Write a little bit of code, and you may come to an unsettling realization: there are multiple ways to do almost any programming task. How do we choose between several that work? I manage this uncertainty with a guideline: writing boring code. In this post, I’ll try to explain what boring means to me. ...
Something I’ve learned as an engineer: when presented with the option of working on a big project, or doing anything else, take the big project. ...
We spent the time writing tests, and yet, a bug survived. Should we just stop writing tests? No, but we should maybe write better tests, and think about them differently. ...
Have you ever seen a pull request that seems to completely explain itself? It’s a real artifact. I don’t know the project, yet I understand it. How can we get results like this on every pull request, from every developer on the team, every time? ...
Here’s some advice about programming I’ve found useful: “Don’t ask for advice; ask for a code review.” In this post, I’d like to explore what I think this adage means. ...
When it comes to controlling frontend presentation, developers often rely on booleans. However, this approach can be limiting. In this post, I’ll explore the drawbacks of using booleans and introduce a more versatile alternative: plain old strings with type safety. ...
In many group debugging sessions I’ve joined, a major technique being deployed is something I call “Try This” debugging. In this post, I’d like to talk about this anti-pattern, and consider a better way. ...
Absolute imports are an essential developer experience feature for me in any JavaScript application. In this post, I’ll explain what they are, how to use them, and why they matter. ...
Over the past decade, I’ve settled into a daily programming routine that helps me stay productive. It centers on code review, moving tickets forward, finishing in-progress work, and documenting what I learn. Here’s the exact workflow I use. ...
There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things. – Phil Karlton Let’s talk about variable name antipatterns! ...