Brian Vanderwal on Atomic Spin

Commit Messages – the Easiest Documentation You’ll Ever Write

Historical context for a codebase gets lost over time, and documentation gets outdated. Solve both problems by writing bits of documentation as you go.

Development Practices

A Case Against Dependencies

It can be very tempting to pull in a 3rd-party package to add functionality to your app. But there are hidden costs you should weigh first.

Development Practices

Special Cases Ruin Everything! (Here Are 3 Ways to Avoid Them)

An average person can keep about 7 units of information in short-term memory, and every special case takes up at least one of those spots.

iOS / OS X

UI Unit Testing in Your iOS Project

When it comes to automated testing, UI tests tend to be difficult to write, take a long time to run, and are prone to flakiness. So I recently explored the feasibility of isolating

Web Apps

Azure Functions in F# (For Real)

Maybe someday Visual Studio will include support for Azure Functions in F#, but for now it’s possible to get there by adapting the C# Azure Function template.

Developer Tools

Using Fuzzy-Find to Enhance Git Add

Fuzzy-find is not just for locating files in a directory. It can also be used to make git operations faster.

Development Practices

The Five Habits of Maintainable Unit Tests

Good unit tests are often the best documentation of a project's behavior. But poorly-written unit tests can cement code in place, making it more difficult to change.

Android Development

Android ConstraintLayout vs. iOS AutoLayout

iOS has had a constraint-based layout system for some time now in the form of AutoLayout, while Android only recently added the similar ConstraintLayout.

Development Practices

Six Strategies to Spend Less Time Debugging

Sometimes time pressures require a shot-in-the-dark solution. But your codebase will be healthier if you understand the root cause of the issue.

Android Development

Automating Android NumberPicker using Espresso

While writing an Android UI test involving a NumberPicker, I learned instrumenting the picker with Espresso was not as easy as other Android controls.

Objective-C

Centralize Callback Handling by Creating a Reactive Signal

Go beyond basic ReactiveCocoa operations by using createSignal to abstract a collection of delegate callbacks behind a single signal.

Development Practices

Three Strategies for Maintaining an App on Two Platforms

My current project involves iOS and Android apps, both written natively for their platforms. Here are a few guidelines we follow to keep them in sync.

Brian Vanderwal

Keep up with our latest posts.