Articles tagged "software_engineering":

If I were building a start up from scratch, these are the things I would include (or have a plan to include).

The easiest time to include something in your application is at the start. On the other hand, you're likely time-poor and there's no point on burning all your runway on a gold-plated hello world! application.

Good idea: Loading screen tips for developers

Video games commonly show helpful hints and tips on loading screens. Developer tools should contain the same.

Assume the next developer will copy paste what they see you do. (That next developer might be you.)

It's not a criticism of developers to suggest that they'll copy paste what they already see in a codebase. Programming is complex and we'll use whatever hueristic we can to reduce what we need to think about.

The natural state of software is chaos

The perfect codebase is a myth. Abondon the pursuit of it, and instead seek to contain the mess.

The horseshoe model for software development

I propose that the designer and the QA should be one and the same.

User Experience reflects the underlying data structure

I propose a variation of Conway's Law.

A model of extensible changes.

Making changes in an extensible manner avoids having to do significant code rewrites or being disruptive to downstream consumers of your API.

What is the role of QA and how should their tests fit into the development process?

If we're doing shift-left testing, and developers are writing their own tests - then where does that leave QA?

How to effectively hire contractors

Contractors are best utilised to plough through a well defined scope of work.