The exit code of a command in a Unix-based system is an important and easy-to-miss piece of data. It isn’t printed to standard out; you have to go looking for it. I find it useful to inspect this information when debugging or considering chaining unfamiliar commands. ...
I saw a meme this week: a person debugging code, “My code doesn’t work. Let’s change nothing and run it again.” This is something that I’ve done. It seems pointless. But that’s not quite correct. ...
When learning a new language or framework, the first thing I do is read the official documentation cover-to-cover. ...
The FactoryBot gem, previously known as FactoryGirl, is ubiquitous in Ruby and Ruby on Rails testing. If you aren’t familiar with it, you might be wondering, what’s the point? Wouldn’t it be simpler to just build objects myself? ...
Trying to enforce unconventional coding preferences on a team is an uphill battle. When in doubt, default to convention. ...
Here are some books that have helped me understand programming. This list is a living document that I plan to update as I read. ...
How do you introduce new ways of working? We want to bring a new idea to our engineering teams, such as a new command-line configuration, testing tool, or design pattern. But engineers can be discerning and stubborn customers. The idea needs to stand on its own. And, you have to sell it. ...
A big mental leap I made early in my programming was starting to view computers as something that could be understood. ...
Today I’d like to share a small part of my practice: using a persisted scratchpad text file for jotting things down. ...
One of my all-time favorite programming tools is Dash by Kapeli. In this post, I’ll share some tips for leveraging this fantastic program. ...