Frontend Engineer & Agile Enthusiast
Two heads are better than one. But what about three heads? That is indeed the question I was pondering ahead of a recent mob review.
Here I regale the tale of using a mob review to educate myself and other developers in review standards and best practices, and how they can be used as a health check for team review behaviours and psychological safety.
Exploring Reluctance in Automation of Manual Development Practices When building software for clients, a key driver is providing value and improvement to current manual user procedures. We should always look at ourselves in the same light. Without eliminating the manual processes in our own software engineering practice, how can we advocate the same lean focusedContinue reading “Why Won’t We Change?”
Managing Software System Alerts Blaring sirens. Whooping car alarms. Crying newborns. Be it noise, lights or colour, everyday life is full of alerts to which we need to react. People learn heuristics to guide them in identifying the how to’s of everyday life. These rules are normally generated through reaction to the piercing sirens and learningContinue reading “Danger! High Voltage”
From real-life to mathematics to philosophy, life is full of axioms. Despite their established truth, it takes us time to learn these maxims and become comfortable that they are indeed true. This includes with code reviews, particularly when reviewing an unfamiliar part of the system such as the frontend for backend service developers.
This week I outline some of the my own personal UI code review regimen, and analyse the overlap between UI and middle tier practices.
Causes and Symptoms of Too Rapid Software Development In the digital age, the demand for software, and therefore software engineers, only increases. Long gone are the days where significant delays in delivery are accepted. To meet existing regulatory and competitive demands, developers must rapidly produce more software. Yet until the cavalry arrives, the same technologistContinue reading “Slow It Down”
Pondering Test Coverage Limits and Thresholds
Client Visibility of Technical Debt Over Feature Stories We all know that old idiom about skeletons in the closet. And the other advising us not to air our dirty laundry in public. Secrets in life are constructs that we prefer to keep hidden to prevent public shaming. Many monsters lurk in our legacy code due toContinue reading “My Jekyll Doesn’t Hide”
Affects of Work Environment on Pair Programming Productivity Lennon and McCartney. Tom and Jerry. Macaroni and Cheese. Life is filled with famous duos. It is indeed true that two heads are better than one. Collaboration in all forms allows for diversification of thought that more often than not contributes to a better solution. It isContinue reading “Just the Two of Us”
Managing The Pitfalls of Persistent Testing Environments Despite living over two hundred miles from my immediate family, I have always been called upon as dedicated tech support when gadgets go wrong. I can regale many stories of fixing PCs, printers and mobiles on family visits or over phone calls. The age old strategy of switchContinue reading “Start Me Up”
How Poor Leadership Taints Software Development Practices Everything evolves. Technology is a common example of the ongoing digital revolution, with new frameworks and languages appearing at a constant pace. The field of how we engineer software is also changing, with new practices and techniques being defined every few weeks. Agile has existed in name formContinue reading “Bad Reputation”
Carly Richmond