Articles for category: Delivery

June 14, 2024

Greg Thomas

Know your Basics

I saw this picture the other day and it speaks volumes, not only for sports but for work as well. Your basics are what set you apart from everyone else. Knowing what they are is what makes you indispensable because then you can start focusing in on them, refining them, and making them stronger. But if you don’t know what your basics are, what your fundamentals are – then you’re just practicing everything, everywhere and not getting anywhere.

June 7, 2024

Greg Thomas

Overly Complex Configurations

Any piece of software has a set of configurations, toggles, and switches that make it come alive. The configuration is what makes the software work for your customer and makes it “their own, unique copy”. Four things a configuration should always have; A place to go and make the change, not forcing the customer to jump here, there, and everywhere. Settings that do what they are supposed to do. Be simple in their implementation, if it can be explained simply by the developer, the end user will never be able to consume it. Work. The worst thing is when a

June 4, 2024

Greg Thomas

It’s Not Your Code

That’s the lesson I learned many years ago writing my first legit lines of code. It’s not yours, it’s not theirs, it’s ours. So if I get a bug and have to go in and fix it, no harm, no foul, I’m fixing our code. There is no ownership of code, there is no baby, and there is only our collective code being distributed to our customers. Yes you put a lot of effort into writing it, but once it hits git, it’s everyones.

If it’s not Agile, then what?

Been reading some articles that Agile is on its way out – Oh no! Time for a new methodology to come in and replace what we’re doing (perhaps we can hand it off to AI). Agile is a Framework, Waterfall is a Framework, and everything other methodology you use is a Framework – when you put them together, you the Lead Developer, Manager, etc. – they become a methodology. Rarely have I seen someone follow Agile to the letter, but most follow tenets of Agile that has improved what they do. Take from whatever Framework works for you and your

June 2, 2024

Greg Thomas

Choose Your Own Adventure

I read a plethora of Choose Your Own Adventure Books as a kid – they were great. I don’t know what today’s equivalent of them would be. But as I was writing this article, I could smell the paper, feel the book in my hands and was flooded with memories of flipping back and forth trying to outsmart the author – I never did. But here it is – Choose your Own Adventure.