In a blog post titled Live coding sucks, the author, Mustapha Hadid, lays out a basic premise: that live coding doesn’t really test coding skills so much as the ability of someone to perform under profound stress, a very different test that doesn’t reflect the day-to-day reality of a typical software developer.

Read on its own its a great piece and cites some fascinating research on the topic that supports his thesis (including the rather shocking observation, lifted from a Microsoft study, that when comparing a live, public test versus a private one, every single female test subject failed the live test, while they universally passed the private one).

And had I read the piece on its own I would have simply nodded along and agreed with the thoughts and conclusions given how well laid out and articulated it is.

But.

It just so happens that I read his post literally the day after I performed my very first (and so far only) live coding interview. And my god, I cannot articulate how perfectly that piece encapsulated how I felt.

Given that, I thought I’d share my own anxiety-riddled experience, both to echo Mustapha’s point and to show how even someone as experienced and seemingly confident as me can end up utterly paralyzed in this kind of setting.

So I absolutely love my Steam Deck, and I also love my Wahoo Kickr trainer which, over the winter, I tend to use with Zwift, a widely used gamified cycling platform that integrates with smart trainers in order to give riders something more interesting to do than just staring at their beige basement walls.

Since Zwift is a game, and I needed some way to use it in my basement, I figured, hey, why not just run it on my Steam Deck (connected to a TV via a dock)?

Well, getting it running is both pretty straight forward and a tad bit tricky. So, I figured I’d write down those steps, for others, but if I’m being honestly, mostly for myself.

As we were coming down from the big Tour weekend, Lenore reminded me of something I hadn’t really thought about: this was my fifth year participating in the Tour Alberta for Cancer.

It’s odd because, on the one hand, the Tour has become a yearly ritual for me, something that in so many ways sets the tone and structure for the first half of any year as I (and now we) focus on training and fundraising efforts. July and August then become this rush as the year pivots on the axis of the Tour, the August long weekend, and the Edmonton Folk Music Festival, after which we begin the slow but inexorable march toward fall, with it’s many chilly nights and mornings, gorgeous days, and final gasps of summer activities before the wind up to ski season and the depths of winter.

And yet, on the other hand, as much as the Tour has shaped my life for the last five years, it also feels new and novel, every year bringing its own joys and challenges.

In part it’s probably because each year the Tour has often been marked by something unique: 2023 as my first ride of my career break; 2024 as my first ride without any corporate support, forcing my to work even harder with my supporters to hit the fundraising goal.

And now, in 2025, riding with my wonderful wife Lenore for the very first time!

As a result, every Tour has felt special in its own way, and this year is no exception.