On the limits of TDD, and the limits of studies of TDD
Greg Wilson writes: This painstaking study is the latest in a long line to find that test-driven development (TDD) has little or no impact on development time or code quality….
Planning for the wrong kind of scale
Recently I wrote at length to my newsletter subscribers about some of the factors that went into my choice to move RubyTapas to a WordPress platform. Here’s a small excerpt…
Some quick thoughts on input validation
The Hanami project is looking at upgrading and/or replacing their input validation system. I had some thoughts on this topic, but I don’t want to excessively clutter up their thread…
A late-night rant about OOP and parametric dispatch
Update: this post was the product of an exhausted mind, and as such it misused terms, wasn’t well backed-up, and was generally incoherent. I’m withdrawing it until such time as…
Should we use a coding standard?
Hey Avdi, should we use a coding standard? Yes. Which standard should we use? I don’t think there’s one “right” coding standard. I think every project should select their own…
The Inescapable Pragmatism of Procedures
Dr. Ben Maughan writes: At the moment I am rewriting some LaTeX notes into org mode to use in lecture slides. This involves several repetitive tasks, like converting a section…
Contempt as a sign of organizational incompetence
A few months back I wrote on my personal journal about how incompetently-written firmware in a VTech child’s camera led to my 5 year old daughter losing cherished memories. I…
Are you smart enough to be a programmer?
I often talk to non-programmers who think I must have to be extraordinarily clever to be a software developer, and that they could never do it. In my experience, people…
It’s time to stop programming for the teletype era
This my 3-year-old daughter Ylva, trying to make one of our computers do what she wants. Don’t get me wrong: Ylva is perfectly adept at using computers. This one, however,…