Coding Philosophy - The SAS Workshops Blog (Page 5)

Distributing Test Doubles and Mocks

One of the questions that came up in our recent Unit Testing Workshop was: How do I distribute reusable test code such as Test Doubles and Mock Objects? This question caught me by surprise. It wasn’t something I had really thought a lot about. I had typically just been

Coding Philosophy

Coaching

What do all Olympic Athletes have in common? They all have coaches. They are all very high performers, yet they still need coaches. I think a lot of us think that we are really good at what we do and we bristle and resist when someone mentions coaching. It’s

Coding Philosophy

Philosophy of Code - Memento Mori

Another topic that came up in “Ego is the Enemy” is the Latin phrase “Memento Mori”. Translated literally it means “Remember you will die.” I kind of view it as the adult version of the millenial’s YOLO – “You only live once”. YOLO is all about hedonistic pleasure – do whatever

Coding Philosophy

Philosophy of Coding: Ego

This is a continuation of my thoughts about philosophy and coding. It is an exploration of how the way we think about coding impacts the coding process and the code that we produce. This particular article is reflection upon a book i read a year or two ago called “Ego

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

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

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

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

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

Coding Philosophy , Unit Testing

Stop Asking Permission To Do The Right Thing

I was originally going to title this post “A Business Case for Unit Testing”. I was going to talk about how it helps you to find bugs early, spend less time debugging, and all the other benefits I have mentioned in my previous posts. I intended it as a cheat

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

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

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

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

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

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

Frameworks , How to , Coding Philosophy

Simple DQMH Do's and Don'ts

Today’s post consists of some simple do’s and don’ts in order to get the most out of using the DQMH. The DQMH is a great tool, but like any tool, if you misuse it, you can create a mess. In a previous post, I mentioned Developer Dan

Frameworks , Coding Philosophy

Build Your Framework On a Good Foundation

If you have been following any of my presentations at various NI events lately, you’ll know that one of my big focuses lately has been on the development process and frameworks. I just recently inherited a project from someone, let’s call him Developer Dan. Dan taught me a