The SAS Workshops Blog

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.

Coding Philosophy

Metrics

Metrics are always an interesting topic. What do you measure and why? And how do you keep people from gaming it?

Coding Philosophy

The Need For Speed

When making decisions you need a true north. You need a litmus test. Here is a case for why speed should be that litmus test.

Legacy Code , Coding Philosophy

Thoughts On Technical Debt

What does the phrase "technical debt" mean to you? How do you deal with it?

Coding Philosophy

Normalize Paying For Open Source Tools

If we want our favorite Open Source tools to continue to be maintained we need to start supporting the maintainers.

Book Reviews , Business

Go For No

The number one challenge faced by most LabVIEW Developers turned consultants is sales and marketing. This book can help with the sales part.

Coding Philosophy

The LabVIEW Experiment

You may have heard rumors that I started a podcast. "The LabVIEW Experiment" is a place to discuss how to improve our craft and make coding fun again.

Coding Philosophy

Be The Developer Everyone Wants On Their Team

How can you become the developer that everyone wants on their team? Here are a couple ideas.