The SAS Workshops Blog (Page 2)

GLA Summit 2024

The GLA Summit is taking place virtually this year at 25-26 March 2024. Come join us!

Approval Testing For LabVIEW 2.0 Released

If you haven't tried approval testing yet, you definitely should. It makes unit testing a lot easier, particularly for legacy code or for verifying complicated objects.

Software tools , Continuous Integration , DevOps , Software Engineering

SAS-GCLI-TOOLS Update

The first step in setting up CI/CD is being able to perform common tasks from the CLI. Here are a set of tools to do just that.

Business

Sell like an ophthalmologist

A recent experience at the ophthalmologist makes a good case study of how to sell.

Book Reviews , Coding Philosophy , Legacy Code

The Best Book on Legacy Code I've Read Yet

You have inherited a Legacy System, what do you do now? How do you manage a successful modernization effort?

Book Reviews

Training From the Back of the Room

When you lead training are you in the front of the room or the back? Does your training implement the 4 Cs?

A screenshot showing a Git Bash Window. The command is`g-cli blue -- .` The output is "5 Files Processed 2 Formatted"

Software Engineering , Software tools , Legacy Code , Resources , Announcements

Announcing the Blue Formatter for LabVIEW

If you like Nattify, you'll probably like this tool. It lets you run Nattify on an entire directory from the command line.

Someone wearing white loafers and jeans (that is all you can see of them) sweeping with a broom and a dustpan on a stick.

Coding Philosophy

The Right Amount of Technical Debt

How do you determine the right amount of technical debt on a project? Both too much and too little can slow you down.

A cairn (stack of rocks) on a mountainside. You can see a valley and some partiall snow covered mountains in the background.

Goals

2024 Big Rocks

What are your goals for 2024? Here are mine.

Goals

2023 by the numbers

Here is a look at 2023 based on the numbers.

A block diagram showing a setup for using GitLab CI to spawn KVM VMs on demand.

Continuous Integration , How to

More on GitLab Custom Executors

If you are trouble visualizing how GitLab Custom Executors Work, here is a diagram that might help.

A young man looking back over his shoulder. You can't see his face.

Goals

2023 in Review

Here is my look back at 2023. How did your 2023 go? Did you make progress towards your goals?

A picture of someone writing in a notebook. The photo just shows from the shoulder down.

Random

Why I write

Do you have a blog? Why do you write? Have you thought about it?

A venn diagram with 2 overlapping circles.

Business

If you are having trouble marketing your products and services, perhaps instead of focusing on what you sell, you may get better results by focusing on building a community of people with shared values.

Continuous Integration , How to

Spawning VMs like Docker Containers

I've figured out how to use the KVM Executor for GitLab to spawn VMs similar to Docker Containers. It works quite well as an alternative.

How to , DevOps

Compressing KVM Disks for Win10 VMs

If you are using VMs at all, it makes sense to compress them to save disk space. Here's how to do it for KVM with Win10 guests.

Conferences

Devternity Scandal

I can no longer recommend the Devternity Conference. Any conference that invents fake speakers no longer has my interest.

How to

SSH Server on Windows 10

Did you know you can run SSH server on a Windows machine and SSH into it?

Community

LabVIEW Consultant Summit

Want to learn more about running a LabVIEW-related business? Join us at the LabVIEW Consultant Summit!

Continuous Integration , DevOps , Software Engineering , Coding Philosophy

What is the Value Proposition of CI/CD?

Do you use CI/CD? If not, why not? If so, what benefits do you see?

Coding Philosophy

Pick Learning Over Blaming

What opportunities has your organization missed out on by focusing on blaming rather than learning?

Sam On Joel , Coding Philosophy

Painless Functional Specs Part 2

Do you write detailed specs for your projects? What do you include?

Continuous Integration , Software Engineering , DevOps

CI/CD workshop

At SAS Workshops we believe in "Small Steps and Fast Feedback". Having a Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) pipeline is a large part of that.

Coding Philosophy , Book Reviews

Accidents in North American Climbing 2023

What can studying climbing accidents teach us about coding? It turns out a lot.

A old school balance for measuring mass sitting on a table next to a laptop with a blurry chair the background.

Business

Consultant versus Contractor

What is the difference between a consultant and a contractor? How do you pick out the good ones?