March 6, 2022

How I Review Code

Code reviews are important on many teams. Do them well, and your code ships quickly and safely. Do them poorly, and your code ships slowly and riskily. I try to contribute good code reviews. In this post, I’ll share my process.

March 2, 2022

How I Make Sure I Understand a Feature Before Building

I think the most important factor in consistent delivery is understanding the work. When you understand the work, you build what the stakeholder wants, better and faster.

March 1, 2022

Don't Stay Stuck

We’ve all seen this: a frustrated coworker hunched over a computer after hours, flailing alone against some impossible bug. Go home, coworker. Don’t stay stuck.

February 23, 2022

Why Vim

I’ve been using, teaching, and stanning Vim since almost the beginning of my programming career. Yet, when asked to explain this preference, I stumble. In this post, I’d like to explore why I love Vim.

February 22, 2022

On Disabling Tests

Today I want to talk about a common technique: disabling failing tests to allow a feature to ship. Maybe sometimes you gotta do it. But long-term I think it causes more problems than it solves.

February 15, 2022

Count to Ten

Here’s a trick that that has helped me as a programmer: before doing anything major, like killing a process, stop and count to ten.

February 14, 2022

Avoid Similar Variable Names

A common, problematic convention I see in Ruby tests are variable names like this:

user_a = create(:user, last_log_in: today)
user_b = create(:user, last_log_in: last_year)

February 10, 2022

Refining Your Terminal Aliases

Any command you type out manually, or even tab-complete a few times, can be shortened. A common shortening technique is the terminal alias. Here are some tips that help me write better aliases and cut my terminal keystrokes.

February 9, 2022

Ruby's Frozen String Comment: YAGNI

Open a production Ruby file, and you’ll often see this magic comment at the top.

# frozen_string_literal: true

Today I’d like to argue that most Ruby files do not need this comment. You aren’t going to need it.

February 7, 2022

Two Reasons Why I Don’t Point Agile Bug Tickets

When I create Agile bug tickets, I don’t add Agile story points. In this post, I’d like to explain this preference via two arguments: pointing bugs creates backward incentives, and bugs are surprisingly difficult to point.