Technical A Tale of Three Linters Even I will admit that Javascript an ugly duckling, and I love Javascript. Just about every other language out there has coalesced around a set of stylistic conventions for how code is supposed
Technical The Monster that Eats Software Companies There's a tired genre of books called the "Business Fable". Best known by way of the classic "Who Moved my Cheese?", its a story of a bizarre fictional society
Technical Developer Alignment NOTE: Credit where credit is due. Renowned software blogger Steve Yegge made a very similar point several years ago I've observed that there are two kinds of developers in the world. One kind
Non-Technical A Hierarchy of Process Programmers hate corporate process. We are constantly fighting to simplify it. But in the course of fighting it, we are tempted to lose sight of how excessive process is not fundamentally a technical
Technical When the Stack is Stacked Against You I generally market myself as a "Full-Stack" Developer. It's an overused term, to the point that it risks falling into meaninglessness, like "Synergy". But I think there is an
Non-Technical Breaking the Career Glass Ceiling I've mentioned this before, but I'm a big fan of Eric Dietrich's blog. He focuses in particular on the topic of how developers can transition to becoming consultants. This post, in particular, struck
Technical The First Language In the last few years, I have had the privilege of helping a few different people get started in the world of programming It brings some questions into sharp focus. One of the
Non-Technical Would a Programmer by Any Other Name Smell as Sweet? Its no secret that High-Tech is glorious field to be a part of right now. I confess, I tend to click on those click-baity listicles you see around with names like, "25
Non-Technical The Wandering Guru Phase It seems to me that when there's a new field of practice, it evolves through a few steps. By field of practice, I mean something very broad: Everything from Medicine to Astronomy to
Technical The Final Language Why are there so many programming languages? I've had the privilege of working with a few people getting started in the world of programming, and that's one thing they consistently ask. It's a
Technical Tesla Languages and Cart Langauges I notice there are two kinds programming languages One kind is built to be perfect. It's informed by what came before it, but built from the ground up to correct the mistakes and
Non-Technical Bug-Free Software for the Non-Programmer Discussing a well written article from the Atlantic, about the problems in the software world and how better tooling could solve them
Technical jQuery and the Death of Elvis About a decade ago, there was a little bit of a stir in the .net world. It came out that for many years, Microsoft targeted Visual Studio features towards 3 separate developer personas
Technical Buy your own tools Bless me father, for I have sinned. I know software piracy is wrong. But at one early job, I spent over a year coding on a less-than-legal license of Visual Studio. I was
Technical Editor Omnibus Have you ever found yourself wandering through a hardware store admiring the shelves of tools? Have you found yourself fantasizing about possessing a complete collection of cordless powertools, even though you know you
Technical Blogifesto I feel like I arrived in the field of software engineering at the twilight of an era. Let me explain: I arrived on the job market not too many years ago, with an
