Samuel Taggart

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

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

Book Reviews , Continuous Integration

Continuous Delivery

A year or two ago, I was talking to Nancy about my interest in Continuous Integration (CI). She put me onto this book called Continuous Delivery (CD). It’s a little dated. The technologies have changed but all the principles still apply. If you are interesting in learnig more about

Software tools , Linux , Resources

Zsh

Oh My ZSH If you follow this blog, you will know that I am a huge fan of the Maintainable podcast by Robby Russell. It contains lots of great information about working with Legacy Code and how to write code so that you avoid a lot of the issues with

Python , Unit Testing

Tests are like bicycle helmets

I was listening to the IEEE’s SE Radio podcast the other day while riding my bike to work (ironic as you will see if you keep reading). They were interviewing Ken Youens-Clark who wrote a book called Tiny Python Projects. You would never put a kid on a bicycle

How to , Software tools

Getting Started with 3-D Printing

I did a job a few years ago for a mining company. We were building a tester to test soil samples. I was amazed that many of the parts for the tester were 3-d printed. I thought it was pretty cool technology. At the time I thought it could be

Conferences

Don't Miss the GLA

The GLA Summit is going on today! There should be lot’s of good content. I am doing a presentation together with Tom McQuillan of Tom’s LabVIEW Adventure fame on our efforts to implement the Gang of Four Patterns in LabVIEW 2020, now that we have interfaces. You should

Coding Philosophy

Dive into the source

If you have been following this blog, it should be no surprise that I listen to the Maintainable podcast. It is a great resource. The other day I was listening and I heard a clip that really spoke to me. Justin Searls is talking about debugging and not being afraid

Unit Testing , Software tools , RT

Unit Testing on Real Time Targets

I’ve written a lot previously on unit testing and the value of unit tests. I try very hard to write unit tests for all my software and i try to use Test Driven Development (TDD) as much as I can. It’s not always easy. I just started a