We're hiring!

We're actively seeking developers & designers for our new Detroit location. Learn more

Bias in Computer Systems, and beyond

By Jason Porritt | Published: May 4, 2012
I enjoy reading a good academic paper every now and then. Recently, I was prompted by an email from a former Atomic Object coworker, Mike Karlesky, to read through “Bias in Computer Systems” by Friedman & Nissenbaum. I recommend reading it for yourself (PDF available here). Bias isn’t always negative, but the focus of the...

Read More »
Posted in Design & Development, User Experience | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Twitter Bootstrap: Prototype to Production

By Jason Porritt | Published: March 27, 2012
Every now and then, a tool comes along that causes me to reevaluate how I approach certain parts of my work. Twitter Bootstrap is one of those tools. Kedron and I were recently able to take our Detroit hiring site from concept to release, very quickly, using Twitter Bootstrap throughout the process. This experience has...

Read More »
Posted in Visual Design, Web | Leave a comment

Lessons from Startup Weekend Detroit

By Jason Porritt | Published: February 22, 2012
Drew, Mike, Justin, and Jason in Detroit.What kind of business can you build in 54 hours? That’s the challenge at every Startup Weekend event and the group in attendance at the M@dison building for Startup Weekend Detroit was more than up to the challenge. Six of us from Atomic Object made the trek out to the event to participate. We built,...

Read More »
Posted in Process & Practices, Startups | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Mining our passions for the “why”

By Jason Porritt | Published: January 25, 2012
Last fall, prompted at least in part by Simon Sinek’s TEDx talk “How great leaders inspire action”, Carl discussed his evolving thoughts about identifying the why of Atomic Object. I ran across his post again a few weeks ago while catching up on some reading. It hasn’t left my spare mental cycles alone since. Such...

Read More »
Posted in Company, Culture, Process & Practices | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Insights from jury duty

By Jason Porritt | Published: December 27, 2011
Not long ago, I was selected to participate on the jury for a civil case. Through the course of fulfilling my civic duty, I noticed a number of interesting similarities between the dynamics of jury deliberation and how we work through product definition. Specifically, I saw that many of the skills that make an effective...

Read More »
Posted in Process & Practices | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Automation: The best documentation

By Jason Porritt | Published: November 28, 2011
Have you ever had to take over development or support of an existing software project from another developer? Or return to one you wrote but haven’t touched in a year or two? If so then you likely know how difficult it can be to perform even basic tasks if documentation is inaccurate, incomplete, or absent...

Read More »
Posted in Design & Development | 1 Comment

Generic Memoization in C#

By Jason Porritt | Published: October 27, 2011
I have seen some very nice, generic forms of memoization in the dynamic languages I’ve used. In languages like Ruby and Perl, for example, dynamically redefining a method to be a memoized version of itself is a good way to transparently handle it. However, I haven’t seen any examples of generic case memoization for C#...

Read More »
Posted in Design & Development | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

A Little Bit of XBee

By Jason Porritt | Published: September 22, 2011
Justin DeWind and I recently started working on a project involving XBee radios. These little devices are fun to work with and more capable than their small size lets on. A lot of questions have come up as we’ve worked through a technical spike using the devices, some with difficult-to-find answers. The following are a...

Read More »
Posted in Tools, Unix, Linux, and Bash | Tagged , | Leave a comment

C#: (a few of) The Good Parts

By Jason Porritt | Published: August 26, 2011
After any prolonged dive into a particular technology stack, I end up with a set of tools and features I feel most comfortable with — the ones that most naturally fit how the rest of the team and I choose to build. Being part of a team at Atomic Object means those tools will be...

Read More »
Posted in Languages, Tools | Leave a comment

The Value of a Team-Built Prototype

By Jason Porritt | Published: July 21, 2011
I’m certain everyone has been involved in at least one project, either in their professional career or in school, where divergent visions caused significant problems and threatened the team’s ability to declare the outcome a success. Regardless of the cause, the longer such a discrepancy remains and the more that is built while it is...

Read More »
Posted in Process & Practices, Prototyping | Tagged | Leave a comment