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Coding Philosophy

A collection of 114 posts
Philosophy of Coding: Planning
Coding Philosophy

Philosophy of Coding: Planning

In this continuation of my philosophy in coding series, I want to talk about planning and the way we think about planning. Start with the end in mind Many of you probably recognize this phrase from the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. In it, Steven Covey does an exercise
3 min read
Fear and Motivation
Coding Philosophy

Fear and Motivation

In a previous post, I mentioned how our mindset influences how we write code. Here an example of a mantra in this case from pop (or sci-fi) culture and how it can influence the way we think about designing software. Fear is the Mind Killer “I must not fear. Fear
2 min read
How to learn Computer Science
Coding Philosophy , Resources

How to learn Computer Science

There is a group of us LabVIEW enthusiasts that get together in Boulder every couple of weeks for coffee. It’s pretty informal. It’s a chance for us to talk shop and catch up. Often someone will have some problem and together we will all brainstorm a solution. Recently
2 min read
Skills Pyramid
Coding Philosophy

Skills Pyramid

This post is just really to get feedback about an idea I have had floating around in my head. As a coach/consultant I often come into groups that are already doing software development. In order to best serve them, I have to meet them where they are. Sometimes figuring
4 min read
Philosophy and Coding
Coding Philosophy

Philosophy and Coding

“Is your value system producing the results you want?” My last post touched a little bit on philosophy. It talked about changing the way we think about unit testing. If you have watched my presentations on Refactoring or TDD, you’ll notice they also talk about changing the way we
4 min read
Be The Developer Everyone Wants On Their Team
Coding Philosophy

Be The Developer Everyone Wants On Their Team

I’ve been an avid rockclimber and mountaineer for over 15 years. I spend a lot of time helping out with the Colorado Mountain Club teaching classes. I was recently talking to one of the other instructors and he said something that stuck with me. He said there was a
3 min read
Unit Testing as Bug Repellant
Unit Testing , Coding Philosophy

Unit Testing as Bug Repellant

Nobody likes bugs, whether they are mosquitoes, black flies, spiders, or software bugs. One mosquito bite is generally mildly annoying but tolerable. Similarly with software, if your customers find a bug, it usually results in mild annoyance. Of course, there are exceptions to both: some mosquito bites can be deadly
2 min read
Unit Testing as a Safety Net
Unit Testing , Coding Philosophy

Unit Testing as a Safety Net

Since I recently finished reading xUnit Test Patterns and my upcoming webinar is on Unit Testing, I have been thinking a lot about it lately. I thought I would expand on some of the ways in which I find unit testing incredibly useful. Most of wouldn’t even think of
2 min read
Coding Philosophy , Frameworks

What are you designing for?

My upcoming webinar got me thinking about a recent conversation that I had with Fabiola about design decisions. It also reminded me of a few of Steve’s recent blogposts on Design Priorities and on Project versus API Design. My discussion with Fabiola revolved around the differences between the Actor
1 min read
What goes wrong with software?
Coding Philosophy

What goes wrong with software?

My friend Emre Tüzüner posted the following video on Linkedin recently.  It is “Uncle” Bob Martin talking to the Yale School of Management. If you have attended NI Week or the CLA summits lately you may have heard of Uncle Bob and the SOLID principles.  I thought it was a
3 min read
Proficiency
Coding Philosophy

Proficiency

I always like to challenge myself. Lately I’ve been challenging myself by running ultramarathons.  As you might imagine this requires a bit of training. These training runs give me plenty of time for reflection. The other day as I was on a training run in the mountains, I kept
3 min read