Today coding challenges are the bread and butter of software engineering interviews. They are also known as leetcode problems, from the name of a popular platform that provides an interactive tool to test candidates. They consist of a broad range of standardized questions that should be answered on the spot and within a limited timeframe: generally, they only have one "correct" answer, that requires the application of very specific data structures or algorithms. Despite their popularity, I beli

After implementing a simple shooter game as my most recent Godot endeavor, I wanted to increase the difficulty level a little and go for a 2D platformer. I started the project full of enthusiasm: fighting with TileMaps and laying down the main level tiles, creating a Player object affected by physics, implementing horizontal movement, and adding appropriate animations for each action. Setting up the game's basic elements was a breeze, at least initially. For instance, I was already prepared to

In last week's post, I talked about my first impressions of the Godot game engine. While I still have some reserves about the code generation and support for C# (I can't put accept the idea of working in GDScript, sorry), I have to say I was very pleasantly dragged into developing in Godot. I will explain what I did last week, but if you are impatient you can play my game here - as promised. Game Design The majority of my game dev hobby projects failed for the same reason: I aimed too high,

This weekend I was totally sidetracked by the Godot game engine. After writing about my game development endeavours in a previous post, I was inspired to give another go to this old itch of mine. But where to start from? I heard great things about Godot in the past, so I decided to give it a chance. Godot is different than other popular engines because it is geared towards indies, it's open-source, and it's free (like really free, no royalties are demanded at all for using it). There is also an

With the privilege of being part of an organized profession, there are some annoying duties as well. For instance, as a new associate of the Order of Engineers, I was strongly invited to participate in a semi-mandatory 6-hour seminary about ethics in the engineering realm. The mere prospect of enduring an endless sequence of slides about vapid theoretical moral principles was, frankly speaking, bewildering: do we seriously think we can lecture adults about ethics? However, as I am a quite ratio

A few weeks ago, I shared the story behind the creation of the Fire Alert dashboard. In case you are not familiar with it, you can go and read about it now. I Built a Tool to Track Wildfires: This Is WhyOnce or twice a year, I have a ritual of leaving the big city to return to my home village, in south-eastern Sicily. During these retreats, I have the chance to disconnect from the bustling, relentless Milano, and enjoy a place where industriousness isn’t the only religion. Clean air, warmerLori

You may hate him, you may love him, but it's unlikely you never heard of him. Such is the destiny of polarizing characters like Uncle Bob, alias Robert C. Martin: programmer, speaker, and teacher in the ways of Agile and Object Oriented Programming. His fame already preceded the man when I read Clean Code, one of its most famous books, eager to find out about the crown jewel of this author and become an unstoppable dev. I was barely moving my first steps in IT when I read - no, devoured - this