13 hours ago
The Element of Fun
2 days ago
Your Roadmap
3 days ago
Never Actioned Logs
4 days ago
Enjoy the Day
5 days ago
You’re Halfway There
5 days ago
Missed One
2 weeks ago
Complacency is a Pain to Clean Up
2 weeks ago
Focus on One Thing
2 weeks ago
Everything Takes Effort
2 weeks ago
Default to Team Patterns
13 hours ago
In anything you do, there should always be an element of fun to it. Otherwise, why do it? When it comes to writing code, I will forever love console apps, and even now, I use AI to help me make cool pictures and have fun with them. It’s probably an early program or back to the i386 days, but it’s fun to see a little ASCII dinosaur moving across the screen. The app works and does stuff too, but yeah, that’s the fun stuff. Want more? Check out my book Code Your Way Up – available as an eBook or …
Your Roadmap
Greg Thomas
Software products have roadmaps – it’s the direction, the map – you want to follow to get from A to B. We don’t always follow it correctly; sometimes we veer off left or right and go off-roading for a while – sometimes I wish we didn’t, but more times than not, I’m super glad we did because it ended up making the product that much better. But in the end, we hit our goal and delivered our solution – it’s a map, similar to when you’re on vacation and you stop at the shop on the way to pick up …
3 days ago
Never Actioned Logs
Greg Thomas
What’s the point of your logs if you’re never going to look at them? If your logs are only there to check the box that “yes, we have logs”, there are many cheaper ways to accomplish this goal. Logs are meant to be actioned. Alerts are meant to be read. If you’re doing neither, then they will never help your users have a better app experience. Want more? Check out my book Code Your Way Up – available as an eBook or Paperback on Amazon (CAN and US). I’m also the co-host of the Remotely Prepared podcast.
2 weeks ago
Default to Team Patterns
When you’re tired, we fall back on what we know best, what works, what is solid, what has never failed us. These are our patterns of delivery, the tried and true, the never fail. They are the work that we can do in our sleep, that we can close our eyes and let our hands move over the keyboard, succinctly with minimal effort. Patterns are what we invest our time and energy in creating, and what become the backbone of what we do. Team Patterns are much harder to create; they require knowing each other’s strengths and weaknesses, who to …
Too Many Tabs
The problem with tabs in browsers is that you can leave things alive forever, occupying your thoughts, taking over your brain, always prodding you with work you have yet to complete. It is a reminder of things not finished, always staring you in the face. And who needs that? You know you didn’t finish it. You know you still have work to do. Maybe it’s not your choice, but it is what it is. If you aren’t working on it, save them, group them, do whatever, and close them off. If you need it, you’ll come back to it. Too …
3 weeks ago
The Easy Metric
Tokens were our gateway to playing games. Now they are the measure of our work and efficiency. They don’t have to be, they shouldn’t be, but right now, many companies are looking at token consumption as a successful metric for adoption. Why? Because it’s easy, it’s one thing, easy to count, easy to add, easy to subtract, and it gives you a nice number. The easy metrics have always been eschewed by leaders because they only measure what is easy, and not what is right. Accountability. Value. Responsibility. Leadership. Commitment. These are the values that we have always wanted in …