Eight years ago I wrote a post called You Should Blog. In it, I made an argument that I still believe in: public, professional writing is something every engineer should try. Today, I want to share why I write, and have for over a decade. ...

I think a mark of a great engineer is being willing to change one’s mind when presented with new information. Here are four technological things I’ve changed my mind about. ...

Receiving feature requests is part of running a software team. Here’s how I handle them. ...

This is a response to “Don’t Guess” from the excellent “The Best Programmers I Know” by Matthias Endler. My goal is to crystallize my understanding of this trait. ...

If something in your software is confusing to a customer, it is confusing. ...

I’ve added TypeScript to several projects I’ve worked on. In this post, I’d like to discuss why I think TypeScript is essential and document my expectations around it. ...

I recently learned a practice for customer communication that I’d like to document. It’s called “Hit It Twice.” ...

One common trait among early-career programmers is seeing technology choices in black-and-white. I’ve been there. “Redux is awesome!” “Nested ternaries are terrible!” As you advance as a programmer, for better or worse, you start to see almost everything as a trade-off. ...

My definition of “I don’t understand” debugging. ...

I’ve been organizing Meetups for a decade, starting with Vim Chicago and Chicago Elixir, and now running Maine JS from Portland, Maine. In honor of our most recent Meetup, here’s my practical guide on how to start a Meetup group, based on what’s worked for me. ...