The SAS Workshops Blog

Coding Philosophy

Teaching Software Engineering to Scientists and Engineers

"It is easier to hire a scientist or engineer with domain knowledge and teach them how to be a software engineer than it is to turn a software engineer into a domain expert."

Announcements

Beyond NI Training

We all know NI offers LabVIEW training. Many of us have been through their classes. A few of us have even taken all of NI's classes. If you are new to LabVIEW, Core 1 and Core 2 are a great place to start. If you are an intermediate or advanced

Book Reviews , Python

Python Workout

If you are looking to get more comfortable with Python, this is definitely a good place to start.

Coding Philosophy

Counterindications

What is helpful in some situations can be harmful in others. Context matters.

Security , DDD , Design Patterns , Software Engineering

Secure By Design

You don't need to be a security expert to write secure code. You can make your code more secure simply by following Domain Driven Design (DDD) practices.

Coding Philosophy , Software Engineering

Non-Negotiables For Software Development Process

What absolutely has to be in place for a software project to be successful? What are your non-negotiables?

Book Reviews , Coding Philosophy , Design Patterns

Domain-Driven Design Quickly

If you are likely for a primer to get started learning DDD, Domain Driven Design Quickly is a good starting point.

Coding Philosophy

It's harder to downclimb

Writing code is much easier than reading it. If you write code at your maximum level of cleverness, then by definition you are not smart enough to read and understand it. The trick is to make sure that you leave yourself some margin.

Coupling Cohesion and Information Hiding

The better you understand the basics, the more advanced you are. Coupling, Cohesion and Information Hiding are the basics.

Book Reviews , Coding Philosophy

Technical Agile Coaching With The Samman Method

I recently read a very interesting book on coaching by Emily Bache. She has a unique perspective that is very interesting.

Unit Testing , Legacy Code , Software tools

Approval Tests

Unit testing for legacy code can be really hard. Approval testing can make it easier.

Announcements

Highlighting Our Director Of Operations

We now have a Director of Operations. Taylor has been instrumental in so many parts of the business for the past year and a half. Now it's just official!

Coding Philosophy , Design Patterns , OOP , Legacy Code

Can Your Code Be Too SOLID?

You can have too much of a good thing. Lots of code is hard to read because it uses too many unnecessary abstractions.

How to , Software Engineering , Software tools , SCC

The Absolute Easiest Way to Setup LVCompare and LVMerge

Setting LVCompare and LVMerge is as easy as copying a few lines of code and running them in Git Bash.

Coding Philosophy , Legacy Code

Don't rewrite, reimagine

If you are going to go down the path of a rewrite, don't just recreate what is there. Reimagine what is possible given what you know now.

Coding Philosophy , Business

Joy Inc

Life is too short. Don't spend most of your life working in a job you hate. It doesn't have to be that way. This book will show you how to introduce joy at work.

Business

Every Company is a Technology Company

I don't know how you run a ~ $25B logistics business where all your revenue comes from online purchases and you don't have a CTO. In 2023.

Goals

2023 Goals

Here are my 3 Big Rocks for 2023. What are yours?

Goals

2022 In Review

Here's just a look back at 2022, all the things that worked and those that didn't.

Coding Philosophy

The Programmer's Brain

Ultimately all problems are human problems and all humans have brains. Understanding how our brains work can be very useful.

Python

Python For Scientists and Engineers

If you are looking to expand your skills beyond LabVIEW, Python is a good choice. I recently took Enthought's class. Here are my thoughts.

Announcements

Advent Of Code 2022

It's almost time for Advent of Code again this year. If you haven't joined the leaderboard, and the Discord, what are you waiting for?

Python , How to

Using Python Classes In LabVIEW

Now in LabVIEW 2022 Q3 you can use Python objects with the Python Node. Find out how.

Python , SCC , How to

Using Git Hooks

Git Hooks can be quite useful for a variety of things. Here is a simple example to make sure you don't forget to include an issue # in your commit message.

Coding Philosophy

Generosity

By making your tool Open Source you are not losing out. You are actually gaining because you are allowing the community to contribute.