Everything about this performance was top-notch. The artists, the dancers, the graphics. It already got me goosebumps in the first minute.

But there was something else that triggered me. On a deeper level. You know, I’m a very ambitious person. Aiming for the moon and stuff. For a world-class performance, every single aspect of it needs to be of that high standard. One broken or missing piece in the chain and it all falls apart.

If a top athlete breaks an arm during their finals, they’ll lose. If the director of a company doesn’t understand their target audience, the company will go bankrupt due to them being irrelevant. If a singer gets COVID just a few days before the Grand Final, they’re out (feeling so sorry for you, Duncan ). Every action matters. A misstep (or external factor) can be fatal.

That’s exactly what makes it so inspiring to see people perform at the top of their potential. They have so much to lose, yet they go for it and give it their all. While the whole world is watching! But, let’s be real here:

• The dancers
• The musicians
• The way that tram hit the stop and lightened up the whole Erasmusbrug
• The high notes that Glennis Grace is able to produce (DAMN!! I literally jumped off my chair)
• The way they got the Erasmusbrug projected in the venue
• The fireworks

… it all came together beautifully here.

Let this be an inspiration to us all. If you haven’t watched it yet, then be ready to be blown away and press that play button below:

The post Afrojack, Wulf and Glennis Grace at Eurovision 2021: goosebumps and learnings appeared first on Dennis Ameling.

However, things got a bit out of hand with my contributions to open source. In 2020, I spent 300+ hours on it in my free time. While I learned a lot, got to meet awesome people, and really got things moving in several open source projects, I struggled. Working full-time and doing things like this on the side is challenging to say the least. While burnout is common in open source, I still felt good because I’m passionate about it and “it doesn’t feel like work”. I mean, look at this chart

However, I do need to admit that I’m most productive and happy when I get proper rest as well. Now, I hardly ever sacrifice my sleep, because those 8 hours help a LOT to clear up and refresh my mind. But I also started to notice that I should spend more time off-screen and off-work to clear my head properly. That basically means no computer, no phone, no notifications. Like going for a walk (not listening to podcasts at the same time ), going to the gym, kite surfing, etc.

My game plan moving forward

I think it’s obvious by now that I do want to stay active contributing to open source projects. However, it shouldn’t occupy such a large part of my personal life anymore. That’s why I’m now hard-limiting the time I spend on open source to 2 hours per week (details below).

In those hours, I will be doing the following:

• Replying to questions/comments in issues I reported or Pull Requests I created;
• Interacting with open source maintainers/contributors through other channels;
• Working on new/updated code through Pull Requests (with a transparent planning in this GSheet).

This means that my pace of open source contributions will slow down significantly, but become more consistent and reliable over time.

2 hours: the details

So, those 2 hours result in 8 hours per month to open source. I currently can’t commit to more, as I’m working on a new business plan and need to add “offline days” (more on that below) to my schedule to remain happy and productive.

If you want me to spend more time on open source software, please consider donating through GitHub Sponsors. Every $50 in monthly donations will allow me to spend 1 extra hour per month on open source. If there’s a specific open source project you want me to work on, we can certainly discuss that. Feel free to drop me a message so we can talk about the options.

Final words

I’m confident that with these measures, I can get more of a hold on my open source contributions and be more reliable towards others. My public planning document should also be a major help in terms of transparency.

Apart from my open source planning, I’m also introducing the following measures to my personal Quarterly Objectives:

• Every week, spend at least one day “offline”, no screens involved.
• Every quarter, spend at least 3 days in a row “resetting my head”. I noticed that this really helps me to zoom out and look at the bigger picture of my personal and business goals.

… this will ensure that I remain focused on my top priorities, both in private life and in business.

Once again, in case you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to reach out!

The post My struggle with making time for open source contributions appeared first on Dennis Ameling.

Why an online course?

I started developing software when I was 13. It started with webshops and websites (built from the ground up, without any frameworks), which gave me a good basic knowledge of backend web languages like PHP and databases like MySQL. Over time, things got more serious when I built online portals, Hybrid mobile apps and a full-blown Partner Management Tool at the startup I was working for.

The more time I spent programming, the more I became aware that most time doesn’t go into building new features, but many things around it. Think about application maintenance, automated tests, debugging, code review, etc. – learning a shiny new programming language or framework sounds exciting, but adds technical debt as well. In the end, you’ll be maintaining multiple stacks and maybe even multiple infrastructures.

Guess what? Many of those things they won’t teach you in (online) courses for programming languages, or even Computer Science (CS) degrees! That’s why I decided to create an online course for exactly these skills. The good thing: they’re not bound to any specific programming language, so no matter what programming language you already know, these skills always come in handy!

Goal of the course

My primary goal when creating the course was to provide especially beginning developers with the skills mentioned above. After having followed the course, you’ll be able to:

1. Write more bug-free code
2. Debug your code faster and more efficiently
3. Operate better in a team of developers

I’m a firm believer in learning by doing, meaning that in the course, after finishing each lecture, you’ll get to work yourself. That way, you can immediately apply the things you just learned in practice. So no simple multiple-choice questions, but a deep-dive that motivates you to understand the topic well enough to apply it in your daily work.

Let’s get started!

If you want to learn more about the course or get started yourself, make sure to head over to the Udemy page. Let’s supercharge your development workflow!

The post Now live: my first-ever online course for developers! appeared first on Dennis Ameling.

If you’re a Windows on ARM user, you probably want to know if your app is running on ARM natively. There are multiple ways of checking this.

Option 1: through file properties

The fastest and simplest option if you ask me – it only works on ARM64 devices though. Right-click on an executable (in this case it’s Creative Cloud.exe), then open the “Compatibility” tab.

Look closely at the “Windows 10 on ARM” section. If the button in this section is grayed out, it means that the executable is a native ARM64 one. That’s great; you’ll have the best performance and battery life with such apps!

Option 2: using ROM Properties

There’s a great project on GitHub called ROM Properties. There’s a lot you can do with it, but the feature I use is the additional tab in Windows Explorer’s properties screen. Let’s have a look:

It clearly shows you the CPU this application was compiled for. The benefit of this tool compared to the first one is that you can use it on any Windows 10 architecture, so that’s x86, x64 and ARM64. That means that on a x64 machine you can see that an app was compiled for ARM64, and this also works the other way around.

A native ARM64 version of ROM Properties wasn’t available at the time of writing this article, so I came up with a custom build for ARM64 which you can download from GitHub.

Some final words

I’m excited to see Windows 10 on ARM gaining more momentum while people discover the benefits like improved battery life, always-on functionality and built-in mobile connectivity. The ARM architecture is here to stay, which recently got confirmed by Apple – they’re switching their entire desktop and laptop lineup from Intel-based processors to their own ARM-based “Apple Silicon”.

In order to push the ARM64 ecosystem a little further, I’m helping several open source projects like NodeJS, DDEV, GitHub Desktop and Git for Windows to launch native ARM64 versions of their apps. It’s the power of open source software – everyone can contribute towards a better future

The post How to recognize if an app is ARM64 on Windows appeared first on Dennis Ameling.

Now, I’m not here to blame any specific company, so let’s keep this post broad. You’d be surprised by how many companies in the world operate exactly in this way (or similar). I’d call this management done wrong. Like horribly wrong. Like making me want to leave that company, even though I’m not working for them. Please let me elaborate by breaking up the above message into several categories.

KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)

There’s nothing wrong with KPIs in my opinion. They’re a powerful and straightforward way of getting your company’s goals clear and concise. However, they’re only as powerful as the group of people who set them. Is a manager setting a KPI? You’ll probably have hard time getting your team fully on board and dedicated to meet (and go beyond) the KPI. Is the whole team involved in setting the KPIs? You’ll see a lot more dedication, progress and fun throughout the process! Check out this article by Dutch company Voys, which closely involves its whole team in decision-making and strategy. Do not link KPIs to negative consequences if they’re not met! Positive consequences can be used, but don’t overdo it, as it will create tunnel vision on KPIs.

Bonus

Bonuses are normally given with the goal of stimulating individual people’s performance and involvement in the company. “If you reach your KPIs, you get your bonus!”, “Sales goal met? Bonus!”

In my opinion, (individual) bonuses are a source of evil. A lot of evil. It forces people into a way of thinking that’s only for their personal gains, rather than the company’s vision or a larger (societal) purpose. Makes them selfish. Childish. Like they wanna steal someone else’s food. Even worse, linking them to hard KPIs only accelerates this process further.

via GIPHY

Companies should focus on their vision, their purpose, why they want to make this world a bit better. Bonus-oriented people are not gonna help with that. Successes should be celebrated by the whole team, rather than individuals. Take the team on an outing, instead of giving a single manager a €10k bonus. Just like mistakes help a team grow, in contrast to blaming individuals. If you want to work with some kind of bonus system, then make sure the whole team benefits from it.

Negative tone of voice & wrong feedback

This aspect worries me the most. You’d be surprised by how many managers (and even CEOs) are using negative tone of voice in their messages. Telling people that they are “significantly below targets and still not working on weekends to catch up” is just plain wrong in my opinion, killing company culture and productivity (debates are coming up that say working too many hours significantly decreases productivity). Saying things like “people who rate ‘significantly below expectations’ will be fired without any negotiations” only makes matters worse. Just working longer doesn’t mean targets will actually be met. Instead, ask questions like “Is the KPI we set actually managable?”, “Did we put the right people together in this team, so they can flourish most?”, “Can we try things differently?”, etc.

Looking at this from a learning perspective, we’re already doing this to people at a very young age. In schools, we tell students that they “failed their maths test”, instead of saying “this student is exceptionally good in marketing, let’s tailor his education a bit more towards that direction” (this becomes most important at age 16+). The exact same happens in business: “this employee has failed his KPIs in the marketing team, let’s fire him” instead of “this team member is very good in product development, let’s offer him the option to switch to the Product team”. That’s the world upside down, isn’t it?!

If you want to read more about learning & feedback, I’d highly recommend this Harvard Business Review article which, among others, contains this spot-on quote:

Focusing people on their shortcomings doesn’t enable learning; it impairs it.

Fixed that for you

So, to give an example of how I’d phrase a message like the one above (personal opinion!), here you go:

Here you have it – slight changes in the way you organize your business and communicate can be a real game-changer. Again, this is my personal opinion, but there’s more and more research coming up that supports the beliefs outlined above. Work is where we spend most of our lives, so we better make it a fun, rewarding and a world-changing experience!

The post Management and how it’s crucial for company culture appeared first on Dennis Ameling.

What I do have to offer is a different view on things, a fresh perspective. Currently being more than 9000 kilometers away from my home country, The Netherlands, I’ve challenged myself to dive into the Taiwanese culture and to experience cultural differences on a daily basis for 5 months.

“A picture is worth a thousand words” is an expression I totally agree with. When such a picture is brought to life in a video, I believe that a message can be made even clearer. That’s why I decided to start creating so-called “vlogs”, in which I share my experiences in Taiwan.

As an addition to the vlogs, I created this blog to write background articles and to share refreshing thoughts with you. If you have any tips, suggestions or other forms of feedback, please let me know in the comments!

Below are my first two vlogs, so feel free to watch them and to get inspired by the amazing Taiwanese people

Dennis

The post Study Abroad in Taiwan! appeared first on Dennis Ameling.