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Context 🔗 I've talked about the environmental impact of digital in previous blog posts . When the issue is intertwined and complex, there are some actions that will significantly reduce the impact, such as reducing manufacturing, especially of the terminals. When developing software, you can contribute to this reduction by avoiding technical obsolescence. This also applies to simple…
In my quest to learn sustainable IT, software engineering and design, I followed the MOOC 1 Environmental impacts of digital technologies co-produced by Inria (a renowned French research institute in computer science and applied mathematics) and Class'code association (a non-profit organization for the education of citizens in digital technologies). They issue a certification as an Open Badge…
Since I had a few more news and articles, I'm sharing them with you this week. Given the pace of publication on this topic, I don't think I'll be doing a newsletter every week. I'm leaning towards one every 2 or 3 weeks. Proposal of a new HTTP response header with CO2-eq 🔗 An IETF draft for a new HTTP response header with CO2-eq was submitted in early April. The amount of…
As you may know, I'm studying sustainable IT with a focus on development. I have found many interesting articles and news, and I think it would be a pity to keep them to myself. So I'm going to share some interesting publications (recent or not) on a regular basis. Tell me if you like it and what kind of topic you'd like to see more of. Rights to repair 🔗 In March, the Commission…
Right now I'm learning as much as I can about sustainable IT, software engineering and design. To that end, I took the online "Green Software Practitioner Training" from the Green Software Foundation (GSF), an American foundation initiated by Microsoft, Accenture, GitHub, ThoughtWorks, and the Linux Foundation in 2021 1 . You can get certified by the Linux Foundation ( LFC131 ) , which I got…
In my last blog post , we talked about the environmental impact of the digital world. That may sound obvious when you say it, but it's not. As a user or professional, you mainly see the use and its consequences. Because of its growth, the main narrative has been positive. Roughly speaking, it will save us. Honestly, I believed it. I bought it. I belong to generation X, I had the chance to…
This article was updated on April 28 2023. Please find the comment about this update after the article . When I started posting again, my plan was to do it every week or 2 weeks. Considering that the last one was published on February 16th, you could say I've failed. Indeed, but there's a reason: I fell into a rabbit hole, the study of the sustainability of AI. Along the way, I'm…
Today's article will be a short one. I want to share with you a recent discovery: Vega . In my last blog post , I needed to plot some data. I could use a spreadsheet or another web application and get a sleek visualization. But if I want to make a change, I have to go back to the tool, make the change, export the result, and so on. This is tedious, especially if you have tasted the power of…
When developing a piece of software, I had to weigh concerns beyond technical considerations or its quality. Often it is about its economics, i.e. investing in its development in order to reduce some cost: maintenance, operation, support, runtime, ... For example, you run Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) that requires one day of maintenance each month. You want to reduce that maintenance, why not get…
I won't be the first or the last to change and start something new. I won't be the first or - hopefully - the last to do so after understanding the challenges ahead (e.g. climate, resources, energy, biodiversity). Anyway, life could be seen as a bunch of new beginnings 🤷. Nothing new. What's new is what I'm going to do, what I'm going to offer, and what I'm going to…
I know, I know, I've been quiet. I haven't posted anything for a long time. My last post is from Aug 2016, the first post under the name "I bake software" . I also wrote one on the blog of PullReview to announce its end . I shared a little though, as I gave a few talks (TakeOff Conf 2016, MyData 2017, ConFoo Montreal 2017 & 2018, Paris.rb 2018, Kafka Summit SF 2019). As a few things have…
This is an archive of blog post I wrote during my third venture (PullReview). The first code of PullReview has been pushed in January 2013. We were 3, Martin, Stephan, and I. It was launched in October 2013. It slowly grew for about 2 years. Life being about choices and decisions, we split, Martin and Stephan taking different roads. I tried to actively run and grow PullReview alone. After one…
Recently, I was on the Ruby Burger chat rooms . We were discussing a video presenting a company as a great place to work as a software developer. It was full of caricatures such as "ninja". Yannick , a friend, was then saying the following: We are looking for farmer javascript devs looking for policeman Java devs I realize it resonates a lot with me more than "ninja" or "guru" or…
This is an archive of blog post I wrote during my third venture (PullReview). What would we do without all those magnificent Gems and Rubies? Thanks to the many developers that make them and open their source, we can develop great apps. Now is the time to give back. It's time to say thanks to their authors, to send them a pull request, to send them back 24 little gifts and join the 24 Pull…
This is an archive of blog post I wrote during my third venture (PullReview). It's been a while since the last PullReview news , so it's time to give you some updates. Over these past three months, we certainly haven’t been slacking and have brought in a bundle of features, for example: Share your reviews with your devmates Never miss the chance to cover a code modification with a test…
This is an archive of blog post I wrote during my third venture (PullReview). You're aware that duplication is a rampant disease : more code, more fragile, less maintainable, less readable. You even use one or another tool and make your code reviewed to find most of them. When facing some duplicate code, you're not always feeling comfortable to dry it up. You're not even sure…
This is an archive of blog post I wrote during my third venture (PullReview). PullReview recently gets a few new features: Badge Public Review for Public Repo BitBucket and GitLab and lots more: HipChat notification Performance of the home page Profile Heartbleed Support Contact Badge 🔗 Badges in README.md are a very common way to inform people about your project good health. PullReview now…
This is an archive of blog post I wrote during my third venture (PullReview). Strings are everywhere. You deal with String instances not only every day, but probably every minute. They came from files, databases, REST APIs, or you simply use them to print results. It's a pervasive representation, and Ruby provides plenty to ease its manipulation . But String comes with its own share of…
This is an archive of blog post I wrote during my third venture (PullReview). You develop a small contact manager for a client. Contact = Struct . new ( :name , :email ) One important feature is the possibility to define a list of contacts. granny = Contact . new (' granny ', ' granny@weatherwax.me ') bill = Contact . new (' bill ', ' bill@door.me ') At first, you started with an array, contacts =…
This is an archive of blog post I wrote during my third venture (PullReview). Everyday, you deal with Hashes. We use a lot of them everyday when coding PullReview , from Rails infamous params to the various data we get from the GitHub JSON API. Creating a new Hash or retrieving an element by its key, are common and simple to do. But when you need to merge 2 nested Hash es or filter some keys from…
This is an archive of blog post I wrote during my third venture (PullReview). Ruby and Ruby on Rails come with great reference documentation ( Ruby doc , Rails doc , or alternatives such as APIdock , or the recent omniref covering also all gems). But when you need to find how to check if one array has all elements of another, you won't find the answer in the doc because it's not use case…
This is an archive of blog post I wrote during my third venture (PullReview). You've just been hired by a company to work on an existing project. When discovering its code base, you realize the tests are very rare, even totally absent. You don't wait to discuss what you think a big lack with your boss. Unfortunately, you can't convince him whatever the argument you bring.and he digs…
This is an archive of blog post I wrote during my third venture (PullReview). You've just started to code your first Ruby on Rails application and you're wondering if there isn't a better editor than the one you're using. Maybe you're a beginner and you started with a simple text editor without syntax coloring, or you come from Java world and you use Eclipse, or…
This is an archive of blog post I wrote during my third venture (PullReview). First of all, dear reader, I wish you Happy Holidays! This blog post is about the last release of PullReview , that includes a few features before the end of the year: Same Actions are grouped for Code Smell, Complexity, Design, and Duplication Lower severity for issues detected in a test Tweet your progress New…
This is an archive of blog post I wrote during my third venture (PullReview). TL;DR 8th Color has been around for almost two years now, and our new tool, PullReview , brings us closer to our goal: helping developers develop themselves. PullReview is an Automated Code Review Tool for Ruby developers using GitHub, and it’s in full preparation. Introduction: The Road Traveled July 2013. 8th Color has…
This is an archive of blog post I wrote during my third venture (PullReview). TL;DR A complex object creation can clutter a controller. It's better to move it into a dedicated method of the corresponding model. Introduction 🔗 Cut your Weeds asap. As software grows, what was once good solution can grow to become a small nuisance - like inoffensive weeds at the side of your driveway. Leaving…
This is an archive of blog post I wrote during my third venture (PullReview). TL;DR After introducing what complexity is, how it can be measured, and how to monitor it in Ruby - I'll get to the difficult part: how to reduce it in Ruby . The post is concluded with some thoughts and recap. Intro 🔗 Even Vader does not know what are those buttons for. Developing a feature requires some attention…
This is an archive of blog post I wrote during my third venture (PullReview). When your code base is growing, it's very unlikely that you and your devmates won't create any duplication . There are multiple reasons, but in all cases it's an undesirable situation that you want to get rid off. After briefly recalling some of those reasons - discussing why you should fix it asap -…
This is an archive of blog post I wrote during my third venture (PullReview). Since the last time I've shared a set of tips and tricks about Git , I've learned new ones that I regularly use. Again, hope they could help you as they helped me. Enjoy! How to show the difference between two branches for a same file? 🔗 While you're coding into a <file> on a feature branch…
This is an archive of blog post I wrote during my third venture (PullReview). Twitter Bootstrap offers a great set of icons provided by Glyphicons that you can use easily in your pages. For instance, < i class =" icon-ok "></ i > If you don't like those icons, you can use Font Awesome instead of. But how can you use other icon sets or even your own icons in your Rails app with the same…
This is an archive of blog post I wrote during my third venture (PullReview). Flow - From my First Taste to Complete Addiction 🔗 When I was still in school, I quickly discovered the impact of my attention on my efficiency - not only in terms of time - in terms of quality also - double strike! The equation was simple: more focus equals less time spent working - equals more leisure time. This was…
This is an archive of blog post I wrote during my third venture (PullReview). TL;DR; 🔗 As a software developer, one of the main challenge I've met is to find good resources and feedback to keep my learning curve at a certain level: not steep enough to be frustrating, not low enough to be stalling. There are plenty of ways to do it, especially when it's the first time you learn a new…
This is an archive of blog post I wrote during my second venture (Sybil). As a new year begins, Martin and I have looked back at 2012 to share our lessons, our disappointments, our good points. That exercise helped us to underline what we didn't like, what we did, and what we learned. I can say 2012 was a great opportunity for us to explore, taste, and test. We were a little bit like children…
This is an archive of blog post I wrote during my second venture (Sybil). Learning Model? 🔗 In the field of education and learning, some models have been elaborated. One well known is the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition . It describes how students acquire skills through formal instruction and practicing. As we address the question of development skills with Sybil, it's for us an…
This is an archive of blog post I wrote during my second venture (Sybil). "And there came a day, a day unlike any other… when Earth’s mightiest heroes found themselves united against a common threat… to fight the foes no single superhero could withstand … on that day, The Avengers were born." As you probably know, we’re developing with Sybil a way to capture what makes a developer, at least from…
This is an archive of blog post I wrote during my second venture (Sybil). In a few months, you can learn a lot. 🔗 Last Thursday, I was invited to be a member of jury of the final of the startup boostcamp organized by the Brussels Microsoft Innovation Center . About seven months ago, we pitched in the previous session in March 2012. It was very interesting to pass the other side and listen to…
This is an archive of blog post I wrote during my second venture (Sybil). Today, I would like to share some tips and tricks I've learned about Git. There are cases I meet often, and they gave me a better understanding of Git. It's certainly not a deep coverage of the topic, but it could help you as it helped me. Enjoy! How to track an existing remote branch? 🔗 First of all, you can…
This is an archive of blog post I wrote during my second venture (Sybil). Tonight the Sybil team flies to Dublin 🔗 We're proud to have been selected amongst the world's top 100 startup finalists of the Spark of Genius competition at the Dublin Web Summit , when more than 1000 companies have applied to it. We'll pitch Sybil on stage 2 in the category Enterprise on Wednesday…
This is an archive of blog post I wrote during my second venture (Sybil). Why? 🔗 As a developer, I think it's important to attend some tech event for several reasons: to be in touch with the community, to meet other developers, to see again some acquaintances or friends, to learn something new from known tech leaders, to discuss and debate some technical topics. As a founder, in addition to…
This is an archive of blog post I wrote during my second venture (Sybil). Martin has recently shared with the MIC Brussels our experiences as founders of 8th color. They've just published it, go take a look .
This is an archive of blog post I wrote during my second venture (Sybil). Once upon a time 🔗 Last Wednesday, I visited one of our Pilot to run Sybil on another of their projects. The project is developed on another site, that means another environment, new deployment challenge. I won't dig into the technical issues I've met , but I'll rather share a personal experience and feeling.…
This is an archive of blog post I wrote during my second venture (Sybil). A few thoughts about user interface design 🔗 There is something very strange about design. People commonly think that it's a task reserved to a kind of persons mastering graphical art. It's like you cannot be a designer if you're not good at drawing . This is a common misconception. There are different kind…
This is an archive of blog post I wrote during my second venture (Sybil). A few months ago, we were invited by Gilbert West and Andrew Matheson in Tech Brew . Tech Brew shows to the world the Belgian tech startup scene through podcasts powered by Belgian Beers. A whole program. They are like our local Robert Scoble, but it's better: there are good Belgian beers . Honestly, if you're…
This is an archive of blog post I wrote during my second venture (Sybil). My path 🔗 I started to program aged 4 with Logo . I then learned Batch and BASIC at about 10, and built basic games and IRC bots . During my software engineering cursus, I followed several pure computer science courses , did programming and sysadmin works during internship and student jobs, and started some personal…
This is an archive of blog post I wrote during my second venture (Sybil). The task 🔗 Three months ago, another company interested in Sybil accepted to be a pilot. Very quickly, the question of installation came , and we had to plan it. First of all, we met with the company again in order to learn about their technical environment. We had even already tested some configurations in the application…
This is an archive of blog post I wrote during my second venture (Sybil). Building a new digital house 🔗 Developing a new software is like building a new house. You design an ideal plan in your head. The plan consists in realizing a purpose, where each part has its role to play. You even think about it in an aesthetic way. You see its inherent beauty because it fulfills its purpose in a genuine…
This is an archive of blog post I wrote during my second venture (Sybil). Last Wednesday, I've attended the Founder Institute Brussels Startup Pitch Bootcamp . The speakers were Filip Tack , a FI mentor, and Pieter Dubois , a former FI graduate. It was the occasion to look behind and observe how far I’ve come since my first pitch lesson in June 2011 (which was incidentally also at a FI…
This is an archive of blog post I wrote during my second venture (Sybil). As we told you 3 days ago, Martin has pitched at the InnoPitch Competition with 5 other finalists. We've got interesting questions and feedbacks from the judges, Matthias Ummenhofer (Head of Equity and Risk Finance, European Investment Fund), Anne Glover (Co-founder and CEO of Amadeus Capital Partners), and Carlos…
This is an archive of blog post I wrote during my second venture (Sybil). Summary 🔗 CSC Belgium provides IT services and custom software development. They make a point to tackle challenges and succeed thanks to the developers they employ. The management of their skills is then a part of their assets. Preliminary 🔗 We continue to schedule meetings with key people at companies developing software…
This is an archive of blog post I wrote during my second venture (Sybil). TL;DR When you face a problem, don't overthink. Just do it. During my PhD, I fell several times in a very annoying spirit, totally messing up my critical thinking and my creativity . I was unable to progress and go beyond the issues I then faced. My productivity dropped and the caused unproductivity just reinforced this…