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Hello dear Kent Beck! I'm Carlo, a software developer from Mexico City. When I got my first job as a developer I started to learn and practice something called Visual Thinking, which is basically learn through visuals. When I went to tech conferences I discover how easy was for me capture many information from the talk and put everything into an illustration, this practice is called Graphic Recording, this was in 2016.

Now, thanks to this skill I could evolve my skills as a developer, I mean, having the ability to draw concepts to communicate is a powerful skill, now I'm focused in Erlang and Elixir, and I use to draw many illustrations like this https://github.com/the-elixir-developer/welcome-elixir I love to teach, so I made all my content in this style and I use to got very good comments. I think drawing is a powerful tool for any developer looking to improve their toolset.

Thanks for this great post!

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So glad you enjoyed it. Being able to render an idea graphically is as useful a skill as mental arithmetic or a facility with finding analogies.

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When I went to school, slides required a slide projector and were hand drawn on clear sheets. So most people drew love. The best professors had an awesome rhythm and it really added spice to their presentations.

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I remember a traveling preacher came to church one Sunday when I was a teenager. Before the sermon, they passed out plastic picnic forks to everyone. The preacher then told a story like this one as a part of his sermon: https://forthefamily.org/hold-fork-best-yet-come/#:~:text=The%20man%20was%20well%2Dknown,belief%20to%20life%20—%20and%20death.

That fork stayed in my Bible cover for a year, minimum. Then at some point the head broke off and I threw it away. But it was such a simple, yet powerful way of getting that message across that I still remember the fork to this day.

I can imagine your presentation is going to stick with more people for a lot longer than if it had been slides!

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