Leaving Amazon
Steps for leaving Amazon S3 for S3-compatible Backblaze B2
The Cranky Developer on Crater Moon Development
Recent content in The Cranky Developer on Crater Moon Development
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Go Defer Tricks
Effective use of the defer statement in the Go programming language.
Writing as a Programmer
For programmers, writing is an essential skill to build shared understanding.
Deep Into Technical Debt
Technical debt is anything done today knowing it will make code harder to change later
Fred Brooks
Frederick P.Brooks Jr., April 19, 1931 – November 17, 2022
Functions on the Heap
The history of object-oriented programming started with a simple buf very technical and low-level idea.
XPiphany
I thought XP was chaos. Turns out, I was both right and wrong
Unit Testing Randomness
Testing a (pseudo)random number generator
Elegy for a Profession
A song of the discarded
Is Coding Style Important?
Have a style, any style
Why Refactoring Isn't Popular
Refactoring is cleaning the kitchen while you cook.
Test-Defective
If you have automated tests, believe them or discard them.
On Check Constraints and Whole Value
A business object with setters for attributes that are interdependent, will need check constraints on the setters. But there is a better way, using the Whole Value pattern.
Documentation has a Cost and a Value
The cost of documentation is proportional to change frequency and distance from the code
Build vs. Buy, Part 5
Buy for parity, build for advantage
Build vs. Buy, Part 4
Customization and programmability of commerical and bespoke software
Build Vs. Buy, Part 3
Polist and quality comparisons in vendor vs in-house software
Build Vs. Buy, Part 2.
Upgrades and feature creep in commercial software
Build vs. Buy -- Responding to All-or-Nothing Approaches
Technology, cost, and quality in deciding build vs buy
Continuous Integration, Misapplied
Putting together an continuous-integration-style automated build and deploy halfway through the project is exponentially more effort than starting off with one. At some point in the project, it may even be that the effort outweighs the gain.
Unit Tests Manage Complexity
Unit testing is more than a design tool, not just a practice that enhances quality, it is a tool for managing complexity.
Coding Pet Peeves
Eight little things I like to nitpick about in code. Mostly applicable to Java, but some are language-neutral.
Defect Reporting
Guidelines for defect reporting
Reporting Is A Code Smell
Six reasons reporting is a code smell
Firefox Burning
Building Firefox to learn how large software is developed and shipped.
Cem Kaner at PNSQC 2003
My notes and impressions from a talk Cem Kaner gave at the 2003 Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference in Portland, Oregon. The title of his talk was “How Many Lightbulbs Does It Take To Change A Tester?”
Code Janitor
Programming is 80% maintenance