Development Practices

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Why You Should Avoid Writing Complex SQL Queries – and What to Do Instead

SQL queries dangerously couple software to the persistence layer. And as they grow in size, they capture more complexity—I've even found myself embedding key business rules.

Development Practices

Getting into Test-Driven Development: Six Things a Developer Needs to Know

Test-driven development is a popular software developement tool. But what does it really mean to have development driven by valuable tests?

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

Getting Ready to Break Everything (in 5 Easy Steps)

Sometimes you have to make a change that will have negative effects across your whole application. But there is a disciplined, organized way to approach it.

Development Practices

3 Tips for Dealing with Technical Debt

Having structure around managing technical debt makes it easier to recognize opportunities to refactor and makes sure everyone knows what needs to be done.

Development Practices

The Worst Error Message in the World

It’d be nice if we could have messages that are clear and highlight exactly the relevant information . But that’s not how things are.

Development Practices

Learn by Linting: Using Linters to Help Learn Programming Languages

I wanted to learn how to write idiomatic Ruby. Using a linter that was able to recognize pitfalls and encourage me to correct them has been wonderful.

Development Practices

Building a Fake API for Testing & Development

A discussion of a few different options for dealing with an external integration, and why I think a custom, fake API implementation is the way to go.

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.

Development Practices

Reducing Null Errors with the Maybe Monad

The Maybe Monad is nice when working with deeply-nested objects where null values are likely. I’ve gotten the most mileage out of the Maybe Monad when storing it in Redux state for

Development Practices

Surviving an Infrastructure Upgrade

Major infrastructure upgrades are often deprioritized until some business makes them urgent, which can make jumping this hurdle seem insurmountable.

Development Practices

Want to Write Clearer Code? Follow the Cooperative Principle

Could you easily put into words what each part of your code is doing, and what it's for? If not, it could probably benefit from some refactoring.

Development Practices

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