Development Practices

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Four Steps for Inheriting a Codebase

Taking over an existing software project can be a challenge. In this post I cover a few steps to make the process easier.

Development Practices

My New 1st Principle of Programming – “Good Code Is Easy to Change”

Separation of concerns, abstraction, loose coupling, don't-repeat-yourself — they're all patterns that make your code easier to change.

Development Practices

An Approach to Database Testing in .NET Core 2.1

In this post I present an easy approach to write unit tests in ASP.Net Core that interact with a test database — either in-memory or SQL Server.

Development Practices

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

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