About the Author
John Hoestje

John Hoestje

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John Hoestje is an experienced Software Architect and Developer with 10+ years in IT. His area of expertise is the architecture and development of applications and systems utilizing Java, .NET and JavaScript technologies.

Programming Language Assimilation: BE the Borg - Nulls in Java

Programming Language Assimilation: Be the Borg

John Hoestje Development Technologies, Java, Programming Leave a Comment

One of the great benefits of learning multiple programming languages is the ability to learn how languages are different from one another and what the best pieces of each language are. I’m not deep into Star Trek, but the Borg Collective fascinated me. Before assimilating a new species, the Borg assessed if the new species was worthy of assimilation. To be worthy, the species’ assimilation would need to get the Borg closer to perfection.

We can think about new programming languages like the Borg treats new species. When we learn a new language, we should measure success based on how it hones our programming tool kit and how its concepts grow our overall programming knowledge and understanding…

Multiple Emulators with VS Code

Multiple Emulators with VS Code

John Hoestje Programming, Tutorial 2 Comments

Recently, I was joking with some team members, trying my best to get someone to develop a VS Code plugin for me that would allow VS Code to simultaneously connect to multiple Android emulators.

I was working on some font sizing issues in Flutter and needed to test the changes on multiple device viewport sizes. Needless to say, it was taking too much time to ramp various Android emulators up and down.

Later that day, I decided to start playing with the debugger and emulator options, with no expectations of finding anything substantial. Sometimes throwing something against the wall to see if it sticks provides the best surprises!

Increasing Emotional Intelligence As Remote Developers

John Hoestje Consulting, Soft Skills 1 Comment

As software developers in 100% remote work environments, we now have additional challenges stemming from the loss of face-to-face communication. In many situations, this can lead to harmful trends in coworker interactions—less job satisfaction, co-worker interactions, and overall team success. One way to combat this negative side effect of remote work is to increase Emotional Intelligence as an individual software developer.

In this blog, we discuss how interactions between software developers are affected by Emotional Intelligence (EQ). In addition to the basic components of EQ, we discuss suggestions for improving Emotional Intelligence in common interactions experienced by software developers. 

How and Why to Containerize Your Development

John Hoestje Development Technologies, Docker, Opinion, Tutorial Leave a Comment

This is a tutorial for how to use the VS Code Remote-Containers extension to containerize your development environment. First, I will discuss my reasons for separating my programming environment and why virtual machines didn’t work. Then, I’ll show a simple example using a containerized Python development environment. Finally, I’ll give you my reasons why containerizing the development environment fits what I’m looking for in a solution.