Articles

Articles

• Why Estimating Tasks is So Hard and Why Developers Hate It

  See why task estimates miss and why developers dislike them, plus three ways to estimate better: agile data, smaller tasks and regular reviews.

  Jul 23, 20243 min read

• The Subtle Art of Task Prioritization for Developers

  Prioritize your work as a developer: know your team's priorities, when to say no, delegate or ask for help, and how to plan the next day.

  May 6, 20245 min read

• Don't Fall into the Trap of Judging Other People's Code

  Swap criticism of someone else's code for the question "why was this built like this?" and see the pressures that shape the code you inherit.

  Apr 16, 20243 min read

• The Essential Soft Skill Every Developer Should Master

  Improve the communication skill that shapes a developer's career: the four kinds of communication at work and how to practice them.

  Apr 2, 20244 min read

• Developers, Embrace the Future

  Why I think AI will reshape developer work within 10 to 15 years, the ethical risks to watch, and why you should start experimenting now.

  Mar 25, 20243 min read

• A new direction for the blog

  Why I brought this blog back after losing the old domain, what it will cover from now on, and how I use AI tools while writing it.

  Feb 27, 20242 min read

• The bare minimum you need to know about GraphQL so you don't embarrass yourself in a conversation

  Understand what GraphQL is, where it came from, where it beats REST and where it falls short, so you can discuss adopting it with your team.

  Jul 17, 20194 min read

• The subtle art of naming variables, methods, functions, classes, modules

  Name variables, methods and classes better using practices from Clean Code and Sandi Metz, and write code that needs no comments to explain it.

  Apr 16, 20193 min read

• Why aliases matter for your workflow

  Find the terminal commands you repeat most and turn them into aliases that load in every session, saving you minutes every day.

  Apr 1, 20193 min read

• Debugging JavaScript (without console.log)

  Debug JavaScript in the browser with breakpoints, step controls and conditional breakpoints in Firefox Developer Tools, no console.log needed.

  Jan 28, 20194 min read

• Vim: How to break bad habits and boost your productivity

  Drop bad Vim habits: turn off the arrow keys in your .vimrc, use motions and stop repeating hjkl so you can edit text faster.

  Jan 23, 20193 min read

• The definitive Vim guide. Want to learn Vim? Start here.

  Start using Vim without fear: install it, run vimtutor, understand buffers, set up your .vimrc and pick plugins, with a routine to build habit.

  Dec 18, 20187 min read

• A bit of our experience trying to migrate pipelines from GoCD to Concourse-CI

  One of our clients asked us to set up a team to migrate all of their pipelines (which live in GoCD) to ConcourseCI.

  Aug 12, 20184 min read

• Frequently asked questions about pair programming

  Learn when to pair program, how often to rotate pairs and how to switch between driver and navigator using pomodoro and TDD ping pong.

  Oct 10, 20172 min read

• Hello World

  The blog's first post: why, after several abandoned blogs, I decided to start this one to write about software development and more.

  Apr 25, 20141 min read

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