Shawn_Clabough:
Hello and welcome to another episode of Adventures in.NET. I'm Sean Clayboy, your host, and we put today, Weh-Loo. Anyway. Good, good. Would you send some cold weather my way? Do you have some of that? Yeah, we're in a heat wave, so drying out, drying it up. Hopefully there are some fires going on, but not too bad. So hopefully no standard control. All right, so let's bring out our guest today. Let's welcome Mohammed Osman. Welcome, Mohammed.
Wai_Liu:
Sean, how are things? Haha yeah, it's too cold here. Yeah, it's too cold here. You can see my big hoodie. I got hoodie I got. Oh wow.
Mohammed_Osman:
Thank you so
Shawn_Clabough:
Yeah,
Mohammed_Osman:
much, you are welcome.
Shawn_Clabough:
oh, you're welcome. Thanks for reaching out to us and become a guest. So. We looked at your website and the things that you have done in the past, and a lot of things seem real interesting. So I think what we want to talk about first is, you know, things about making you a better developer, being productive, things along those lines. So where should we start?
Mohammed_Osman:
Yeah, I find that actually to be, I find this to be quite interesting, the discussion about the developer's productivity, because you can look at it from a different angles, right? One angle you can look at is to become productive, like from a technical point of view,
Wai_Liu:
So what's this tool called?
Mohammed_Osman:
by using tools,
Wai_Liu:
Loom.
Mohammed_Osman:
you know, things like Resharber, by using code templates that
Wai_Liu:
And what
Mohammed_Osman:
will
Wai_Liu:
does it do?
Mohammed_Osman:
fasten your development productivity. But also you can look at it from a different perspective, like an organizational perspective. You can try to multiply the productivity of your organization and the people around you by mentoring them,
Wai_Liu:
Oh,
Mohammed_Osman:
by coaching
Wai_Liu:
and is it
Mohammed_Osman:
them,
Wai_Liu:
only records the browser or does it record the whole
Mohammed_Osman:
by
Wai_Liu:
window?
Mohammed_Osman:
writing documentation that can be reused
Wai_Liu:
So the whole
Mohammed_Osman:
multiple
Wai_Liu:
desktop.
Mohammed_Osman:
times. So there are multiple ways to look at that. Even if you want to take it extra step, you can look at increasing the productivity on the community level by speaking in meetups and conferences, contributing to the open source. So whatever
Wai_Liu:
Okay,
Mohammed_Osman:
things
Wai_Liu:
cool.
Mohammed_Osman:
that you can utilize technology with in order to gain leverage and in order to scale up. your value that makes you much more productive developer. So I don't only look at it from just a tooling perspective and just the code I'm only writing, but also
Wai_Liu:
We're gonna
Mohammed_Osman:
the
Wai_Liu:
say
Mohammed_Osman:
environment
Wai_Liu:
like...
Mohammed_Osman:
surrounding me.
Shawn_Clabough:
Have you found that there's certain things that developers
Wai_Liu:
So I just
Shawn_Clabough:
get
Wai_Liu:
you
Shawn_Clabough:
more
Wai_Liu:
guys
Shawn_Clabough:
help out
Wai_Liu:
Sean
Shawn_Clabough:
of
Wai_Liu:
doing a talk
Shawn_Clabough:
versus some of the others?
Mohammed_Osman:
That's very interesting and yes actually
Wai_Liu:
I'll ask, um...
Mohammed_Osman:
I think the recorded videos are extremely helpful
Wai_Liu:
So
Mohammed_Osman:
so
Wai_Liu:
I'll
Mohammed_Osman:
whenever
Wai_Liu:
start
Mohammed_Osman:
there
Wai_Liu:
asking
Mohammed_Osman:
is
Wai_Liu:
the
Mohammed_Osman:
an
Wai_Liu:
question.
Mohammed_Osman:
issue or I want to explain a certain configuration
Wai_Liu:
What about Live
Mohammed_Osman:
rather
Wai_Liu:
Share? Do
Mohammed_Osman:
than
Wai_Liu:
you
Mohammed_Osman:
exchanging
Wai_Liu:
ever use Live Share
Mohammed_Osman:
Slack
Wai_Liu:
on
Mohammed_Osman:
messages
Wai_Liu:
Visual Studio?
Mohammed_Osman:
or
Wai_Liu:
Do
Mohammed_Osman:
just
Wai_Liu:
you
Mohammed_Osman:
booking
Wai_Liu:
think that's
Mohammed_Osman:
a meeting
Wai_Liu:
useful?
Mohammed_Osman:
with that person. If I feel this is something that's gonna repeat, I just jump quickly to a tool called Loom that you can install as a browser extension. It's extremely usable. And just explain whatever I want and then I share it with that person and I make sure that it's accessible somewhere, either in a team wiki or something like that. Loom, yeah. L-O-O-M. It enables you to do like very user experience friendly screen recording. It's a browser plugin. You just click on that plugin and it will start the recording directly. You can record the whole desktop if you download their desktop version. It's also extremely user friendly. You can have it in your tripod and just click on it and it will gonna fire up the recording.
Shawn_Clabough:
Okay, so it looks like they have a free version, but they also have some paid versions with more features and things like that. So people can try out the free version first and decide if
Wai_Liu:
I
Shawn_Clabough:
they want
Wai_Liu:
actually
Shawn_Clabough:
to go to a paid version.
Wai_Liu:
find that to
Shawn_Clabough:
So
Wai_Liu:
be harder.
Shawn_Clabough:
that looks interesting.
Wai_Liu:
I've tried
Shawn_Clabough:
Okay,
Wai_Liu:
doing it, I just don't have the discipline. I
Shawn_Clabough:
what's
Wai_Liu:
find
Shawn_Clabough:
the
Wai_Liu:
it
Shawn_Clabough:
next
Wai_Liu:
better
Shawn_Clabough:
thing
Wai_Liu:
for
Shawn_Clabough:
to
Wai_Liu:
me
Shawn_Clabough:
make
Wai_Liu:
once
Shawn_Clabough:
me?
Wai_Liu:
I get into a groove to just keep
Mohammed_Osman:
Sorry.
Wai_Liu:
going. So I find it hard for me if I can't do the 25 minutes, whatever, to do the full 25 minutes, I don't have the discipline to do that. And also
Shawn_Clabough:
No, go
Wai_Liu:
I
Shawn_Clabough:
ahead.
Wai_Liu:
find it
Shawn_Clabough:
Wait.
Wai_Liu:
hard to stop once I get in the groove,
Mohammed_Osman:
Yes.
Wai_Liu:
just to add a stop for just five minutes. But that's just me, I think so.
Mohammed_Osman:
it's useful but my experience with it sometimes it's not that responsive i don't know what the reason i feel it's lagging behind but if it works actually it's really nice because i like the way they try to make the user experience similar you know like working in a google docs so yeah if i haven't tried it for a while but if they improve that part and they make it faster i think i'm gonna use it as well and uh Also like from, you know, working way, one methodology I found it extremely helpful to increase my productivity is the Pomodoro technique, where you work for 25 minutes and then you rest for five minutes. That's extremely useful because, you know, it helps you to
Wai_Liu:
You
Mohammed_Osman:
stay
Wai_Liu:
don't-
Mohammed_Osman:
focused whenever I'm running a Pomodoro. That's for 25 minutes. And I wanna just... distract myself into Facebook or something like that I look oh no there's 17 minutes remaining I
Wai_Liu:
It
Mohammed_Osman:
should
Wai_Liu:
probably also
Mohammed_Osman:
hold
Wai_Liu:
depends
Mohammed_Osman:
on
Wai_Liu:
on your job as well.
Mohammed_Osman:
so you feel that
Wai_Liu:
Um,
Mohammed_Osman:
like you
Wai_Liu:
like,
Mohammed_Osman:
know there
Wai_Liu:
I
Mohammed_Osman:
is this
Wai_Liu:
don't know,
Mohammed_Osman:
cake
Wai_Liu:
it would
Mohammed_Osman:
at
Wai_Liu:
be
Mohammed_Osman:
the
Wai_Liu:
great
Mohammed_Osman:
end
Wai_Liu:
if you
Mohammed_Osman:
like
Wai_Liu:
have a
Mohammed_Osman:
you
Wai_Liu:
job
Mohammed_Osman:
have a
Wai_Liu:
where
Mohammed_Osman:
5 minutes
Wai_Liu:
all you
Mohammed_Osman:
break
Wai_Liu:
do
Mohammed_Osman:
you can
Wai_Liu:
is
Mohammed_Osman:
do that
Wai_Liu:
code or whatever,
Shawn_Clabough:
Yeah.
Mohammed_Osman:
I
Wai_Liu:
but
Mohammed_Osman:
find that to
Wai_Liu:
I
Mohammed_Osman:
be
Wai_Liu:
think
Mohammed_Osman:
extremely
Wai_Liu:
most of us
Mohammed_Osman:
productive
Wai_Liu:
have jobs where we're kind of regularly interrupted
Shawn_Clabough:
Yeah,
Wai_Liu:
anyway,
Shawn_Clabough:
yeah,
Wai_Liu:
so,
Shawn_Clabough:
I like that.
Wai_Liu:
um, yeah. Like emails, you know, teams chats and things like that.
Mohammed_Osman:
Yeah, it depends, I think, on the person. Like if you can get into the flow mode, then actually I don't think it really makes sense to just interrupt it with a break. I know some people, they can work for three, four hours without interruption and they become extremely productive.
Shawn_Clabough:
Yeah, but I think maybe people that do that, you know, are reproductive for that period of time. But afterwards, they kind of have to recharge, so they probably end up needing more than like the five minute break or whatever to, you know, kind of get back to some of that energy to, you know, get back in and do things. So the more you put off those five minutes, the more you have to, you know, bank those and use those, you know, once you finally do free up some time. So if you skip too many, you're going to find yourself you know, needing a half an hour or an hour break before you can really come back and hit it again.
Mohammed_Osman:
Yeah, that makes sense. It's more sustainable, right?
Shawn_Clabough:
Right, right.
Mohammed_Osman:
Yeah,
Shawn_Clabough:
You know,
Mohammed_Osman:
with the pomegranate.
Shawn_Clabough:
I totally agree with, you know, some people might not be able to do it for 25 minutes, but you probably shouldn't put off more than one or two of those timers before you do take a break.
Mohammed_Osman:
Ah yes. yes i find it only useful like for the deep work as you mentioned but if you need to do meetings discussions something like that it's it's hard to use that method and then i occupy like in conjunction with that i use a tool called the toggle And Toggle is a time tracker tool. It enables you to track the time you spend on several activities. One example I'm doing, I'm doing freelancing blog posts. And using that tool, I track the time I spend on each blog post, either it's writing, or is it reviewing, or sometimes editing, if I get some change requests. And the good thing with that methodology after some time you have data. So right now I have a clear data that for every 1500 words, including revisions, including everything, I need around 4 to 5 hours. And you know this helps me actually to plan. So if I want to write two blog boss during this month, then I know that, okay, I need to have around 10 hours available during that month. And also if I want to price my services or something like that, I have a very good baseline to base that on. So it helps quite a lot on that aspect if you measure what you are doing.
Shawn_Clabough:
Yeah, I'm familiar with Toggle. I mean, we use it at where I work, basically as a time reporting system, so that they know what project you were working on for certain hours of the day and so on and so forth that they use for then billing out because we're a consulting firm. So yeah, Toggle is really nice. They made some improvements to it lately, so the interface is better than what it used to be a couple of years ago, so it's good for time tracking and reporting and lots of things there, especially in larger teams.
Mohammed_Osman:
Yeah, I really like it. I really like it.
Shawn_Clabough:
Okay, so what else is good for some of those soft skills for developers to get better at?
Mohammed_Osman:
I mean the final part I look at also is you know the planning part or prioritization more accurate more accurately So I use a tool called weak plan that tool is based on Steven What's his name the guy who wrote the seven habits of the most effective people Steven Coffey, right?
Shawn_Clabough:
Oh, Stephen Covey.
Mohammed_Osman:
Stevon
Shawn_Clabough:
Covey,
Mohammed_Osman:
Coffey,
Shawn_Clabough:
yep.
Mohammed_Osman:
yeah You know he has multiple methodologies over there, but the one I mostly use and I use the tool to help me with is The matrix of important versus urgent so if it's something that's important and urgent then do it if it's important but not urgent Then you can delay it if it's important if it's urgent but not important you can delegate it if it's not urgent neither important then actually you can just drop it or delete it and actually else this helps me quite a lot because when i'm working on my bomadora timer you know sometimes you just get some ideas bobbing up to your mind sometimes i get oh actually i can add this extension to my blog and i am in the middle of this code and then you know i just use it as external memory so i just go to that tool i write okay external external uh like uh new extension to your blog and then when i'm reviewing week plan later on like at the end of the day or at the end of the week i review the tasks and then i started thinking actually does that really make sense do i really need to do it now okay say okay actually you know what this is not important right now let me push it three months And this way by reviewing all those tasks and all those things, you know, that come up to them, may interrupt me and having them in a single place and reviewing them later on against this filter using the matrix I just described, drop delegate or do that's called is in our matrix, I think. I'm able to focus on only the most important things and I don't waste my time doing things that make me feel productive but actually they are not adding much value to my work or to my life. Oof.
Shawn_Clabough:
Okay, so those are some of the tools and techniques that you use to, you know, make your soft skills and your productivity better. Is there anything else that developers should know about?
Mohammed_Osman:
I think that's it pretty much and I think increasing more tools actually can you know become counterproductive So yeah, these just are the must These are the tools I mostly use Tuggle and weak plan. I try to reduce the amount of tools
Shawn_Clabough:
Okay. Okay. So I think you're also involved in lots of training type things for developers and you know, not only improving their, their soft skills, but their, their hard skills, their technical skills. So tell us a little bit about that.
Mohammed_Osman:
Yes, I like to share knowledge. Actually, I am a teacher in heart. I used to teach when I graduated. And when I moved actually to the professional life, I actually started missing that part. You know, I like to teach like I have that academic part on my soul. But still, I want to work in the industry. I want to work in technology. I'm not interested in research. I'm interested in teaching. So I started my teaching journey professionally by my blog. This is where I started to share blog posts on several areas, you know, soft skills, Microsoft Azure, coding practices. That blog actually gave me an opportunity to teach with the PluralSight, creating video courses. And actually this is one of the most rewarding experiences. And if I would advise anyone, I would advise them to create video courses. Because you get to learn several skills. You get to learn hard skills like how to record code demos. And actually this is really hard. It might seem simple, but it's really hard how you can edit videos. Even though later on you will outsource that work. But then you will need to do some sort of, uh, like project management, because you need to look at the, uh, the process of creating a video course, like a project, you will need to set some scopes. You will need to break down the deliverables you're going to teach. You need to prioritize them in a certain order, in a, in a certain order, you know, and to do that,
Shawn_Clabough:
Mm-hmm.
Mohammed_Osman:
that requires actually deep thinking. And most importantly, you need to explain things. at the level where the people are, not at your level. Usually as we get more experience we have what's so called the curse of knowledge, you know, you tend to assume just people know whatever else you are you know, which is of course not correct. So you need to go back to like you need to unlearn so to speak what you know. and start building the foundations step by step for the learners so that they get the right learning material at the right level in the right mix of theory and practice and that's another difficult part, right? Because if you put lots of theory, people will just get bored, this is an abstract course, and if you put lots of practice, people will get will gonna feel lost, okay, what I'm doing
Wai_Liu:
I think
Mohammed_Osman:
right
Wai_Liu:
it really
Mohammed_Osman:
now?
Wai_Liu:
brings
Mohammed_Osman:
I'm just
Wai_Liu:
out that...
Mohammed_Osman:
jumping from here and there, but I from here to there, but I don't know what
Wai_Liu:
I think it
Mohammed_Osman:
actually
Wai_Liu:
really brings
Mohammed_Osman:
I'm
Wai_Liu:
out
Mohammed_Osman:
doing.
Wai_Liu:
that imposter syndrome
Mohammed_Osman:
So
Wai_Liu:
as well,
Mohammed_Osman:
the need,
Wai_Liu:
to fight
Mohammed_Osman:
you know, like
Wai_Liu:
it anyway
Mohammed_Osman:
to craft
Wai_Liu:
because
Mohammed_Osman:
all those
Wai_Liu:
yeah
Mohammed_Osman:
factors
Wai_Liu:
like
Mohammed_Osman:
together,
Wai_Liu:
I think we're all scared of doing that
Mohammed_Osman:
is really, really
Wai_Liu:
technical
Mohammed_Osman:
helpful.
Wai_Liu:
training
Mohammed_Osman:
And actually
Wai_Liu:
and then some
Mohammed_Osman:
it affects directly
Wai_Liu:
really
Mohammed_Osman:
your
Wai_Liu:
smart
Mohammed_Osman:
communication
Wai_Liu:
person comes in
Mohammed_Osman:
skills.
Wai_Liu:
and
Mohammed_Osman:
You find
Wai_Liu:
asks like
Mohammed_Osman:
that
Wai_Liu:
a
Mohammed_Osman:
you can
Wai_Liu:
really
Mohammed_Osman:
communicate
Wai_Liu:
good question
Mohammed_Osman:
better,
Wai_Liu:
and you're stumped kind
Mohammed_Osman:
you
Wai_Liu:
of
Mohammed_Osman:
can
Wai_Liu:
thing
Mohammed_Osman:
share
Wai_Liu:
so
Mohammed_Osman:
your ideas better, and
Wai_Liu:
I think
Mohammed_Osman:
that
Wai_Liu:
it's good
Mohammed_Osman:
directly
Wai_Liu:
to
Mohammed_Osman:
reflects
Wai_Liu:
it's good practice
Mohammed_Osman:
in
Wai_Liu:
for that
Mohammed_Osman:
the opportunities
Wai_Liu:
to
Mohammed_Osman:
you
Wai_Liu:
deal
Mohammed_Osman:
get.
Wai_Liu:
with that so.
Mohammed_Osman:
وعندما تتحرك من هذا الموضوع يمكنك تفضل مصطلحك فقط لأنني أكثر من مصطلح موضوع الموضوع لقد أحصلت على بعض المواضيع المواضيع المواضيع المواضيع المواضيع المواضيع المواضيع المواضيع المواضيع المواضيع المواضيع المواضيع المواضيع المواضيع المواضيع المواضيع المواضيع المواضيع المواضيع المواضيع المواضيع المواضيع المواضيع المواضيع المواضيع المواضيع المواضيع المواضيع المواضيع المواضيع المواضيع المواضيع المواضيع المواضيع المواضيع المواضيع المواضيع المواضيع المواضيع المواضيع الم And even the jobs that where I went for interviews, when they found out that I'm an author at PluralSight, you know, the guy just turned out into the mood that they want to hire me, but they just want to know more about me. It's not, it's no longer a technical interview. Just tell me how you create courses, how the experience, how the community. And another important part is you get connected to... very good community, you get extra opportunities from Pluralsight and I managed to teach like live teaching on another platform called Develop Intelligence. So I can't say anything aside from this is really rewarding experience.
Shawn_Clabough:
Yeah, I can definitely relate to that, you know, with with teaching and things like that really helping, you know, not only, you know, teaching the people that are your students, but also becoming a better developer yourself, because I used to teach programming course at one of the local colleges. And so when I had to prepare for that, you kind of have to really be prepared for knowing what you want to teach, but any questions that they're going to ask. So they'll always ask something you really didn't expect them to ask. And so if you can be prepared and be ready for that, the more you know, the better you will respond and, you know, let all of the students learn from that.
Mohammed_Osman:
Yeah exactly, you forced to learn it actually. Yeah, sorry. Yes, actually, and this is a really important side because If I reflect on myself previously when I used to watch video courses I was super amazed how those people can write that code demo Oh, they are just remembering all you know, all the functions everything Those people are really supermans and I was feeling really imposter because of that But when I started creating video courses, you know, I started to understand the trick actually have everything scripted you just,
Wai_Liu:
So did
Mohammed_Osman:
you
Wai_Liu:
you
Mohammed_Osman:
know,
Wai_Liu:
go from
Mohammed_Osman:
whatever
Wai_Liu:
like
Mohammed_Osman:
mistake
Wai_Liu:
writing
Mohammed_Osman:
you
Wai_Liu:
blogs
Mohammed_Osman:
do, you just cut
Wai_Liu:
and
Mohammed_Osman:
it
Wai_Liu:
then
Mohammed_Osman:
out.
Wai_Liu:
straight into pure
Mohammed_Osman:
And
Wai_Liu:
sight
Shawn_Clabough:
Yep,
Wai_Liu:
or was
Shawn_Clabough:
yep,
Mohammed_Osman:
in
Wai_Liu:
it like
Mohammed_Osman:
order
Shawn_Clabough:
that's the
Mohammed_Osman:
actually.
Shawn_Clabough:
wonder of
Wai_Liu:
you know
Shawn_Clabough:
editing.
Wai_Liu:
you wrote blogs and then you made a couple
Mohammed_Osman:
Yes.
Wai_Liu:
of YouTube videos and then those got popular and then someone
Mohammed_Osman:
And actually
Wai_Liu:
asked you to
Mohammed_Osman:
to address
Wai_Liu:
make
Mohammed_Osman:
that part on
Wai_Liu:
a
Mohammed_Osman:
my
Wai_Liu:
paid
Mohammed_Osman:
instructor
Wai_Liu:
video?
Mohammed_Osman:
training,
Wai_Liu:
Did you want to go through the journey
Mohammed_Osman:
I
Wai_Liu:
of
Mohammed_Osman:
learned
Wai_Liu:
how
Mohammed_Osman:
some
Wai_Liu:
you went
Mohammed_Osman:
trick
Wai_Liu:
from
Mohammed_Osman:
from Scott Hanselman, I noted that
Wai_Liu:
yeah
Mohammed_Osman:
he
Wai_Liu:
just
Mohammed_Osman:
is doing
Wai_Liu:
blogging
Mohammed_Osman:
in his conferences
Wai_Liu:
for free
Mohammed_Osman:
is
Wai_Liu:
to being paid
Mohammed_Osman:
I feel sometimes
Wai_Liu:
to make
Mohammed_Osman:
that he intentionally
Wai_Liu:
training videos?
Mohammed_Osman:
makes some mistakes, you know, just to make people feel that he is a human. And I follow that approach as well.
Shawn_Clabough:
Yeah, last
Mohammed_Osman:
So
Shawn_Clabough:
I
Mohammed_Osman:
sometimes
Shawn_Clabough:
checked, I think
Mohammed_Osman:
as
Shawn_Clabough:
Scott's a human. Yeah.
Mohammed_Osman:
yeah. I like his style, so I try to replicate that as well. So the students don't feel that I'm a robot or a Superman. I do mistake here. I say, oh, I don't remember that service. You know what? Microsoft updated that. I will need to look at that. So this will make them feel secure. Okay, this is quite normal in this industry. People make mistakes. People need to review the documentation and give psychological safety.
Shawn_Clabough:
So if there's anybody that is out there, thinking about doing presentations at conferences or anything like that, maybe user groups or whatever, and they're a little nervous about those questions that somebody's gonna ask that you don't know the answer to, it is fine to tell them. I don't know the answer right now, but if you let me know how I can get touch you, I'll figure that, find that out and then let you know. So it's always, you can learn, but you can also kind of put that off and say. I don't feel so bad about knowing it because, you know, I'm going to find it out for that person and then get back to him. So that kind of takes the pressure off in case those questions do pop up.
Mohammed_Osman:
بالضبط بالضبط وعلى الحقيقة هذا يجعلك أكثر موضوعاً للمشاكل تعرف ووضع هذا أهم جداً لأن الناس ستنسون ما تقول لهم لكنهم لن ينسون كيف لقد أشعروا بهم Yes, actually I applied myself to PluralSight and at that time I had a couple of blog articles that I used just to strengthen my case.
Wai_Liu:
And this is just
Mohammed_Osman:
Then
Wai_Liu:
like
Mohammed_Osman:
what
Wai_Liu:
a
Mohammed_Osman:
happened to PluralSight,
Wai_Liu:
freelancing job, isn't it? You still need like another
Mohammed_Osman:
recruiter,
Wai_Liu:
full-time
Mohammed_Osman:
they
Wai_Liu:
job,
Mohammed_Osman:
call them
Wai_Liu:
is that right?
Mohammed_Osman:
author acquisition team, they contacted me and they gave me like a teaching test. I did that test. I did that test based on their instructions and gave it back to them. They did the evaluation and then they onboarded me to the author platform. And on the author platform, you will be able to see the course opportunities. You can apply to those course opportunities and they will help you throughout the production journey. I had no experience, you know, with sound like audio and video recording before that, but they have a very impressive team. that will support you and they have very good resources. So for anyone if they feel that like the fact that they don't know how to do the media production part, don't worry about that at all if you join, yeah, something like Pluralsight. Even I think I haven't done something for Udemy before, but I have a couple of friends who did that and they said they have very good resources over there as well. And you know, it's just a journey. You start and you learn as you go.
Shawn_Clabough:
So what kind of what led you to wanting to go the plural side or the Udemy route, things like that, instead of just starting your own YouTube channel and doing your training that way?
Mohammed_Osman:
I think the main reason is like the community that you get, you know, automatically by joining other people. And the second
Wai_Liu:
I'm guessing
Mohammed_Osman:
reason,
Wai_Liu:
there's a finite
Mohammed_Osman:
I want
Wai_Liu:
time
Mohammed_Osman:
it actually
Wai_Liu:
before
Mohammed_Osman:
to learn the craft from professionals.
Wai_Liu:
the content
Mohammed_Osman:
I felt
Wai_Liu:
of your
Mohammed_Osman:
that
Wai_Liu:
course has become
Mohammed_Osman:
if
Wai_Liu:
stale
Mohammed_Osman:
I joined PluralSight,
Wai_Liu:
and you've either
Mohammed_Osman:
it
Wai_Liu:
got
Mohammed_Osman:
will
Wai_Liu:
to update
Mohammed_Osman:
be the fastest
Wai_Liu:
it
Mohammed_Osman:
way
Wai_Liu:
or
Mohammed_Osman:
actually for me to learn to get to do the
Wai_Liu:
it's
Mohammed_Osman:
things
Wai_Liu:
just not
Mohammed_Osman:
in the right
Wai_Liu:
relevant
Mohammed_Osman:
way.
Wai_Liu:
anymore.
Mohammed_Osman:
And I'm quite happy actually with that decision because there are so many things I learned from the community, from the resources that would have taken me so long time to do on my own. Yes, I mean, depending on how active you are on creating courses, but in the community over there in PluralSight, there are some full-time authors. They are able to live off based on that income.
Shawn_Clabough:
Yeah, I know some people that have really built a lot of courses and things like that for Pluralsight, and they seem to enjoy that and really like working there and doing things like that. But, you know, really, there's a lot of time that's really spent developing one of those courses. You know, you might make a course that's, you know, eight, ten hours of video, but it probably takes you months to actually get it all put together. organized, recorded, edited, things like that. So it is a fairly extensive product, but at the end it comes out good, I think.
Mohammed_Osman:
Yes, it's extremely time-consuming process. I'm tracking my numbers on that as well using Tuggle, you know, the methodology we discussed earlier. And I found that for every production hour, I need from 30 to 40 hours based on the course complexity.
Shawn_Clabough:
Yeah, that's almost like you're writing a book, you know, some of those book authors spend that amount of time as well.
Mohammed_Osman:
Yeah, definitely. It depends on the course content. If you are going, you know, heavy on the technology side, like, for example, JavaScript frameworks, then you are doomed, right? Then it must probably be three, six months and it will be outdated. If you go into programming languages, maybe you have like one, two years. But if you are speaking about, you know, like soft skills topics, those type of topics, usually they are evergreen.
Shawn_Clabough:
Yeah, that was one of our episodes that we did on time management and things like that. It seems to be timeless. So, you know, recently because of the value of those type of things, you know, we re-released an episode that we talked about it and we got good response of it. So it's definitely a lot of value there that our listeners really appreciate and like. So that's good. So you teach mostly Azure materials. Is that what you're? You're training on mostly.
Mohammed_Osman:
Yes, my focus right now is Microsoft Stack, in particular Azure from software developers and AI perspectives. That's what I'm focusing on. And sometimes coding best practices and design better and things like that. My blog mission is making your code smart and your career smarter. You know, making your code smart, this involves architecture, AI, using cloud, your career smarter, soft skills on negotiation, speaking, time management. Um...
Shawn_Clabough:
So what are kind of the first things that you teach about Azure?
Mohammed_Osman:
That's interesting question. Of course that really depends on The target audience if we're speaking about developers the most important thing is to start with the foundation, right and I usually start by teaching Very basic cloud concepts the vast majority of us, you know know about cloud like IaaS, SaaS, PaaS models I touch on that really quickly and then I start directly jumping to the Azure platform. So describing how Azure work, the logical structure of Azure like subscriptions, resource groups, resources. And then usually I take them into the relevant tools in Microsoft
Wai_Liu:
So you
Mohammed_Osman:
Azure,
Wai_Liu:
mentioned the exams,
Mohammed_Osman:
things like
Wai_Liu:
what
Mohammed_Osman:
Azure
Wai_Liu:
is your opinion
Mohammed_Osman:
CLI,
Wai_Liu:
of,
Mohammed_Osman:
Azure
Wai_Liu:
from a career
Mohammed_Osman:
Portal,
Wai_Liu:
perspective,
Mohammed_Osman:
Azure PowerShell.
Wai_Liu:
of getting
Mohammed_Osman:
And
Wai_Liu:
all these
Mohammed_Osman:
I explain
Wai_Liu:
Azure
Mohammed_Osman:
that there are multiple ways to work with Microsoft
Wai_Liu:
certifications?
Mohammed_Osman:
Azure.
Wai_Liu:
Do you think it's useful?
Mohammed_Osman:
hands, just to get them hands on. So they can start creating basic services like virtual machine, storage accounts, so they feel a little bit secure. And then from there, I teach them, you know, different services, mainly focused on running and storing applications in Microsoft Azure, you know, things like app services, Azure Kubernetes, not Azure Kubernetes, that's a complex service, but Azure Container Instances, Azure Functions, and then teach them a little bit on SQL Server, Cosmos DB. I don't try to teach everything, like I don't follow the exam material style, because I think that's quite extensive and you end up going extremely horizontal. I try to teach a focused material from specific aspects. And then I jump to the second part, like where I teach them regarding, you know, securing their resources, something, some... some things on VNets and NSG rules, just to implement some infrastructure security, and then securing your code secrets using things like Key Vault. And then I jump into some discussions around the DevOps and infrastructure as a code, how the whole infrastructure that you created in Azure, you can codify it using things like Terraform or PySEP. And actually, before that, I teach how to monitor that. So using resources like application insights. So I try to pick the most used Azure services and put it in a journey, like to build an end-to-end application. But I don't go deep in all those services because otherwise you need infinite amount of time. It's useful actually after you get enough experience. The thing, the only issue I see with certification is that you find, you know, people who are, I think they call them certificate collectors. So you look at their CV, they have a SQL Server certificate, they have a developer certificate and then they have Oracle certificate. I don't think this is a good strategy. A good strategy would be like, you know, to work with one technology one or two years and then start to start getting certified. And the main value I see with certifications, especially when speaking about Microsoft Azure, is that the certificates will teach you what's there. They will not make you master those technologies at all, but at least when you face a business problem you will know, okay, I can use this in this situation. For example, if you are working on a product that requires asynchronous communication. If you have no idea about messaging, you will never think about service like Azure Service Pass or Azure Event Hub. But if you just clear the easy
Wai_Liu:
I
Mohammed_Osman:
204
Wai_Liu:
think maybe another way to
Mohammed_Osman:
certification,
Wai_Liu:
look at it is
Mohammed_Osman:
that's the Azure
Wai_Liu:
if,
Mohammed_Osman:
Developer Certification,
Wai_Liu:
even if you don't get
Mohammed_Osman:
you
Wai_Liu:
paid
Mohammed_Osman:
will know
Wai_Liu:
for
Mohammed_Osman:
that
Wai_Liu:
it,
Mohammed_Osman:
there is something called
Wai_Liu:
if it leads
Mohammed_Osman:
Service
Wai_Liu:
to a better
Mohammed_Osman:
Pass.
Wai_Liu:
job, then in a way it's kind of a pay right. You're
Mohammed_Osman:
it
Wai_Liu:
kind of getting
Mohammed_Osman:
in
Wai_Liu:
paid
Mohammed_Osman:
a detailed
Wai_Liu:
for
Mohammed_Osman:
way, but
Wai_Liu:
doing
Mohammed_Osman:
at least
Wai_Liu:
that
Mohammed_Osman:
you
Wai_Liu:
community
Mohammed_Osman:
will go to
Wai_Liu:
stuff,
Mohammed_Osman:
the
Wai_Liu:
isn't
Mohammed_Osman:
MSDN
Wai_Liu:
it really?
Mohammed_Osman:
documentation, read about it and yeah, implement it in your solution. And that's the challenge in Microsoft Azure, right? You have hundreds of services and in most of the times you don't know actually what's there, what can fit your scenario, what can be actually reusable or simpler to implement and to save your project time.
Shawn_Clabough:
So should developers think about if they got into doing training and things like that through different services that they could make a living off doing that? Or do you think most developers should just do this as kind of a supplemental income?
Mohammed_Osman:
I think it depends on where you are in the geographical area, but I would say even if you don't need that supplemental income, the sense of that you can generate another income source in your life aside from the employment, this is extremely relieving and gives you the feeling of freedom. So I would recommend just at least to test that feeling, just to generate your first dollar from the internet. And actually your life will totally change, your perspective of things will totally change. And one thing related to the certifications, I have a guide called the ultimate guide to become a Microsoft Azure certified. And in there I teach you the relevant Azure certification for each career path, my methodology in order to clear the certifications. So you can refer that in the show notes. نعم بالضبط يمكنك أن تحضر موظف مختلفة في العمل إذا كنت مطلق وقد حصلت على تفتيش التصميم المنطقية يمكنك أن تسلق إلى موظف التصميم المنطقية لذا إنه جيد جدا ولكن فقط فقط في الوقت الصحيح
Shawn_Clabough:
Okay, Mohammed, so I think we've covered a lot of things about being a better developer, productivity,
Wai_Liu:
Very wise.
Shawn_Clabough:
work-life balance, even training and doing things like that. Are some other things left that you want to cover before we kind of start wrapping things up?
Mohammed_Osman:
Yes, I mean like the final word I want to say is that it's really important to focus, you know on your learning as a developer and As the wisdom says that is if you think education is expensive then try ignorance You can see that
Shawn_Clabough:
I don't
Mohammed_Osman:
actually
Shawn_Clabough:
like that.
Mohammed_Osman:
practically in situ in situations, you know I have seen companies for example because they are not investing to teach their developers and when it comes, you know, they have a project they wanna, let's assume that they wanna implement some orchestration workflow. Their developers will implement that workflow in a very ugly code because, you know, they don't know what's there to help them with that and they will end up, you know, building more expensive product, harder to maintain,
Wai_Liu:
Sure,
Mohammed_Osman:
difficult
Wai_Liu:
um,
Mohammed_Osman:
to change.
Wai_Liu:
my pick this week is just
Mohammed_Osman:
But if you
Wai_Liu:
a,
Mohammed_Osman:
have the right knowledge
Wai_Liu:
just this tiny
Mohammed_Osman:
and the right
Wai_Liu:
game
Mohammed_Osman:
education,
Wai_Liu:
that um,
Mohammed_Osman:
you will know that there
Wai_Liu:
that
Mohammed_Osman:
is
Wai_Liu:
I
Mohammed_Osman:
something
Wai_Liu:
downloaded
Mohammed_Osman:
called
Wai_Liu:
the other
Mohammed_Osman:
Azure
Wai_Liu:
day. It's
Mohammed_Osman:
Logic Apps.
Wai_Liu:
um, it's
Mohammed_Osman:
It's
Wai_Liu:
like
Mohammed_Osman:
a very
Wai_Liu:
a beautifully
Mohammed_Osman:
simple drag and
Wai_Liu:
kind
Mohammed_Osman:
drop
Wai_Liu:
of
Mohammed_Osman:
service that enables you
Wai_Liu:
created
Mohammed_Osman:
to create workflow
Wai_Liu:
little
Mohammed_Osman:
orchestrations,
Wai_Liu:
games called Railways.
Mohammed_Osman:
and
Wai_Liu:
It's,
Mohammed_Osman:
it enables you to replace
Wai_Liu:
it's basically
Mohammed_Osman:
a lot
Wai_Liu:
like you
Mohammed_Osman:
of
Wai_Liu:
gotta
Mohammed_Osman:
the
Wai_Liu:
control these
Mohammed_Osman:
boilerplate
Wai_Liu:
trains and you gotta avoid
Mohammed_Osman:
ugly
Wai_Liu:
them from
Mohammed_Osman:
code.
Wai_Liu:
crashing. It's not very
Mohammed_Osman:
And
Wai_Liu:
long,
Mohammed_Osman:
you
Wai_Liu:
only like
Mohammed_Osman:
only
Wai_Liu:
30
Mohammed_Osman:
reach
Wai_Liu:
levels,
Mohammed_Osman:
that stage
Wai_Liu:
but um,
Mohammed_Osman:
if you only
Wai_Liu:
but yes,
Mohammed_Osman:
if you
Wai_Liu:
it just
Mohammed_Osman:
invest
Wai_Liu:
looks
Mohammed_Osman:
in
Wai_Liu:
really
Mohammed_Osman:
your education.
Wai_Liu:
nice and
Mohammed_Osman:
So,
Wai_Liu:
it's quite addictive.
Mohammed_Osman:
and that's
Wai_Liu:
So
Mohammed_Osman:
the tricky part
Wai_Liu:
I thought
Mohammed_Osman:
about
Wai_Liu:
I'd make
Mohammed_Osman:
education.
Wai_Liu:
that my
Mohammed_Osman:
You might
Wai_Liu:
pick
Mohammed_Osman:
feel that,
Wai_Liu:
this
Mohammed_Osman:
okay,
Wai_Liu:
week.
Mohammed_Osman:
I have read books, I have read product, I read blog articles, but actually I'm not seeing that money comes into my pocket. But actually the way that money can come to your pocket is by not having to spend money on things that you don't really need. So when it comes to the moment where you need to make a decision on something that you know about, you will make the right decision, avoiding making an expensive decision. Does that make sense?
Shawn_Clabough:
Yeah, totally, totally makes
Mohammed_Osman:
Yeah.
Shawn_Clabough:
sense.
Mohammed_Osman:
Yeah.
Shawn_Clabough:
Okay. Muhammad, if our listeners have questions, how should they get in touch with you? Should they just go to your blog, you know, smartaccode.io, or is there a better
Wai_Liu:
Okay,
Shawn_Clabough:
way?
Wai_Liu:
I'm still
Mohammed_Osman:
Yes,
Wai_Liu:
trying to get over the ending of Game of Thrones,
Mohammed_Osman:
they can
Wai_Liu:
so
Mohammed_Osman:
reach me
Wai_Liu:
I don't
Mohammed_Osman:
in
Wai_Liu:
know
Mohammed_Osman:
my
Wai_Liu:
if
Mohammed_Osman:
Twitter handle
Wai_Liu:
I wanna take
Mohammed_Osman:
in the
Wai_Liu:
this
Mohammed_Osman:
show notes
Wai_Liu:
one on.
Mohammed_Osman:
or they can reach in my blog.
Shawn_Clabough:
Okay,
Mohammed_Osman:
They can
Shawn_Clabough:
great.
Mohammed_Osman:
also join my newsletter if they want and over there I send the weekly tips on the same areas I discussed like programming, Azure and soft skills.
Shawn_Clabough:
Okay, good. And the listeners, they can get in touch with the show
Wai_Liu:
So
Shawn_Clabough:
and
Wai_Liu:
what
Shawn_Clabough:
me,
Wai_Liu:
was the movie
Shawn_Clabough:
I'm
Wai_Liu:
called?
Shawn_Clabough:
on Twitter. I am at dotnet superhero. So let me know what you think. Give me some topics to cover on the show. If you want to be a guest, reach out. We'd love to hear from you. So with that said, let's move on to picks. So Wei, what's your pick this week?
Wai_Liu:
Hehehe
Shawn_Clabough:
Okay. My pick this week is House of the Dragon. So it is starting to show this weekend on HBO. So if you
Wai_Liu:
Thank
Shawn_Clabough:
have
Wai_Liu:
you.
Shawn_Clabough:
HBO or HBO Max and you liked, you know, Game of Thrones, this is the prequel to Game of Thrones. So, and it's starting this weekend. So this will be, you know, released after it's already started. But as we're talking right now, it's. coming out in just a couple days. So if you like Game of Thrones, you like those kind of things, I think that's a big audience probably does. So check out House of the Dragon. Hahaha Yeah, it should be interesting. All right, Mohammed, do you have a pick for our listeners?
Mohammed_Osman:
Yes, I think it's an old movie, but you know all this gold it's just nodding
Shawn_Clabough:
Which movie, sir?
Mohammed_Osman:
Ноден!
Shawn_Clabough:
Snowden? Is that Edward Snowden?
Mohammed_Osman:
Edward Snowden yeah
Shawn_Clabough:
Yeah. Okay.
Mohammed_Osman:
I just watched
Shawn_Clabough:
And
Mohammed_Osman:
it
Shawn_Clabough:
that
Mohammed_Osman:
I
Shawn_Clabough:
was
Mohammed_Osman:
think three three sorry
Shawn_Clabough:
And the movie is just called Snowden. I didn't
Mohammed_Osman:
Yeah.
Shawn_Clabough:
hear about it. Okay. And
Mohammed_Osman:
Yeah, it's
Shawn_Clabough:
what's
Mohammed_Osman:
very
Shawn_Clabough:
it
Mohammed_Osman:
interesting
Shawn_Clabough:
about?
Mohammed_Osman:
movie.
Shawn_Clabough:
Okay.
Mohammed_Osman:
It's about like a previous NSA agent who did some leaks, you know, and it's very interesting movie. I don't want to give spoilers over here. It's old, but it's gold.
Shawn_Clabough:
Okay. All right. Yeah. It looks like 2016 is when it came out. So
Mohammed_Osman:
Yeah.
Shawn_Clabough:
yeah. All right. I'll do that. All right. Thanks, Mahan, for coming on the show. It was great to meet you and talk about all the interesting topics today. So that was good.
Mohammed_Osman:
Yeah,
Shawn_Clabough:
So
Mohammed_Osman:
thank you so
Shawn_Clabough:
listeners
Mohammed_Osman:
much.
Shawn_Clabough:
get
Mohammed_Osman:
Thanks.
Shawn_Clabough:
in touch with us. Yep. And we'll catch everybody on the next episode of AdventuresIn.net.
Mohammed_Osman:
Thank you so much, thanks Shawn, thanks Wei.