Programming on Learn Forever

Extracting Reddit Data with AI

Tue, 25 Nov 2025 10:08:42 -0800

A few days ago, I stumbled upon a Reddit thread packed with API recommendations. The thread was long, detailed, and exactly what I needed—except I didn’t want to manually comb through dozens of comments. I figured this was the perfect job for AI. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t as straightforward as I expected.

Installing Java in 2025, and Version Managers

Mon, 24 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Remember when installing Java meant one download, one version, once choice? Back in the old days, you would head over to java.sun.com or later to Oracle website to download the installer, click through a few prompts, and you were done. Life was simple.

Back then, there was typically one widely-adopted version of Java that would remain stable for years. You didn’t need to think much about version management because there wasn’t much to manage. Over the years, a lot has changed.

jq: Ad hoc JSON processing made easy

Wed, 20 Dec 2017 21:55:00 -0800

Nowadays, a developer needs to deal with JSON quite frequently. RESTful web services are everywhere. Whether you need to work with Elasticsearch, DynamoDB, Neo4j, Titan, or an internal Restful API for a web application you will probably end up dealing with JSON.

Do Programmers Actually Need Touch Typing?

Tue, 24 Oct 2017 16:04:22 -0700

Touch typing (also called touch type or touch keyboarding) is typing without using the sense of sight to find the keys. Specifically, a touch typist will know their location on the keyboard through muscle memory. (Wikipedia)

After about 20 years of programming with hunt and peck style shamelessly, I decided to learn touch typing a few months ago. I'll talk about why I decided to learn touch typing at the end of this post, but I first want to spend time on the critical question: "Do Programmers Actually Need Touch Typing?".