Defined Docker Networks for Seamless Communication Between Projects

If you have a containerized application composed of multiple services, it can become a burden to string together in-network communication. Fortunately, Docker Compose solves this networking problem by making it easy for your containers to communicate without knowing one another’s context. In a couple of short steps, I’ll show you how to quickly get a […]

The Responsible Application Audit – A 7-Part Checklist

As developers, we commonly get asked to review codebases for existing software applications. The common thinking is that a skilled developer can simply: “give a look” to the existing codebase, provide an expert opinion on their ability to extend the application, and provide some level of certainty around the costs associated with new functionality. This […]

What Does “Run the Tests” Mean? – How Shared Symbols Can Speed Up Team Communication & Reduce Errors

On your project, what does “run the tests” mean? What about “add a feature?” “Fix a bug?” When passed through the brain of someone on your team, these phrases bloom into specific things — a command that you run in the Terminal on a developer’s laptop, a process that you follow to add new functionality […]

How to Interpolate Along a Linestring

A linestring is simply a sequence of two or more points (or zero points), where each pair of points defines a line segment. Thus the sequence can be thought of as string of line segments that define some curve. To interpolate along a linestring is, effectively, to walk along the linestring until we get to […]

6 Tips for Testing Large Legacy Codebases

Have you ever been dropped into a new project and asked to increase test coverage? Have you needed to provide confidence in the code, lower production failures, and make selling the stability of your product easier? You are likely in the daunting position of adding tests to a large (probably legacy) codebase. Tests provide value […]

Connecting the Intellij IDEA Debugger to a Maven Execution

Recently, I worked on a Maven project that relied on a proprietary pipeline framework to execute the code we were writing. Because of the obfuscation of this proprietary code, my teammates and I wanted to be able to debug our own code from our IntelliJ IDE. However, we were not using the build functionality offered […]

Using Discord to Drop (& Erect) Communication Barriers When WFH

I recently asked Atomic’s #working-remote Slack channel if anyone had a good solution for a problem I keep running into while working from home: I feel it’s a testament to a healthy working culture that I received no fewer than three different responses trying to reassure me that it was okay to turn off my […]

4 Best Practices for Retroactively Adding Automated Tests

If you’ve been programming for a while, there’s a good chance that you’ve worked on a project without a suite of automated tests. At Atomic Object, we’re regularly hired to enhance existing codebases. Before starting on any new features, we often take the time to retroactively add automated tests. Having a full suite of automated […]

4 Ways to Meet the Challenge of Unexpected Remote Pairing

Ever since we transitioned to working remotely, there’s been a lot of remote pairing going on. Previous to this, I’d only done remote pairing for quick knowledge transfers (before going off to work solo or in person with a different pair). The benefits of pairing are well understood, and going remote means that some of […]

Tools for Tedious Tasks in Visual Studio Code

Every so often, there are projects and tasks that you dread — not because of their complexity, but because of their tediousness. An hour spent typing out sequences of data goes by much slower than an hour spent solving a difficult problem. Fortunately, there are tools that can help reduce or avoid the repetition of […]

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