What is the best time to start looking for a new job? Here are some signs:

🔸 Toxic environment, bad boss or a coworker
🔸 You don't feel valued at your current job
🔸 You've stopped growing or learning
🔸 Boring projects
🔸 No raises for years

1️⃣ The toxic environment is the single, most important reason to leave a job. Your health and well-being are more important than your job. It could be a bad boss or a coworker. Whatever it is, put yourself in the first place.

2️⃣ You are putting in hard work, but you don't feel valued. Boss or coworkers don't praise or give you credit for good work and you just had it enough. At some point, you might start doubting your skills or feel undervalued.

3️⃣ The moment you stop growing at your job is the moment when you should start looking for a new and better opportunity. Of course, you should also try to improve things yourself first. But if your daily job has become routine it might degrade your skills over time.

4️⃣ You've stopped growing and are working on boring projects. What's worse than that? Probably that salary which hasn't been raised in ages. Not to mention the inflation which means that you're now actually paid less than the previous year.

5️⃣ So, what are your options? Start looking for a new job if you noticed any of the above-mentioned signs. The sooner you do it, the less you will have to keep up with the bad situation at your current job.

Looking for a new job

These days everyone is trying to grab a piece of our attention. Do you actually read all those newsletters that you're subscribed to? If the answer is no - then just unsubscribe and make your inbox a better place.

You see, I was addicted to reading as much news as I could daily. Subscribed to dozen RSS feeds and daily newsletters. Social networks were part of my daily routine. I would start the day by checking Twitter and LinkedIn.

So much good content that I bookmarked or liked, just to read it later. Other times, I would just send the article directly to Notion. What a collection of articles I have there, you have to see it to believe it.

But I'm not alone. I've understood that many people were doing the same. Hoarding of articles, newsletters and YouTube videos, just to read or watch them later. And that day never comes. Articles become outdated and no longer interesting.

Here's what you can do about it:

1. Less is more. Unsubscribe from newsletters that you don't read.

2. Podcasts could be nice, but be very selective. They are big time sinks (good to listen to if you're commuting).

3. Quality over quantity. Be selective what you read. I read and support some Substack publications. There's so much value in those.

4. Find a time to read / watch what you bookmarked. Make it a part of routine. If you consume high quality content and you followed quality over quantity, this should be relatively doable.

5. Disconnect from the news. This was hardest for me. I haven't had Twitter on my phone for over a month. Good experiment. I've just removed it again.

Unsubscribing for a Better Inbox

Living paycheck to paycheck gives you super anxiety, even if you have save.

There are so many things that we can't control and that could have a dramatic impact on personal finances:

- getting sick
- loosing a job
- volatile markets
- inflation

What are your options? 🧵

Fast paced life and not caring about our health can lead to this. 

No one could predict the Covid-19.

Being sick can impair working ability and if you need to work to earn money, well you have a problem.

Health always comes first, remember this!

There are so many ways to loose a job so I won't go into details here.

Depending on how long you've been with company, your notice period might allow for enough time to find a new job.

Yeah, let's not talk about stress here. Hey, I hear someone mentioning probation period.

You have some extra money and have invested in stock or, God forbid - crypto.

Guess what? If you don't invest money that you're ready to loose, reality will hit hard.

If you're HODLER, then good for you - maybe you'll recover in 1-5 years time.

Inflation can slowly eat your money's worth and depending on where you live, could be small or significant factor.

Double digit inflation is unfortunately possibility in even more countries.

Higher inflation usually leads to increase in interest rates (not good).

Okay, now that I scared you enough, what can you actually do to improve your odds of surviving these events.

Software developers actually have quite good choices, but most revolve around idea:

ℹ️ Don't work for money (hint: Rich Dad Poor Dad)

Let's dig into more details 👇

You have several options here:

- digital product(s) (app, theme, templates)
- online course(s)
- create subscription based software

What is common to all three? You will earn money while you are sleeping. How nice is that?

Some might be passive income, others less so.

However, don't have any illusions - it's a hard way to success. 

You can read and follow some successful folks here on Twitter.

They create Ghost themes and have several subscription based services, have sold their company and now teach others, or have awesome Twitter CRM.

Now, take action and don't live paycheck to paycheck. It's dangerous.

Start working on your side project, become more active on Twitter, build something!

Me? I'm still not there, but as many of you am trying to escape the rat race (check out The Great Rat-Race Escape)

Escape the Rat Race

Blog, Twitter and LinkedIn. I'm trying to write on all three, but it's challenging.

🔸 Blog is mean for longer, evergreen content
🔸 Twitter moves fast, shorter form
🔸 LinkedIn sits between these two

Here's what to do if you don't want to burn out and crash writing. 🧵

You should have a plan how frequently to publish on each platform. Don't have a plan yet? Make one!

It's important to try and keep to the plan, but also be realistic.

How often should you publish? Let's see what you could do:

- Blog: weekly one article
- Twitter: daily several articles and one thread weekly
- LinkedIn: weekly, several times

Now this looks quite ambitious, and it is. Read on to see what you can do about it.

Idea is to repurpose the same content for different platforms.

You could take existing blog post, simplify it and post it as a thread on Twitter. 

Same with LinkedIn. You could even cross-post longer tweets or threads to LinkedIn.

The biggest problem is to put all this in place and be consistent. 

I published two blog posts only two days apart and would now like to continue.

However, it's quite unrealistic to produce content each two days. Quality matters!

Use scheduler apps like Typefully to schedule tweets and threads. Write now, publish later.

Similar with blog posts, set the future date and click publish. For tech content I recommend @hashnode, but you can use something else like WordPress or Ghost.

There will be times when you won't have enough time or inspiration to write. It's okay. 

Take it easy, don't push yourself too much and enjoy.

Writing is marathon, not a sprint.

How often to write and publish?

Find out what .NET is and it's flavors.

What is colloquially known as ".NET" is both SDK, used to develop app and runtime - needed to run ".NET" apps.

Languages supported by .NET are: C#, F#, Visual Basic, IronPython and more.

There was even J# (Java) at some point.

Here are the flavors of ".NET":

👉 .NET Framework - it all started 20 years ago, runs on Windows only. Not updated anymore, avoid
👉 .NET Core - new and open source, runs on Windows, Linux and Mac. 🔥
👉 .NET - new name, .NET Core renamed to only .NET. The future. 🔥🔥🔥

.NET 6 is modern platform for developing all kinds of apps:

- web apps and APIs
- desktop apps
- mobile apps
- console apps

It comes with awesome libraries, documentation and IDE.

It's open source!

There's no reason not to try .NET at least. C# is great programming language and is the most used of all .NET languages.

New versions of .NET and C# are released annually, with lots of new features and performance improvements.

You don't have to pay anything to use Visual Studio Community or VS Code, both which are great IDEs for developing .NET apps.

JetBrains Rider is good (commercial) alternative that works cross-platform.

You can read the unrolled version of this thread here: https://typefully.com/dpihac/HChgAH2

Flavors of .NET

Entity Framework Core is fantastic, and I use it as the ORM of choice. 

However, many developers struggle or don't like it because of performance issues.

Here's what you need to do to optimize EF Core performance 🧵👇

Tip #1: Use AsNoTracking()

This is basically "free" optimization when it comes to read-only queries. 

If you don't need to update result set, use "AsNoTracking()" and the tracking snapshot will not be created.

Tip #2: Select only required columns from DB

Some might say this should have been the first tip. Instead of selecting all properties, select just the ones you need.

Tip #3: Server vs client side filtering/sorting

This is one of the major performance issues - instead of using DB to filter/sort, all the records are loaded in memory and then filtered/sorted.

Tip #4: Don't call SaveChanges() in a loop.

Instead of persisting data in the each iteration of the loop, add objects to the context and then call SaveChanges() outside of the loop.

This will significantly reduce DB round-trips and network traffic.

Tip #5: Use SQL where apropriate

Sometimes hand-written SQL queries / statements will give you better results.

One of the examples is bulk updating single column of all the properties in the DB.

Tip #6: DB optimizations

👉 Use indexes
👉 Use materialized views
👉 Use computed columns, instead of doing computation in memory
👉 Use UDFs (User Defined Functions) instead of client code
👉 Some denormalization is okay for better performance
👉 DB based pagination

You can read the unrolled version of this thread here: https://typefully.com/dpihac/Hv7Y6f3

EF Core performance optimizations

Are you trying to learn ASP. NET Core and are struggling? Don't know where to start?

Save yourself the time and read, listen or follow these 🧵👇

Book #1: ASP. NET Core in Action by Andrew Lock

Everything that you need to get stared, but also get an in-depth overview of the framework.

Make sure to follow @andrewlocknet and visit his website: https://andrewlock.net/

Book #2: ASP. NET Core Razor Pages in Action

This book hasn't been released yet (one chapter is missing), but you can purchase MEAP version and read it now on Manning's website.

Follow @Mikesdotnetting and visit his site: https://www.mikesdotnetting.com/

Book #3: Entity Framework Core in Action

Everything about the EF Core from the pen of the awesome Jon P Smith (@thereformedprog).

Jon publishes a lot of valuable content on his website: https://www.thereformedprogrammer.net/


Here are some awesome people I recommend you to follow, that haven't been mentioned in previous tweets:

@julielerman, @ardalis, @buhakmeh, @shanselman

ASP.NET Core learning resources

💡 Clean Code principles, part 2. In this part focus is on:

• Long methods
• Methods with too many arguments
• Nested (arrow) code
• God classes

More in a thread 🧵👇 

1️⃣ Long methods

What makes the method too long? As a general rule of thumb, if it doesn't fit on the screen, it's too long. Now, there are screens with high resolution and one might say - my 100 line method still fits on the screen.

Why are long methods bad?

• It often means that the method is doing too many things at once
• Hard to read and understand
• Harder to test

Often you can split one big method into more, smaller methods that focus on specific things. 
Long methods often have many arguments

2️⃣ Methods with too many arguments

Some people say that a method should have no more than 3-4 arguments. 

While I try to be reasonable about it, too many arguments are a bad sign.

Often it means that method is doing more than it should.

Other times, you can group arguments and introduce a new type (class or record). 

Instead of passing:

• first name
• last name
• date of birth
• email"

you can create a new Person type with those properties.

3️⃣ Nested (arrow) code

Not only that it's very difficult to read and reason about, but it's also very often bad performing code. It's called arrow code because the indentation often resembles the tip of the arrow.

What can you do about nested (arrow) code?

• Try to simplify the code
• Use guard clauses and early returns
• Extract long loop bodies into methods

A nested loop is one of the worst offenders. 

What's even worse, often loop bodies are too long, hard to read and understand.

4️⃣ God classes

Classes that have very low cohesion (grouping similar code)

There is only one solution here - split the class up. And don't try to cheat with partial classes here.

Clean Code principles, part 2

Be a team player!

It usually takes a whole team, not an individual to ship high quality, performant code and great UX. We are stronger as a team!

Traits of great teams:

- effective communication
- respect and honesty
- no blaming

1️⃣ Effective communication:

Async is often times better than many short chat messages. Emails can be better than long audio/video calls.

Be sure to:

- write/speak so people can understand you
- mention most important things first
- provide context
- avoid ambiguity

2️⃣  Respect and honesty:

Respect your team members and work they do. Building large scale projects is a team effort. Be honest and provide feedback, but don't make it personal.

We all make mistakes, don't be afraid to own your mistakes.

Don't lie!

3️⃣ No blaming:

Mistakes happen, projects get delayed - it's not probably first nor the last time. Don't point fingers, try to find a solution and help your coworker(s) out.

Lie and finger pointing can be fatal to any team!

Be a team player!

Code reviews are effective way to improve code quality and maintain high standards in your organization / team.

Some tips for better code reviews:

- annotate your code in PR
- be respectful of the author
- you are not your code
- suggest change in a polite way
- be constructive

As always, clear communication is the key - be polite, respectful and on topic. Don't criticize author personally and bring constructive ideas. When commenting, try to get your point across first time, don't make people guess what you wanted to say.