First Get It Working, Then Make it Look Good

I recently completed a winter survival course where we built shelters in just ten minutes with only the contents of our packs. The pack I brought was nearly empty, so I made a tent out of my parka. It was ugly, but it could have saved my life. How does this apply to software? When building a feature, first get it working, then make it look good. ...

April 13, 2022

My psql Config

RC files, thought to stand for “run command” files, are read by a program during startup. The file that configures the PostgreSQL REPL psql is called .psqlrc. In this post I’ll share my personal psql configuration. ...

April 12, 2022

Solved! How to Exit Vim "Ex" Mode

How does one exit Vim “Ex” mode? But first… how did you even get into “Ex” mode? ...

April 6, 2022

How to Read a Stack Trace

A stumbling block for many people when debugging is reading the stack trace. Today I’d like to discuss this important skill. ...

April 5, 2022

RSpec.describe vs. describe: Which Should I Use?

Ruby’s RSpec describe block has two common syntaxes. Which should you use? ...

April 2, 2022

Your Demo Doesn't Need Auth

When building a demo application, I believe you can often skip authentication. ...

April 1, 2022

How Urgent Is This Bug?

I remember the first bug that I shipped to production. I was upset that I’d broken something and was anxious to fix it. But I noticed something curious: the calm demeanor of a senior mentor helping me. They refused to meet my intensity. While the world burned, they wanted to instead discuss the bug and its relative importance. ...

March 30, 2022

Debugging Tip: Learning From Bugs

You were stuck, and now you aren’t. Congratulations! Before you move on, it’s vital to stop and learn from it. It’s the best way I know to get better and spare your mind for increasingly harder problems. ...

March 25, 2022

How to Make Renames Easy

Names in software are hard. But what’s worse than a bad name? Sticking with it because you can’t change it. I want us all to be able to effortlessly and fearlessly fix bad names, and that’s the topic of this post. ...

March 22, 2022

How to Read Postgres Docs

Have you ever tried to read the documentation for a Postgres command? Although many consider Postgres’ docs best-in-class, they include conventions that might challenge newbies. In this post, I’ll paraphrase Postgres’ conventions page to help us understand what the documentation for a command is saying. ...

March 21, 2022

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