Ihechikara Abba, a software engineer with an impressive ELO chess rating of 2285, shares insights on how chess enhances creativity and problem-solving skills for developers. He discusses his personal journey from childhood hardships to finding success in tech through open source contributions. Ihechikara also delves into mechatronics and Arduino projects, emphasizing their importance in embedded systems. His practical advice encourages recovering from trauma by connecting with community, staying healthy, and maintaining patience in learning.
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insights INSIGHT
Chess Trains Transferable Mental Skills
Chess builds transferable skills like creativity, pattern recognition, patience, and time management relevant to software development.
Ihechikara links recognizing chess patterns to recognizing coding and algorithmic patterns.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Begin Chess By Mastering Basics First
Start with the basics: learn piece movement, board setup, and algebraic notation before diving into books or advanced theory.
Use Lichess.org's beginner lessons and practice online to build fundamentals first.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Study Endgames And Review Your Games
Study endgame patterns like smothered mate, back-rank mate, and basic king+queen or two-rook mates to spot winning moves.
Review your past games with an engine to find missed tactical opportunities and pattern gaps.
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On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast we're talking with software engineer Ihechikara Abba, who has a chess ELO rating of 2285, putting him among top competitive chess players. We just published his freeCodeCamp course on chess end games, and an accompanying handbook.
We talk about: how learning chess can make you a better developer tips for getting into embedded systems development with Arduino how contributing to open source can serve as an alternative to building up a social media presence
Links from community news segment at the beginning:
freeCodeCamp just published a GameDev for beginners course that will help you build your first 2D platformer game. First you'll learn the basics of the open source Godot game engine, and its Python-like GDScript programming language. Then you'll dive into Godot's editor, custom tile sets, game mechanics, scoring, checkpoint systems, and more. By the end of the course, you'll have your own game that your friends can play in any browser. (1 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-game-development-by-building-your-first-platformer-with-godot/
Learn how to build your own secure PHP web apps using the popular open source Symfony framework. This intermediate course is taught by Beau Carnes, who has many years of experience as a software engineer and as a high school special ed teacher. He'll quickly fill you in on Symfony's security features, which enable you to query encrypted data without ever even needing to decrypt it on your MongoDB database server. You can code along and home and build your own secure personal finance app while applying these new concepts. (1 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/build-secure-web-applications-with-php-symfony-and-mongodb/
I also recommend you watch this video essay on Janet Jackson's "Rhythm Nation" explaining the physics behind why the song breaks some laptop hard drives when played: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-y3RGeaxksY
And the song of the week is 1989's Rhythm Nation by a then 23-year-old Janet Jackson. The song's great but you really want to watch the video version, with its awesome dance choreography. I've linked to it in the description. Listen to it after the podcast. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAwaNWGLM0c
Support also comes from the 10,889 kind folks who support freeCodeCamp through a monthly donation. Join these kind folks and help our mission by going to https://www.freecodecamp.org/donate
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