Examining diagnostics and extended assertions
Perl, Python, and Ruby: The anatomy of a testing assertion
How Perl, Python, and Ruby each handle testing assertions
Comparing the testing ecosystems of Perl, Python, and Ruby
A programmer moving between Perl, Python, and Ruby is unlikely to run in to too many conceptual challenges. There’s new syntax to learn, and there are a few wrinkles: someone new to Perl will have to get used to adding strange characters to the beginning of their variable names, someone new to Python is going to wrap their head around the scoping rules, and someone new to Ruby will probably spend some time trying to understand monkey-patching and Eigen-classes, but the similarities vastly outweigh the differences.
Code Reviews that might actually work
Code reviews are a great way of improving code quality, and bruising egos. This article looks at practical ways to do more of the former, and less of the latter.
Scrum, The Good Bits: The Backlog
The sight of a Product Owner given pause for thought when they see a new feature that’s “absolutely crucial” pushing another “absolutely crucial” feature outside of the deadline is one of the most beautiful moments in software development…
Scrum, The Good Bits: Daily Standups
Daily standups are meant to be a communication tool – too often process can take the place of looking at the deeper reasons why we do things in Scrum.
Scrum, The Good Bits: An Introduction
Scrum is a business process, and like any business process, it sits between you and the work you need to get done. If it doesn’t help you get that work done more effectively it’s a big waste of time. Introduction to a series of articles discussing the best pieces of Scrum – the pieces you can steal and start using independently of a wider Scrum implementation.
How to Remember Everything, Ever and Forever
If you work in software, being able to consume and learn large amounts of information is a valuable skill – here’s how to do it. So now you do have time to learn that new language you saw on HackerNews…
Estimating like an Adult – What to Steal from Agile…
Somewhere along the way, Agile gained a bunch of fundamentally good ideas about fixing the estimation process. We’re going to look at what they are, why they’re important, and how to steal them for great profit.
How to Estimate like an Adult – A Developer’s Guide
Usefully estimating software projects is difficult, but not impossible. Developers can end up feeling guilty that they’re not meeting their estimates, and at the same time defensive: what they gave were just estimates after all, right? Managers feel exasperated that everything is taking three times as long as it should. What are the developers doing all day?