The SAS Workshops Blog

Coding Philosophy

Maxims to Code By

Maxims are little phrases that we use to remind ourselves of what is important. Here are some that I use when writing code.

Coding Philosophy

Effective Time Management

As coders, we often like to work in large blocks of time, but that's not the only way. Here are some other techniques that can help.

Coding Philosophy

What does being a software architect mean?

I was recently asked: "What does being a software architect mean?" Here is my answer.

Coding Philosophy , Conferences

Improving the Human Experience

We don't write code for the compiler or the CPU. We write it for other human beings. Both user and developer experience are crucial.

How to , SCC

Latest Version of Git Broke LVCompare Usage

The latest Git update broke my LVCompare setup. Here's how I fixed it and how you can too.

Book Reviews

Measuring History

"Measuring History" tells the history of National Instruments and the impact it has had on the world.

Coding Philosophy

Tackling Problems From Both Ends

The best way of tackling a problem is often from both ends, ie top-down and bottom-up.

Book Reviews , Coding Philosophy , DevOps

Thinking in Systems

This book is a recipe for social and organizational change. It is about predicting and influencing the complex systems we've built.

Coding Philosophy

The importance of common language

In order to see things, it is important to have words to describe them. Words are how our brains categorize and store knowledge.

Book Reviews , Coding Philosophy , DevOps

The Phoenix Project

The Phoenix Project is a must-read book for anyone who works in technology. If you have ever worked in a larger company you will immediately identify with the situation described at the beginning of the book. You have an overworked IT department that seems disorganized and is always behind on

How to , Continuous Integration , Software tools , Webinars

Build License Track

Matthias from Studio Bods, recently presented at our Mastermind Group on his tool that allows you to Build, License, and Track (BLT) your LabVIEW programs.

Announcements , Conferences

It's all about the people

So many times we try to tackle problems by throwing more technology or more process at them. Everything would be fine if we just used this new tool or followed this process. Technology and process can definitely help things to run smoother, but only if we first address the underlying

Coding Philosophy

Small Steps in Context

I've written before about breaking changes down into smaller chunks to make things more manageable, but we still have to take into account the context.

Announcements

Blog Moved (Again)

The blog has now moved to blog.sasworkshops.com Sorry for the inconvenience. I'm working on redirecting all the old links.

Coding Philosophy

The Arc of a Developer

In my recent interview for Legacy Code Rocks, I talked about the arc of a developer. I feel like there is this trajectory that people that go on over their careers. It's the learning and growth path that developers tend to follow.

Coding Philosophy

It's OK to Cringe

Cringing at your old code is actually a good thing. It implies that you've learned something. It is something to celebrate.

Interviews , Coding Philosophy , Legacy Code

Legacy Code Rocks

I was recently interviewed by Scott and Andrea of Legacy Code Rocks. We had a really great conversation about software engineering and dealing with legacy code. We hit on some important topics. It is worth taking a listen.

Announcements

New Website

We've moved our website from WordPress to Kajabi! In the move process, some things may have broken or disappeared. If you find any broken links, please let us know.

Sam On Joel , Coding Philosophy

Painless Functional Specs Part 1

This Joel article came out after the Joel Test. One of the aspects of the Joel Test is having a spec. Apparently, Joel got some pushback on that so he launched into a series of articles on Painless Functional Specs. This is the first. A Product of It’s Time

Book Reviews , Software Engineering

Technical Debt In Practice

I met Julien Delange a few months ago. He runs a company called codiga.io It is a support tool to help developers write better code. It is a web-based tool that acts kind of like VI analyzer and will analyze your code and flag problems and make suggestions. It

Coding Philosophy

Do we really need more features?

Adding features adds complexity to our program. Is this new feature really worth it? We should be asking this question more often.

Continuous Integration , Unit Testing

What a crossword puzzle can teach us about programming

I enjoy doing the USA Today Crossword puzzle every day. It’s fun and I like to think it keeps me sharp. It’s also free. If you google it, you’ll find it rather quickly. This particular crossword puzzle has 2 modes: expert and casual. In expert mode, there

Book Reviews

Bug Bounty BootCamp Book Review

Being a programmer, cybersecurity is an important topic. I’ve been interested in it for a while. I listen to Security Now and Darknet Diaries and have been to various hackathons. I even signed up for HackerOne. I felt like I’ve just been dabbling in it though. This book

Sam On Joel , Software tools

Character Sets

So here is another article inspired by Joel on Software. In this article, titled The Absolute Minimum Every Software Developer Absolutely, Positively Must Know About Unicode and Character Sets (No Excuses!), Joel talks about the importance of understanding Unicode and character sets. It is a bit of a rant (Joel

Frameworks , Book Reviews

Simplicity of Design

I recently read XP Explained. It had a section on page 109 where it talked about simplicity. I often talk about the importance of simplicity. In fact, it’s on my list of fundamental assumptions about coding. In XP Explained, Kent Beck lists 4 criteria to evaluate how simple a