This is a list of the best of tech articles that we (five team members at Appsmith) read through the last week. We often share content recommendations among ourselves. This is the first time we are sharing it with the community here. We hope you enjoy reading a few pieces from this list. Dive right in and please share with us what you found worth your time.

3 Kinds of Good Tech Debt

#devdecisions #framework
Tech debt has a bad reputation. But like all debt, tech debt can also be both good and bad. In this case, the beauty lies in the intentions of the developer. The post shares a mental model for seeing the good side of tech debt & three scenarios where SquareSpace engineering team used good tech debt to build faster and better projects.
8 mins read

How To Be a Systems Thinker

#timeless #fundamentals
Systems thinking is an analytical approach based on the belief that the component parts of any system act differently when isolated from other parts of the system. In this piece (audio embedded inside), a cultural anthropologist explains the fundamentals of systems thinking. She also explores questions that technologists working on AI need to answer in order to create intelligent & insightful machines.
16 mins read

Grid studio: web-based spreadsheet app with full integration of Python

#trending #tool
Grid studio provides an integrated workflow for loading, cleaning, manipulating, and visualizing data. This is achieved through a spreadsheet backend written in Go with integration of the Python runtime to manipulate its contents.

My 5 Favorite Software Design Principles

#career #beginners
Abstraction, Separation of concerns, YAGNI (You Aren't Going to Need It!!), KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid!)and DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself). These are Jeremy Morgan’s five favourite software design principles. He has even structured his post on the KISS principle. He explains in simple words what each of these five principles is about and how their application helps in building good software.
6 mins read

How To Set Up a Ruby on Rails Project with a React Frontend

#tutorial
This tutorial will help you create a Ruby on Rails application that stores your favorite recipes and then displays them with a React frontend. You will be able to create, view, and delete recipes using a React interface styled with Bootstrap.
8 mins read

10 Git Tricks to Save Your Time and Sanity and then 10 more

#work #productivity
Jacob Herrington is earning a lot of good karma over the past week by sharing 20 Git Tricks. And these are just awesome!
9 mins read

How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking

#books #recommendation
This book has been recommended by Bill Gates. In his words: “What Jordan Ellenberg has written is ultimately a love letter to math. If the stories he tells add up to a larger lesson, it’s that 'to do mathematics is to be, at once, touched by fire and bound by reason' -- and that there are ways in which we’re all doing math, all the time.”

P.S - I plan to share this recommended reading list every week. Let me know what you thought of this one in the comments - what you found useful and what you didn't like. I am all ears.

What did you read this week that you absolutely loved?