Who Does Software Architecture?
Software Architecture is not and can not be done by the architect alone. It is an act of design that every developer is engaged with.
Read More Who Does Software Architecture?Software Development
Overtime Hurts Your Software & Your Team
Photo by energepic.com from Pexels At almost every company there is some level of pressure to work overtime. It gets couched in language about mission, impact, hustle, and other euphemisms. Positive employee recognition usually comes to people willing to work the extra hours. “Joe really went that extra mile to help us meet our goal. Staying…
Read More Overtime Hurts Your Software & Your TeamProgrammers Don’t Understand Value
How should we decide what to work on? Answering that question is the key to all software development processes. In my experience a lot of programmers, developers, and engineers are bad at answering it. Technical Debt This is the elephant in every room; at least in every room containing software developers. If there is software…
Read More Programmers Don’t Understand ValueIn Honor of Legacy Code
Every company I have ever worked for had some. Few seemed to want to deal with it, and even fewer were confident they could. Legacy Code is a fairly consistent, and strongly pejorative term within software development. But, is that a good thing? Over the last several years I have come to think that it…
Read More In Honor of Legacy CodeTests Should Not Be Optional
I am of the opinion that any code that does not have accompanying automated tests should be considered inherently defective. When we write code we have certain notions of suitableness in mind. Tests are a way to express those notions in a way that others can run, and examine, independent of having to delve into…
Read More Tests Should Not Be OptionalSoftware Testing & Confidence
When we build software it can sometimes feel like a precarious balancing act. Will this next bit of code do what we expect? Will something we did not change begin behaving strangely? Certainty and confidence are not always feelings close at hand for many software developers. Being able to answer these concerns with greater confidence…
Read More Software Testing & ConfidenceMicroservices Will Mess Your Team Up
Microservices are popular with many teams. But, software development patterns are still in flux around this architectural pattern. In the last several years the space has matured a lot. Still, too many teams produce poor implementations. Microservices are often placed in contrast to Monolithic applications. That comparison is instructive, but it is also naive. Microservices…
Read More Microservices Will Mess Your Team UpJavaScript Can Not Win
I read a story over on Hackernoon by Jonny Asmar — Javascript Has Already Won. The premise is that Node.js and JavaScript have become so far reaching that it has won out over other programming languages. Unfortunately, this entire line of thinking is nonsense. Not because JavaScript can’t do all the things claimed, but because there is…
Read More JavaScript Can Not WinAsk Questions — Even “Bad” Ones
When we are young we ask a lot of questions. As a father of five, this fact is not always my favorite thing about my kids. But, kids’ inquisitive natures is one of their strongest tools for learning. It’s a cliche that “there is no such thing as a dumb question.” But, why do we…
Read More Ask Questions — Even “Bad” OnesDefining Principles for Software Engineering
Several months ago I wrote about my personal principles of software engineering. That post was informed by a talk a watched by Peter Campbell. Since then, I have been reflecting how to align various ideas I have been addressing independently up to this point. To help bring these various ideas together I want to start…
Read More Defining Principles for Software Engineering