#172 - From Punch Cards to Git: The Legendary Journey of Jeff Haemer

Pybites Podcast

"The sooner you make your first five thousand mistakes, the sooner you will be able to correct them." - The Natural Way to Draw - Kimon Nicoliades
Jeff Haemer’s career spans over five decades, and in this episode, he openly talks about his continuous passion for learning and solving interesting problems.
We talk about his experience teaching computer science with almost no prior knowledge, his love for Unix, how he landed a job at Twitter in his late sixties, and why he believes networking is key to landing jobs.
Jeff also generously shared his list of books he keeps going back to for inspiration and wisdom.
If you’ve ever felt stuck or uncertain in your tech career, Jeff’s journey will inspire you to take bold steps, embrace failure and adopt a persist mindset to succeed at work and in life.
Reach out to Jeff or us if you like this conversation, thanks for listening.
- Jeffrey Haemer
- Pybites community
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction, welcome Jeff
03:33 Wins: learning Rust / Pybites Rust platform
08:10 Jeff’s journey: from punch cards to modern programming
16:20 Random luck vs being prepared (networking!)
20:04 What's great about Unix, what makes it timeless?
25:05 How to learn and making engaging presentations
29:21 Persistent mindset, embracing failure (it's inevitable!)
33:37 PDM ad segment
34:02 Jeff's favorite books
44:11 Practical SW dev vs book learning
46:35 Wrap up and CTA
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Jeff's reading list:
* Current audiobooks
- J. K. Rowling: Harry Potter y La Piedra Filosofal
- Robert Galbraith's The Ink Black Heart
* Paper
- The Living Talmud
- Edward Frenkel Love and Math
- Tulsi Gabbard For Love of Country
* Daily Reads
- Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic
- The Holy Bible
* PDM books (useful advice + inspiration)
- Kimon Nicoliades, The Natural Way to Draw
- Eric Temple Bell, Men of Mathematics - There is no one, true path.
- John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (I recommend All Minus One, which is just Mill's arguments on free speech, and only about 30 pages).
- Plutarch, Life of Caesar - Caesar was assassinated; when I read this, I was amazed that he lived long enough to get assassinated.
- Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn - “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.” – Ernest Hemingway)
- Bob Drury & Tom Clavin, The Last Stand of Fox Company - Marines
- Jim Watson, The Double Helix
- Kernighan & Plauger, Software Tools (not "... in Pascal") - Perhaps the best practical book ever