Development Practices

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The Error Handbook, Part 2 – How to Shape and Represent Your Error Data

Use the most appropriate data structures provided by the programming language. Keep your error data as simple as possible without losing information.

Development Practices

The Error Handbook, Part 1 – Two Ways to Categorize Errors

Think of each error as either an exception or a failure (depending on how severe/rare it is), and classify the error based on what caused it.

Development Practices

How to Get to Know a New Programming Language

Learning a new programming language can be daunting. So spent time familiarizing yourself with its particulars before you jump in and start coding.

Development Practices

Building Software Is Like… Producing a Movie?

Software is more like making a movie than building a bridge. The pitch meeting isn't the same as watching the movie, and the script can't tell you what it's going to cost.

Development Practices

A Foundation Code Heuristic – If Not Now, When?

Deciding to build foundation code "when you need it" isn't very concrete. When you move from iterating to incrementing, that's the time to invest.

Development Practices

The One Thing a Developer Can Do To Level Up Infrastructure Skills

The one thing I recommend a developer do to level up their infrastructure skills. Also, a couple of stories illustrating how far infra and ops have come.

Development Practices

Four Ways to Make Maintenance Dev. Work Less of a Chore

Adding features and fixing bugs in an existing system doesn't generate much enthusiasm, but it still requires a great deal of creativity and ingenuity.

Development Practices

How to Prototype Quickly: Six Tips for Light-Speed Programming

Agile programming strategies aren't always great for writing software in a short timeframe. Here are six tips for prototyping quickly.

Development Practices

Why I Don’t Use Classes

Instead of classes, I prefer modules that expose groups of functions that accept state and other dependencies.

Development Practices

Don’t Repeat Yourself, but Sometimes Repeat Yourself

Repetition in itself is not the enemy that the DRY principle makes it out to be. Removing false duplication can create more problems than it solves.

Development Practices

How to Develop Alone (without Making an Enormous Mess)

Force yourself to step back and look at the bigger picture from time to time. If you can’t get other people’s perspectives, try to get some distance.

Development Practices

Diagnosing and Relieving Pain in Software Development

Software development has a lot of “pain points.” Diagnosing and relieving them is the key to becoming a better developer.

Development Practices

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