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🏡 Smarter Homes, Faster Code, and Cities You Can Build

From patrolling drones to mastering your editor, here’s your Thursday download.

Author

David Thurman
May 29, 2025

Morning folks! This is Beyond Code - the newsletter designed to help developers build their careers, one Thursday at a time.

Note: This newsletter is not sponsored. Any websites/tools/apps we recommend are purely because we enjoy them personally

Did You Know…

The First Domain Name Ever Registered Was Symbolics.com

Registered in 1985, it belonged to a computer manufacturer called Symbolics, Inc.

And like every other “.com” out there, it’s now owned by a domain investing company.

Handy Coding Tool

Still Sublime – Sublime Text

Sublime Text

Sublime Text is a blazing-fast text editor that’s simple yet powerful. Its distraction-free interface, multi-caret editing, and plugin ecosystem make it a great pick for beginner and seasoned devs alike.

Key Features:

  • Lightning-fast performance

  • Multi-caret and split editing

  • Robust plugin ecosystem

  • Distraction-free interface

Tech Highlights

Smart Homes Are Growing a Brain (And Patrol Drones)

Ring Always Home Cam

Smart homes aren’t just automated anymore—they’re getting smarter, proactive, and mobile.

  • Ring Always Home Cam and Samsung Ballie: Your Home’s New Mini-Bodyguards: The Ring Always Home Cam and Samsung Ballie are redefining home security. These mobile, autonomous devices patrol your home, detect issues, and return to their chargers—no hands (or humans) required. (Source)

  • AI That Actually Anticipates Your Needs: Next-gen assistants like Amazon Echo Show 10 and Google Nest Hub Max don’t just follow orders anymore. They read habits, detect moods, and adjust lighting, music, and reminders without being asked. (Source)

  • Matter Standard Is Finally Live: The new Matter standard means your smart bulbs, locks, and thermostats can actually talk to each other, even if they’re from different brands. Smart home setup just got a whole lot less dumb. (Source)

The future of home tech? Smarter, sneakier, and a little more likely to judge your snack choices.

Programming Tip

Learn Your Editor’s Shortcuts

You probably spend 8 hours a day in your code editor—learn its shortcuts! You’ll save hours over time by mastering things like multi-cursor editing, file search, and jump-to-definition.

Bonus: You’ll look awesome during screen shares.

Interview Prep

Got an interview coming up? Here’s some good questions to prepare answering

“What is an error you’ve encountered recently, and how did you debug it?”

“Walk me through a project you’ve built.”

“Tell me about a time you faced a challenge while learning to code.”

Open Source Highlight

Design Your Dream City – Cytopia

Cytopia is a retro-inspired city builder still in development. With pixel art, zoning, and simulations, it’s perfect for those who love SimCity-style games and want to get involved in shaping one from the ground up.

Why It’s Awesome:

  • A great sandbox for learning 2D game architecture.

  • Welcomes contributions in code, art, music, and more.

  • Ideal for developers interested in procedural systems.

What’s Open Source?
“Open sourced projects” refer to projects that have their code open to the public. They allow anyone to contribute to the project and help maintain it. Not only are they a great way to get hands on experience early on in your career, they also provide you a way to add bigger projects to your resume!

Shameless Plug

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• Courses for building your tech career.
• Interviews with professional developers.
• Handy resources to make coding life easier.
• A Discord community to network with fellow devs.

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Pop Quiz

HTML Refresher - Why Isn’t This Button Doing Anything?

<button onclick="submitForm">Submit</button>

A) submitForm isn’t defined
B) submitForm needs to be in quotes
C) submitForm is missing parentheses
D) The button needs type=“submit”

Find the answer at the bottom of the newsletter!

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Pop Quiz Answer: C) submitForm is missing parentheses

Without submitForm(), nothing is invoked — you’re just referencing the function.