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The power of "I don't know"

Imagine you have a colleague named Boris. And Boris has a problem: he's been working on a new feature for five days, but now it's all falling apart. The application starts up, runs for a few minutes, and then shuts down with some weird error message and a huge stack

Keeping meetings on track

A list of tips to help you keep meetings on track.

What to do if you're a bottleneck

Jackson is a go-to person when it comes to MongoDB. You have a problem – you go to Jackson.

[Video] A Practical Guide to Personal SLA

Personal SLAs: How to maintain balance at work (recording)

The Story About a Smart Boss

Some people are lucky to work with extremely smart bosses. Molly hit the jackpot.

When to Use Nested Functions

Functions inside other functions... Worth it?

Driving Changes: How to Deal with Pushbacks

Facing pushback while driving engineering initiatives: most common reasons, how to prevent and handle.

The Story about Algorithms in Interviews

Meet Jeremy: he doesn't like old-fashioned tech interviews, but what alternative does he choose?

How to use console.log to simplify refactoring

How a simple trick with console.log can help you with refactoring

The Story About the Boy Scout Rule

The Boy Scout rule (always leave the code in a better state than when you found it) is famous among developers, but does it have its pitfalls? Meet Simon and Andy, who have a lot to share.

New to the Project? Do Code Reviews!

Why all new developers should do code reviews, how to begin and get the most out of it

Reckless Reuse: How Modules Grow Big

Does your project have an enormous module called something-manager or something-controller that grew beyond any possible limits and became completely unmaintainable? How to prevent it from happening?

Not as Productive as Others?

Highly effective colleagues are invaluable for keeping oneself sharp. But what if it works the other way around and makes you lose heart?

Who Influences Your Working Pace?

Types of people we may unknowingly use as pacers to adjust own behaviour. If you know them, you can control this effect and even change how you affect others.

Pacers – driving force of teams

Introducing the concept of pacers – people who can impact the performance of teams and companies by just speeding up or slowing down.

Authors, Don't Drive Pair Code Reviews!

Although I'm not a big fan of reviewing code together with the person who wrote it, this approach has some benefits. Most importantly, it significantly shortens feedback loops which sometimes can last for hours and even days: This would be very easy to avoid if both the author and reviewer

Four streams of defects for prioritising bugfixes

How urgent is it to fix bugs? The question may sound ridiculous, but the answer isn't straightforward. Well, it depends on a bug, isn't it?

How to Choose Side Projects That Won't Burn You Out

Do you have side projects? If not, you probably should think about it – they can be helpful in the long term. But I'd suggest being mindful when you're starting one – otherwise, it can cause unpleasant and unnecessary headache, as it did for me many times. But how can we avoid

How Bob used implementation details in tests

Is it okay to use implementation details in tests? And if not, why so?

Yesterday's Weather – How to Make the Most of Estimation

"Yesterday's Weather" is a popular Agile technique that allows teams to predict future performance. If you estimate, you definitely should use it.

Silent Grouping for Estimation. Does It Work?

No, it doesn't. You should never use it.

How UI-driven State Increases Accidental Complexity

The data-layer of your application (database, Redux state, etc.) should not have any assumptions about the interface. When it does, it increases the risk of accidental complexity.

Four Types of Tricky Tasks and How to Estimate Them

Tasks that can be difficult to estimate – how to identify and deal with them.

Who Needs Estimation: The Story of Two Backpacks

I'm going to publish the list of notes about software estimation. This is the first one.

How to make a Personal SLA to find balance at work? (part 2)

The second part about Personal SLA

How to make a Personal SLA to find balance at work? (part 1)

How to find a sustainable balance at work and how to make sure that people around don’t build unrealistic expectations.

Why I Track Time

I've been tracking time for 4 years. Any benefits so far?

Three More Rules for Creative Work

A while ago I found a very inspiring article with 33 rules for artists [https://www.vulture.com/2018/11/jerry-saltz-how-to-be-an-artist.html] that actually is good not only for artists. If your work is related to creativity (even barely), you may find a lot of useful stuff here. The top

Tech.agnostic: Thursday Links #4

Run out of topics for bike-shedding? AHA Programming, Technical Debt and 17 ways to prioritise features.

Tech.agnostic: Thursday Links #3

Agile metrics, good error messages and a great long-read about rewriting applications

Tech.agnostic: Thursday links #2

About good and bad bosses + why engineers are engineers. No crocodiles today.

What Real Madrid can teach us about leadership

TL;DR for those who don't want to read the whole note: > If people think about you as a leader, you should be extra careful about what you say in public, regardless of whether you meant it or not, because: 1. Leaders' words, by definition, have a big impact on

Tech.agnostic: Thursday Links #1

Tips for tech talks, a training program for senior engineers, a podcast about design for developers + one more way to categorise applications