Category: Thoughts

IE and the New Microsoft Edge

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Microsoft is stopping Internet Explorer support in 2021. Finally, the 25-year-old browser is coming to an end.

It has been a crazy ride, in 1995, Internet Explorer controlled 90% of internet traffic, and just a few years later it was clinging to his throne. We all remember Microsoft, trying to force-feed it to all of us.

And what about the endless struggle between thousands of miserable web developers around the world trying to make their websites look acceptable on IE.

Anyway, IE is coming to an end after all and we can talk about his successor.

The New Microsoft Edge

Microsoft is telling us “It’s time to expect more”, with the New Microsoft Edge, Microsoft is promising us a browser with world-class performance, great speed, more privacy and control, new features to increase our productivity, and much more.

Beside this we can take the experience across our devices, the New Microsoft Edge is available for Windows, macOS, iOS and Android.

New vs Old

Another question that popped into my mind is, what does “New” exactly means? This implies that there are 2 different versions of Edge, an old one and a new one?

Well, that exactly what this means, Edge was initially built with Microsoft’s browser engine EdgeHTML and Chakra JS engine; it happens, both are forks of Microsoft’s Trident and JScript engines used by Internet Explorer

So, old Edge refers to the Edge version which is using EdgeHtml and it is a close relative of Internet Explorer.

Now, the New Edge, it is a complete rebuild of Edge based on Chromium, the open-source project developed by the Google-sponsored Chromium project and used by Google to make Chrome.

This is not a new move, there are other browsers including Opera that use Chromium at their base.

So now everything should be clear:
Old – Internet Explorer Based <= 44.19041
New – Chromium based >= 79.0.309

I am sure you noticed the huge leap between these two version numbers, that is because from the New Edge release, Microsoft has adopted the chromium version number for Edge.

Thoughts

Well, as you can imagine there are different opinions regarding the New Edge, so here is another one:

I have been using the new Edge for the last ~3 months and I plan to stick with it, I like it.

Being honest, I do not miss Chrome, which was the browser I was using before and the New Edge does not feel like Internet Explorer. I have been doing web development as part of my job and I am so glad to see the thigs working as they are supposed to.

I was worried about the Chrome extensions I was using but that fear rapidly disappeared because not only Edge has its own add-ons gallery (currently in BETA and growing), but it allows you to get extensions from the Chrome Web Store. Problem solved.

The transition was painless, at initial open it allows you to take everything from your previous browser. Syncing between my devices worked as expected and I have been using some of its flagship features like collections, its privacy controls, immersive reader, and so far, it has been a good experience.

Give it a try.

Simplenote

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Simplenote – The simplest way to keep notes.

Light, clean, and free. Simplenote is now available for iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, Linux, and the web.

I found Simplenote a few months ago, I start using it and I instantly loved the simplicity of the platform, it has all the features you’d expect on a modern notes platform, cloud sync across devices, search, tagging, note publication, change history and one that I particularly liked: markdown support. All of this completely free.

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Also, it took me a short time to discover that all Simplenote apps are open source!

That’s it, a great notes applications I wanted to share. Download it, give it a try and if you’re a developer submit a PR.

Repos: iOS, Android, macOS, Electron (Windows and Linux).

My Failed Interview at Facebook

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– 14 September 2018

I’m with the Facebook recruiting team and I thought I’d check in to see if you might be open to new opportunities.

It all started like this through a message on LinkedIn. At the time I was not actively looking for new opportunities but the idea of working at one of Silicon Valley’s giants was just too attractive to let it go unnoticed so I answered and schedule my first call.

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– 25 September 2018

I had my first phone call with my recruiter, we went through my professional experience and she asked some basic technical questions about the Android platform. A couple of days later she contacted me for scheduling a second phone call.

– 03 October 2018

In my second phone call, my recruiter gave me further detail about the next step in the process, which is a 45-minute technical interview, this is where things get interesting. She gave me a lot of useful information as well as resources so I could prepare for the technical interview, this included videos, recommended readings, and platforms for coding practice as well as some personal tips on how to approach the interview. She also provided some background information about the company and the culture at Facebook.

– 26 October 2018

The interview was conducted through BlueJeans, a video and audio conferencing platform used by Facebook. First I was asked a few questions about me and my experience as well as some Android platform basic questions for about 10 – 15 minutes and then I was presented with the main part of the interview, the algorithm to solve:

K’th Smallest/Largest Element in Unsorted Array

Despite my panic, I managed to come up with the simplest solution, (order the array and return the specified position), but when I was asked to think of a more efficient solution my head just went blank.

rick scott what GIF

– 30 October 2018

As expected, I got an email letting me know they will not be moving forward with my application this time due to the volume of interviews and the quality of candidates.

– The Takeaway

Interviewing at Facebook, one of the most important tech companies, was an exciting experience for me despite my rejection. I was able to know a little more about the interview process at Facebook and interacted with very nice people who really wanted to help me succeed.

I wasn’t fully prepared and that ended with my interview so if you are aiming to get a job at Facebook don’t be like me and be ready, study, practice, follow your recruiters advise and go get it.

A Developer Job Search

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On March 31, 2018, I started a search to find a new job, I’ve learned and grew through this process and it has come to an end recently. I want to document it here.

A few months ago I saw a great image of the 7 phases of a Job Lifecycle:

  1. The honeymoon
  2. Reality sets in
  3. Learning the ropes
  4. Mastering the job and achieving solid results
  5. The first question marks
  6. Demotivation
  7. Burnout

My job search started by the start of 2018 when I was at phase 5, almost 6 of this lifecycle and I started to ask myself if I was really enjoying and growing in my current work, this led me to make the decision to start looking for new opportunities.

Throughout my short 4 years of professional career, I’ve been creating this idea of my dream job and it goes sort of like this:

A mission I feel passionate about, a place where I’m working with awesome people pursuing a common goal which actually makes this world a better place impacting peoples lives in a positive way. And why not? With cool perks like open vacation policy, a competitive pay, remote first, education. What Japanese would call Ikigai, true balance between passion, mission, vocation, and profession.

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As you can imagine, this is not a particularly easy job to find but it’s not a unicorn either.

NoRedInk

So, I started looking for this Ikigai job and sending some applications on March 31, 2018, and after a take-home challenge, I landed my first interview with NoRedInk. Great experience, they were really nice guys and I really enjoyed the process even though it finished with a rejection email. I was aware that most probably I was going to find rejection, however, it’s always hard.

We’ve decided not to move your application to the next step of the interview process.

Doist

Then I applied to Doist, I was very excited about this company, great mission, inclusion, a balance between work and life and values I deeply Identify with. I did my research about the company and found out that they like good cover letters, so I spent many hours writing a cover letter I felt proud of and send it on it’s way.

We regret to inform you that it has not been selected for further consideration.

YNAB

Another awesome company with a great mission I feel identified with. I know the positive impact that their solution is bringing to their users’ lives.

We hate to be the bearer of bad news.

Stop, Breathe & Think

Recently I’ve been very into meditation and mindfulness and I was very excited to think that I could stand a chance in a company like SBT when I found they were looking for an Android developer.

We don’t have any Android positions open at the moment.

All these were some of the steps of the journey, among others, more rejections and some options where I decided not to continue with the process, and finally…

TTEC

I had an interview with them and get identified with their mission and the company values, met part of the team I’d be working with and they were great.

Got really excited about the idea of helping a huge team create customer experiences that really assist and help an even more massive number of people all around the world in a human and meaningful way. That’s impact.

In the end, I got an offer from TTEC and I said yes without thinking about it twice.

The Wrap Up

So it took many applications, challenges, interviews, people I met, rejections, learning, preparations but at the end the result was great and that was the path I need to go through in order to get to the end. Here are some tips from what I learned through this process.

  • You will find rejection. Don’t worry too much about it, learn from it and move on, remember it’s a step closer to the end of your job search.
  • Do your homework. Before applying to any job do a good research about the company, their mission, their values. If it’s really what you’re looking for, then become what they’re looking for.
  • Prepare for code challenges. There are plenty of sites where you can take challenges for pretty much any skill or programming language. By solving these exercises you will be more comfortable finding quick solutions and most likely you’ll find some of the questions or quizzes in your interviews.
  • Expose your work. You surely need a nice CV, but I’ve learned is much more important to have a good exposition of your work, public code repos, your personal blog, blog posts on dev sites, StackOverflow, you name it.
  • Open source. Start doing open source contributions, it’s a huge opportunity for people to see your great work and get a very clear idea of your motivations, creativity and besides, you’ll learn hugely.