Core CS concepts made simple. Stay in the conversation - you got this.

Don’t have a CS degree? Neither do I! That’s why I wrote this book: to fill the gaps in my career. The result? 700+ pages of essentials skills and ideas every developer should know.

I'm a self-taught developer, and for most of my career, I've learned what was required to get the job done. When conversations veered toward core concepts, I disengaged. I decided to change all of this in 2014. I sat down and looked up all of the topics that a typical CS degree covers and then I dove in. The result is The Imposter’s Handbook: a compendium of my year-long quest to fill the holes in my CS knowledge.

Click on the images to see the TOC and some sample pages.

This is an ebook, delivered in epub, mobi and PDF formats. It is not a physical book.

You get both seasons of The Imposter's Handbook at a 20% discount. 

I'm a self-taught developer, and for most of my career, I've learned what was required to get the job done. When conversations veered toward core concepts, I disengaged. I decided to change all of this in 2014. I sat down and looked up all of the topics that a typical CS degree covers and then I dove in. The result is The Imposter’s Handbook, seasonds 1 and 2: compendia of my quest to fill the holes in my CS knowledge.

You can view information about volume 1 here, volume 2 here.

These are ebooks, delivered in epub, mobi and PDF formats. It is not physical books.

Demystify SQL and relational databases with this cosmic detective story.

Follow along with Dee Yan, our fictional data science intern, as she assumes the job of interim database administrator at the fictional aerospace startup, Red:4. She’ll learn PostgreSQL like we all do: on the job and under pressure. 

She needs to assemble, normalize, query and optimize data from the Cassini mission so it can go along as reference material for SELFI, NASA’s next-generation sensor that has a singular job: verify life under Saturn's ice moon: Enceladus.

Mostly a PostgreSQL tutorial, this book also has a narrative element in the spirit of The Martian. You'll start out with the basics: creating tables and importing data. Soon, however, you'll be awash in glorious SQL and data from space, creating functions, common table expressions and calculating aggregates using window functions.

Is there life under the ice of Enceladus? Let's ask the data...

This is an ebook that is delivered in epub, PDF and Kindle formats.

Master The Coding Interview

I loathe coding interviews. They're tedious, annoying and the questions they ask have very little to do with the job you're applying for. So why do they ask these questions?

I made the video that I wished I had years ago, when applying at Microsoft, Avanade, Google and others. Something to get me past the frustration and actually allow me to enjoy the process. I needed a video that would show me what I needed to review, the strategies involved and that, YES, it's doable. So I made one!

I also wanted to see how an expert would solve these tough problems so I asked Jon Skeet to join me for a 5-question interview session, just like you would find at Google, where Jon works. He interviews people all the time - now he gets a taste of his own medicine!

A Blueprint for Going Out On Your Own as a Software Developer

Taking control of your career can be lifechanging - the freedom to work on what you want when you want is intoxicating. In 2004 I was going to give it all up, ready to go back to school so I could earn my commercial captian's license with the goal of driving tugboats in San Francisco Bay. Luckily, a friend talked me out of it as he needed some help with a project he was working on at PayPal.

Thus started my journey as a solo developer... which hasn't always been fun. Turns out that it's really easy to screw the whole thing up if you don't start with a solid plan. That's why I made this video.

I've packaged everything I've learned about running a solo business over the last 15 years into a solid, tightly-edited hourlong video.

In the latest production from Big Machine, we explore what it takes to build a usable, “serverless” ecommerce application. I’m not just talking about checking out and running a Stripe charge – no we’re doing it all.

In this video we’ll set up:

• A web site hosted by Firebase, generated by Middleman, secured with SSL
• Digital fulfillment (with counters and expiring URLs) using Firebase Storage
• Authentication using OAuth
• Email notifications and customer management, integrating with Drip
• Paranoid data collection using PostgreSQL at Compose.com
• A REAL set of checkout data, including geolocating IP addresses, payment and processor retention

I built a site that I want to use, far beyond a typical demo. That site is yours along with over 3 hours of video explanation.

All of the code in the video and the book is available in our Github repository. You can download individual chapters, or checkout with Git.