Category Archives: Programming

Nice and Tidy

Appearance matters. I noticed that when I let myself go and don’t bother with tidying up, it has a snowball effect. What starts as a cup left on the coffee table soon becomes a messy home. The same is true for code. If I don’t keep a high bar, soon enough the whole thing isContinue reading “Nice and Tidy”

Legacy Code

What is legacy code? I was asked this question in an interview for a contract once. I answered that all code, once written, is immediately legacy code. I got that contract. I still believe this to be the case. Any developer worth their salt never stops learning. This means yesterday’s code is inevitably not asContinue reading “Legacy Code”

A Lazy Singleton

Every profession has its own jargon. It helps convey ideas to fellow professionals quicker. Some terms are more important than others, because they encapsulate a whole solution with a single expression. The software world is no different. We have plenty of terms we use on a daily basis to convey software (or hardware) ideas. TermsContinue reading “A Lazy Singleton”

Don’t Be a Slave to Jira

If you’re a developer, you’ve probably come across Jira. If you’re working with Jira right now, you probably know the pain. You pick up a task. You move its ticket into “In Progress”. You raise a pull request (PR). You move the ticket to “Code Review”. Your PR is merged. You move the ticket toContinue reading “Don’t Be a Slave to Jira”

Size Matters

Size matters. Especially when we’re talking about software. Quite simply, smaller is better. In some cases, size comes at a cost. We call this a lossy compression. JPEG is such an example. The smaller your JPEG, the lower its quality. There is no way to recover the original data. It is lost. The loss mayContinue reading “Size Matters”