contribution but could you change this one thing and we'll accept it you know I mean that's just one example but I mean I would say find a piece of software that isn't overly crazy that you use but you want it to do something else I mean exorcism is just an example so yes that's a great point I mean documentation like nobody is ever going to be mad at you for making documentation like yeah yeah I mean if they if they if they if you put forward documentation and it doesn't even actually work where it can leads people wrong I mean they're at least gonna say like yeah that isn't right but hopefully like people in the community are actually almost better at documentation because they understand that parts of the project that like we don't like they had to start from the beginning and set that up whereas like if you've written the big project you might actually be kind of bad at the documentation because there is so many things that you just take for granted like well obviously I start here so yeah is that it like I mean I can show you them so I mean one one thing one thing that I feel is like super useful as hot keys I skipped over that one pretty fast but I feel like just the ability to like never have to really touch your mouse and just like switch between like say your terminal your browser your editor your slack whatever it is right I feel like those things like both save you time and you probably won't have to get carpal tunnel quite as soon and make you look magic so awesome