Posts

I’ve been using, teaching, and stanning Vim since almost the beginning of my programming career. Yet, when asked to explain this preference, I stumble. In this post, I’d like to explore why I love Vim. ...

Today I want to talk about a common technique: disabling failing tests to allow a feature to ship. Maybe sometimes you gotta do it. But long-term I think it causes more problems than it solves. ...

Here’s a trick that that has helped me as a programmer: before doing anything major, like killing a process, stop and count to ten. ...

A common, problematic convention I see in Ruby tests are variable names like this: user_a = create(:user, last_log_in: today) user_b = create(:user, last_log_in: last_year) ...

Any command you type out manually, or even tab-complete a few times, can be shortened. A common shortening technique is the terminal alias. Here are some tips that help me write better aliases and cut my terminal keystrokes. ...

Open a production Ruby file, and you’ll often see this magic comment at the top. # frozen_string_literal: true Today I’d like to argue that most Ruby files do not need this comment. You aren’t going to need it. ...

When I create Agile bug tickets, I leave the story points blank. Why? Two reasons: pointing bugs creates the wrong incentives, and bugs are hard to estimate. ...

“What did you do this week?” I’ve written a weekly summary for myself and my teams for years. In this post, I’ll explain how I use this tool. ...

Here’s a technique I’ve used on launches: instead of a big scary waterfall, or, in tandem with a phased release, let customers opt into a new feature. ...

I have collected a group of mentors over the years. I call on them frequently to talk through tough problems. I think I’m better at my job because of this regular, impartial outside feedback. I’d wish this for everyone! In this post, I’ll try to reverse-engineer the path I took to get here. ...