Samuel Taggart

The official "Architect of Adventure". I help teams create healthy, human-centered software development processes.

How to , Design Patterns , OOP , Software Engineering

What is a plugin architecture?

I wrote a previous post about ppl plugins and it occurred to me that maybe not everyone knows what a plugin architecture is. So I decided to clarify a little bit in case it wasn’t clear. I’m going to talk in terms of classes inside packed project libraries

How to , Python

Advanced Datatypes with Python Node in LabVIEW

A recent LinkedIn post on using Python and LabVIEW got me thinking about passing more advanced datatypes between LabVIEW and Python. I have written about the Python node before, but I hadn’t really played with advanced datatypes before, so I thought I would play around and come up with

Book Reviews , Security

Foundations of Information Security

I’ve always had an interest in cybersecurity. By listening to Security Now and the Darknet Diaries podcasts, I’ve learned a lot. But I’ve never had any real formal security education. This book is a great introduction and overview of information security. Foundations of Information Security reads like

How to , CRIO , Software tools

How to create a cRIO Virtual Machine

Just a week or two ago I stumbled upon a forum post that outlined how to create cRIO Virtual Machine. I’ve written a little bit about Virtual Machines before. Creating a virtual cRIO was pretty straightforward, but it required piecing together several responses in the thread, particularly since I

SCC , How to

View the Git Reflog Graphically

While creating some content for my “Using Git Effectively” course, I discovered something new and amazingly useful. You may know about Git’s reflog and that it provides a chronological history of where your HEAD has been so that you can recover orphaned commits. For some things though, it can

Book Reviews

How Clients Buy

I am a programmer not a sales and marketing guy. I struggle with it, yet it is vital to running your own business. I spend a lot of time studying both sales and marketing. So much of what is out there is geared towards retail and not professional services. It

Webinars , How to , Software tools

February 2021 Webinar

LabVIEW Shortcuts – Don’t waste time wiring… February 24th, 10:00am MT We are fortunate to have Stefan Lemmens join us in February. He is going to give a presentation on all the various types of LabVIEW Shortcuts. We are always looking for ways to be more efficient. These tips

Unit Testing , How to

TDD in LabVIEW using Caraya

I’ve written a lot about Unit Testing in LabVIEW. There are a variety of frameworks. My go-to is JKI VI Tester, but JKI’s Caraya has been gaining popularity lately. I finally had time to sit down with it and practice some Test Driven Development (TDD). This is where

Coding Philosophy

Two Questions To Improve Your Software Development

Learning is about asking the right questions. When I get a new client, I need to learn about their business and their software development process. I ask lots of questions. There are 2 questions that always seem to lead to the most insight. Asking these questions of ourselves can generate

Design Patterns , How to

PPL Plugins

I wrote previously about Tom and I’s Gang of Four project where we are creating GOF Examples in LabVIEW. We’ve been getting distracted a little lately, but I have finally found some time to get back to it. I thought I would share with you what I have

Book Reviews

Selling the Wheel

If you’ve done any sales training you know that a lot of it sounds the same: ABC – always be closing. Pick up the phone and make cold calls. Aggressively qualify leads. They all spout a lot of the same things, as if sales was this one monolithic thing. As

Goals

2021 Goals

A while ago, by buddy Mark, put me onto a philosophy for professional success called PIE. You can read a little more about it here. I’ve been using that every since to frame my goals around business. Professional Professional goals are all about becoming better at the technical aspects

How to , SCC

Showing Status in the Git Bash Prompt

Whenever you use Git there is always this conflict between using a GUI and the Git Bash. They both have their strengths and most people prefer one over the other. I feel like in order to master Git you really need to learn to use both and take advantage of

Goals

2020 in review

Well, what can I say: “It was a heck of a year. Thank God 2021 is here.” At least it rhymes. When I look back at 2020, I had grand plans and for the first month or two things went really well. My in-person workshops in January went very well

Book Reviews , Security

Permanent Record

If you haven’t heard of Edward Snowden, you probably haven’t been paying much attention. He definitely made the news a few years ago by exposing the extent to which the NSA was spying on American Citizens. His revelations really made American’s re-think online security and privacy. He

Book Reviews

Start with Why

Simon Sinek rocked the business world several years age with a Tedx talk called Start with Why. He introduced the idea called the Golden Circle which talks about What we do, How we do it, and Why we do it. His thesis is that most people talk about what they

Coding Philosophy

Soft Skills for Software Development

We tend to equate writing software with technical skills. It certainly does involve some technical skills, but really writing great software is all about human skills, often called soft skills. It’s all about how you interact with other people. Typically you are working in a group and even if

Book Reviews

Making Work Fun

For many people work is a four-letter word. It’s something they do because they have to. Maybe they once enjoyed it, but now they are feeling burnt out. It doesn’t have to be that way. In his book the Fun Formula Joel Comm lays out an alternative to

Coding Philosophy

Debug Driven Development

Recently on episode 5 of the DQMH podcast, Chris interviewed Joerg of Hampelsoft. There was a lot of good conversation, but one of the things that stuck with me was the idea of Debug Driven Development. That is writing code in such a way that it is easy to debug

Resources

2021 Podcast list

If you read this blog you are probably aware that I listen to a fair amount of podcasts. I thought I would just compile a list of my favorites in case anyone was looking to add to their list for 2021. LabVIEW Related Podcasts DQMH Podcast Chris Farmer put this

Continuous Integration , SCC

Continuous Integration vs Feature Branches

After reading the Continuous Delivery Book, I have been thinking a lot about branching strategies and Continuous Integration versus Feature Branching. I put together this little chart of the pros and cons of each. Feature BranchingContinuous IntegrationTrustDoes not require trust. You can control via GitLab who can merge into main

SCC , Continuous Integration

Fowler's Branching Patterns

Martin Fowler is prolific writer about software development. One of his more well-known books is probably Refactoring. He also has a blog with lots of good content. After reading the Continuous Delivery book and working on my Using Git Effectively course, I have been thinking a lot about branching strategies.

Design Patterns , Coding Philosophy

Keystone Pattern

Reading the Continuous Delivery book recently has got me thinking a lot about ways to achieve continuous integration while still adding new features. The book suggested Branch By Abstraction as a way to avoid stepping on each other’s toes. It also mentioned the Keystone pattern. The real problem the

Webinars

December 2020 Webinar

Antidoc – The Solution to Documentation December 15th, 11:00am MT We believe in finding better ways to write software. You can be productive and still have fun. We help developers be more productive and have more fun by taking complex software engineering topics and breaking them down into small pieces

Continuous Integration , SCC , How to , OOP

Branch by Abstraction

In the past I have been a big fan of Git Flow. I still am, but I recently read the book Continuous Delivery and it has me rethinking some things. In particular they talk about Continuous Integration and not using feature branches, which is a very large component of Git