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Sam Cooper

@sam-cooper.bsky.social
397 followers 1.7K following 221 posts

Author of Kotlin Brain Teasers pragprog.com/titles/kotlinbt

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Sam Cooper @sam-cooper.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Thrilled to say I'll be speaking at KotlinLeeds in October! My talk explores some of the weirdest Kotlin programs you've ever seen, including some that definitely shouldn't compile. I'm honoured to be part of such a great lineup. Hope I'll see some of you there! kotlinleeds.co.uk#info
kotlinleeds.co.uk
KotlinLeeds - KotlinLeeds
KotlinLeeds is a unique Android and Kotlin conference held in the heart of Leeds, UK. Join us for talks, workshops, and networking.
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The Pragmatic Bookshelf ✅ @pragprog.com · 05/07/2026
Keep cool & sharp this summer! Fun challenges without raising your temperature! 35% off with code CoolBrains. Try Haskell, Rust, JavaScript, Clojure & more: pragprog.com/categor...
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
With heat waves shattering temperature records across the globe, leading to needless deaths, let me just say that history will not look fondly on those who put fossil fuel profits above saving the planet.
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c t @whatulysses.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
can't argue with this.
screenshot from a pop-up window received after downloading Microsoft Office. It features a yellow triangle with an exclamation point and the text, "'Microsoft Teams' is damaged and can't be opened. You should move it to the Trash."
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Sam Cooper @sam-cooper.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
📢📚 My Kotlin Brain Teasers book is on sale at @pragprog.com ! Great way to spend a spring weekend, especially if it's raining where you are like it is here ☔ The sale includes the whole Brain Teasers series, so there's something for everyone, not just Kotlin fans. Let me know which one you pick up!
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The Pragmatic Bookshelf ✅ @pragprog.com · 06/06/2026
Spring Forward - The Human Side Exercising your mind is a great way to support your human side - so we're adding our whole collection of Brain Teasers to the Spring Forward Sale - 50% off with code Spring2026 at checkout! pragprog.com/categor...
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The Liberal BoJack @thelibbojack.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
No more billionaires. None. Once you hit $999 million, every extra cent goes to schools and health care. You get a trophy that says: “I won capitalism.” And we name a dog park after you.
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
There are basically 5 ways to accumulate a billion dollars: 1) Profiting from a monopoly 2) Insider-trading 3) Political payoffs 4) Fraud 5) Inheritance Don’t believe the self-made myth.
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Michael Fazio @mfazio.dev · 27/04/2026
I was looking up a bit of my @pragprog.com info tonight and thought about the fact that I had one other book I wanted to do with them: Kotlin Brain Teasers I waited too long, and @sam-cooper.bsky.social beat me to it. Turns out, this was a good thing, because his version is *perfect*.
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Sam Cooper @sam-cooper.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
@typealias.com congratulations on being nominated for the Kotlin community awards! Very well deserved!
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Sam Cooper @sam-cooper.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
@ivcanet.bsky.social congratulations on being nominated for the Kotlin community awards! Great to see!
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Jason Gorman @jasongorman.bsky.social · 15/03/2026
Developers: "We were spending all our time putting out fires in production." Big Tech: "Would a flamethrower help?"
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Sam Cooper @sam-cooper.bsky.social · 19/02/2026
I know I have a bit of a writers' community on here among all the tech stuff so though I'd share this, should be a pretty unique opportunity to get some insight from industry legend: field15.com/copyright-an...
field15.com
Copyright and Copy Wrong - field15
Copyright law is confusing—and full of myths. From "mail yourself a sealed envelope" (useless) to "fair use will save you" (it won't), misinformation is everywhere. Join Andy Hunt, co-founder of The P...
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Hank Tough 🇨🇦 @jetaitkens.bsky.social · 18/02/2026
Scott Galloway on The Bulwark: ““The Gini coefficient, zero means everyone has the exact same amount. A hundred means one person owns everything. The French Revolution and Marie Antoinette was when they were at 82. We hit 83 this quarter.”
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Sam Cooper @sam-cooper.bsky.social · 28/01/2026
What happens when you use 'when' as the body of a 'map { … }' operation? That's the topic of this week's fourth and final 🧠📚 Kotlin Brain Teasers puzzle: 👉 sam-cooper.medium.com/what-does-wh... Try to guess the answer before you scroll down to read the full explanation!
sam-cooper.medium.com
What does ‘when’ return in Kotlin?
Mixed Messages? Kotlin Brain Teasers bonus puzzle!
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Sébastien Deleuze @seb.deleuze.fr · 27/01/2026
A benefit of upgrading to Spring Boot 4 for #Kotlin developers: you will be able to leverage JUnit 6 support for suspending functions to have cleaner tests.
Code sample with a refactoring from `runBlocking { }` to `suspend fun` in tests.
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Sam Cooper @sam-cooper.bsky.social · 21/01/2026
"enum class" Okay... enum class what? That's the puzzle 😉 See if you can figure out the trick that lets this code compile 👉 sam-cooper.medium.com/can-a-kotlin... And stay tuned for one last free sample 🧠📚 Kotlin Brain Teasers puzzle next week.
sam-cooper.medium.com
Can a Kotlin class have no name?
Nothing to see here! Kotlin Brain Teasers, Puzzle 18 of 23
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Sam Cooper @sam-cooper.bsky.social · 14/01/2026
People who follow me on here might have seen this Kotlin puzzler already, but in case you haven't: sam-cooper.medium.com/what-does-th... It's one of my favourite Kotlin tricks; I hope you enjoy it too! And stay tuned for another free Kotlin Brain Teasers chapter next week, as promised 🧠📚
sam-cooper.medium.com
What does ‘throw return’ do in Kotlin?
The Vacuous Boomerang! Kotlin Brain Teasers, Puzzle 16 of 23
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Zack Polanski @zackpolanski.bsky.social · 14/01/2026
Good morning. A regular reminder: a tiny few hoard staggering wealth and own much of the media, while millions struggle to survive. That’s not an accident. It’s a choice made by those in power. Tax wealth. Fund public services. Build an economy for everyone - not the 1%.
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Sam Cooper @sam-cooper.bsky.social · 09/01/2026
If I could give one piece of career advice to any engineer, it's: measure your impact. Make a note of usage and performance metrics before, during and after each big project. Cite them proudly in your resume/CV, performance reviews, job interviews, etc. Wish I had started doing this sooner!
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Sam Cooper @sam-cooper.bsky.social · 07/01/2026
I'm posting free chapters from 📚🧠 Kotlin Brain Teasers each week in January! I've shared the code for this one before, but here's the full explanation, with more code examples and further reading suggestions 💡 👉 sam-cooper.medium.com/whats-null-n...
sam-cooper.medium.com
What’s null + null in Kotlin?
Something From Nothing? Kotlin Brain Teasers, Puzzle 1 of 23
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The Pragmatic Bookshelf ✅ @pragprog.com · 06/01/2026
Last day of the New Year's INSIGHT sale - 40% off with code INSIGHT Find your inspiration - Pragprog.com
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Sam Cooper @sam-cooper.bsky.social · 16/12/2025
youtu.be/p03oO_7sCaY
youtu.be
Somebody Told Me (The User Provider Should Use An Adaptor To Proxy The Query Factory Builder)
YouTube video by Dylan Beattie
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Jason Gorman @jasongorman.bsky.social · 10/12/2025
Consider the possibility that communicating is the work, and coding is the interruption.
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Sam Cooper @sam-cooper.bsky.social · 05/12/2025
My favourite part of the outage so far is the simple honesty of the error message. "500 server error." "Oh? What's the issue?" "cloudflare"
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Sam Cooper @sam-cooper.bsky.social · 05/12/2025
News websites are going to start pre-writing "Cloudflare is down" articles the same way they prepare obituaries in advance for high profile figures
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The Pragmatic Bookshelf ✅ @pragprog.com · 01/12/2025
Cyber Monday - Last Chance for 50% off! Black Friday, Small Business Saturday - all the days... all come down to this Code: SAVE50 Enter the code on the Payment Details screen Almost everything on the site is on sale - but not for much longer! (Only at pragprog.com)
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Sam Cooper @sam-cooper.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
Yes, this code is good for both my Kotlin books 👍 Kotlin Brain Teasers 👉 pragprog.com/titles/kotli... Kotlin Coroutine Confidence 👉 pragprog.com/titles/sckot... And since it's 50% off, you have no excuse not to buy both 😉
pragprog.com
Kotlin Brain Teasers
Level up your Kotlin the fun way! Solve mysteries, dodge traps, and banish bugs. Sharpen your critical thinking to ace interviews and ship rock-solid code.
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The Pragmatic Bookshelf ✅ @pragprog.com · 22/11/2025
✨ ✨ SAVE 50% ✨ ✨ We're not a giant retailer. We're just a tiny group of people doing something we love, with people we admire, for a community we're part of. This is our version of a fall/Black Friday/whatever sale.
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The Pragmatic Bookshelf ✅ @pragprog.com · 24/11/2025
Pragprog Early Black Friday sale 50% off with code Save50 Includes all Beta books pragprog.com/categor...
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Sam Cooper @sam-cooper.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
My Kotlin/writing skills are better than my image editing, I promise
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Sam Cooper @sam-cooper.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
🎁 Christmas shopping for programmers? A paperback copy of Kotlin Brain Teasers is a great gift for the Kotlin lover in your life 😁🎄. Short, fun, and packed with memorable lessons and surprises. My book 👉 pragprog.com/titles/kotli...
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Sam Cooper @sam-cooper.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
My Kotlin Coroutines book is HALF PRICE this week for Black Friday! If you have a coroutine headache, I promise this book will help. My book 📖👉 pragprog.com/titles/sckot... (use code save50 for your discount!) Fix that coroutine headache and get Kotlin Coroutine Confidence 😉📚
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Michael Fazio @mfazio.dev · 19/11/2025
@sam-cooper.bsky.social - "Kotlin Brain Teasers" pragprog.com/titles/kotli... Another tech review, and this one was right in my wheelhouse. I've done a lot of work with Kotlin and I was still learning new things throughout the book. The "Brain Teasers" series are always fun and this is my favorite.
pragprog.com
Kotlin Brain Teasers
Level up your Kotlin the fun way! Solve mysteries, dodge traps, and banish bugs. Sharpen your critical thinking to ace interviews and ship rock-solid code.
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verdverm @verdverm.com · 10/11/2025
10 years old and maybe never more relevant than in contemporary software development www.commitstrip.com/en/2016/08/2...
comic strip at the other end of the link, click it!
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Ivan “CLOVIS” Canet @ivcanet.bsky.social · 11/11/2025
Floating-point numbers are weirder than you think… ivan.canet.dev/blog/2025/11...
ivan.canet.dev
What is the smallest number in Kotlin? - Ivan “CLOVIS” Canet
Software engineering, open source and computer security
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Sam Cooper @sam-cooper.bsky.social · 10/11/2025
Rate my Fibonacci! 😄 After some improvements suggested by one of the book's tech reviewers, I think this code example from Chapter 10 of 📚 Kotlin Coroutine Confidence strikes a neat balance between brevity and readability. What do you think? How would you write it? 👉 pragprog.com/titles/...
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Sam Cooper @sam-cooper.bsky.social · 08/11/2025
I don't want to brag, but they mentioned my book before they mentioned Obama
medium.com
It happened on Medium: October 2025 roundup
SEO stats, spooky reads, and what publication editors featured
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Bookshop.org @bookshop.org · 31/10/2025
Few things scare me more than someone telling me they’ll just “buy the book on Amazon” 🫠
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Sam Cooper @sam-cooper.bsky.social · 31/10/2025
😈 Working on my new LinkedIn bio. "I love to respond to AI messages, but only if they correctly show me a seahorse emoji." Let the chaos begin 🐴 🐎 🐠 🐟 🐡 🦈 🪸 🐚 🐙 🦑 🦐 🪼 🧜‍♀️ 🦄 🐢 🐬 🐳 🐋 🐊 🦭 🐌 🪻 🪷 🪹 🪺 🐾 🪼 🐚 🪸 🐠 🐟 🐡 🦈 🦑 🐙 🦐 🐴 🐎 🦄 🐉 knowyourmeme.com/mem...
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Sam Cooper @sam-cooper.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
"Two networks are better than one," says Vodafone, telling me I can now get service from both Three and Vodafone, thanks to their merger. I don't suppose they can see the irony in their choice of wording.
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Rachel Gilmore @rachelgilmore.bsky.social · 28/10/2025
Instead of trying to green cars so much why don't we just invest in trains. city trains. under ground trains. above ground trains. trains between cities. trains between countries. TRAINS THE PEOPLE CRAVE TRAINS
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Sam Cooper @sam-cooper.bsky.social · 29/10/2025
Thanks @stackoverflow.blog.web.brid.gy for mentioning my article in last week's newsletter—and congratulations on 300 issues! Nice link description, too: "Dotting your i's and crossing your t's matters even in Kotlin." Can't believe I didn't think of that one! 🤦 stackoverflow.blog/newsletter/i...
stackoverflow.blog
Issue 300: This...is... STACK OVERFLOW! - Stack Overflow
Founded in 2008, Stack Overflow’s public platform is used by nearly everyone who codes to learn, share their knowledge, collaborate, and build their careers.
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Sam Cooper @sam-cooper.bsky.social · 29/10/2025
Trying to summarise all of asynchronous programming and structured concurrency in fifteen minutes would be kind of insane. So of course, that's exactly what I decided to do when I spoke at ACCU York last month. 😄 I think it went okay! youtu.be/VJC1BJ2ZDEM
youtu.be
How Do You Tame the Async BEAST with Kotlin and JavaScript? - Sam Cooper
YouTube video by ACCU Conference
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Indie Book Spotlight @bookspotlight.bsky.social · 29/10/2025
Writers are nothing if not well versed in the art of telling their writing software why its punctuation and grammar suggestions are incorrect.
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Martin Janiczek @janiczek.cz · 20/10/2025
I do find LLMs occassionally useful, but the "You're absolutely right!" is gonna kill me one day.
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Sam Cooper @sam-cooper.bsky.social · 13/10/2025
In many video games, when I loot a chest, the value and level of the loot is fixed, but the specific selection of items is randomised. It would be inefficient to populate every chest up front, so maybe the contents are only determined when I open the box. Schrödinger would have liked that, I bet.
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Hackernews Top Stories @news.facts.dev · 12/10/2025
⚡ Hackernews Top story: A years-long Turkish alphabet bug in the Kotlin compiler
sam-cooper.medium.com
The Country That Broke Kotlin
Logic vs language: how a Turkish alphabet bug played a years-long game of hide-and-seek inside the Kotlin compiler
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Sam Cooper @sam-cooper.bsky.social · 13/10/2025
On LinkedIn I try to have a policy that if you try to sell me gen AI I will unfollow/mute. But that's becoming increasingly difficult as people whose posts I usually respect and enjoy start jumping on the AI crapwagon 😢
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Sam Cooper @sam-cooper.bsky.social · 12/10/2025
🤔 I seem to be on the front page of Hacker News 🤯🤯🤯 news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4555...
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