The Value of Testing
Software testing is so burdened with the weight of varying dogma and competing ideologies that it's very easy to forget the reasons why we actually bother writing tests at all. For me, as an engineer I...
View ArticleWhat is React?
In the constant flurry of JavaScript MVC and MVVM drama I missed the release of React earlier this year, or rather I ignored the release, most probably dismissing it as yet another spin on expressive...
View ArticleMontaigne, on software
Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, born in 1533, was a French Renaissance author known for his “Essais“: streams of consciousness and reflections on his own nature. Montaigne’s words, although written...
View ArticleSoftware industry myths
I recently read "The Making of Myths" which alludes to the worrying prevalence of unchallenged myths, stereotypes and social schemas that exist in and around the software industry. I tried coming up...
View ArticlePerpetual Obsolescence, Candy & Grit
A less cynical Dunning & Kruger might conclude that new knowledge is best attained when the vast landscape of "things you don’t know” is mostly invisible to you, otherwise you'd be staggeringly...
View ArticleFuzzy Scoring Regex Mayhem
Autocompletion is never an entirely solved problem. Can anyone really say what on earth a user typing "uni" into a country input field actually intends to select? It could match any of these: Tanzania,...
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Email aliasing in Google Apps
A month ago I switched to “Google Apps For Work” from a bloated and old MediaTemple instance, and I’ve not looked back since. I now have a single email account in Google Apps costing £33 a year. With...
View ArticleThe User; The Programmer;
It is a sharp cliff beyond the world of my knowledge, not a gentle decline. It is precarious up here, on this plateau of abstraction, with no easy way down and only the option to build up, and beyond,...
View ArticleGood Interview Vibes
This is a slightly opinionated guide to hosting and receiving good interviews, from the perspective of a software developer who’s been through a few in the last ten years. Please don’t take it as...
View ArticleTeaching the web platform: theories and observations
At Twitter’s office in London we’ve been running courses for CodeFirstGirls, which brings together women to learn how to code. We also recently brought in teenagers from three different faith schools,...
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