Tools

Developments in Mobile 2FA and Security Keys

Colin Jones
17 Dec 2019
Tools

Two-factor authentication, or 2FA, provides extremely effective protection against account takeovers. But as SIM-swapping attacks have become more commonplace, more and more folks are starting...more.

Effective Slack alerts

"I think if you maintain a force in the world that comes into people's sleep, you are exercising a meaningful power." — Don DeLillo, Underworld...more.

Sharing Secrets with GPG

Aaron Lahey
23 Oct 2018
Coding
Tools

As software developers, we're often given access to various pieces of sensitive information in order to do our job. This could be anything from database...more.

What is VS Live (VS Code) and Why Should You Care?

Pair programming is two coders working together at one workstation on a single piece of code. Done well, the coders sit together and discuss the...more.

Turning Up The Good On REST APIs

This is part one in a series about hypermedia and REST. If you like this and want to read more, check out the full series....more.

Project Build Protocol

The Problem Working in many different languages across multiple projects means it's often a pain to remember how to build all the different components. How...more.

Everybody OOMs

We've all run our applications out of memory from time to time. In development and testing, an OutOfMemory error, or OOM, is fine. We catch...more.

Pristine Jenkins

What do you get when you combine a whale and a butler? A CI server that's a lot easier to manage. It's something that I...more.

A few DTrace gotchas and workarounds on OS X

Colin Jones
02 Feb 2017
Coding
Tools
Ruby

I've run into lots of folks who have heard about the cool stuff DTrace can do, but for one reason or another have run into...more.

Optimizing your Workflow with Vim

When I first started working in Vim, reading Bram Moolenaar's Seven Habits of Effective Text Editing was very helpful. In it, he outlines three fundamental...more.

Docker Compose: Wait for Dependencies

If you have ever used Docker Compose to run multi-container applications, there is a good chance that you have run into the following situation. Service...more.

A Good Craftsman Never Blames His Tools

The old adage states that a good craftsman never blames his tools, but what if he knows there is a better tool out there for...more.

Automating Your DevOps Infrastructure: Starting from Scratch with Ansible

You've heard of it, but you haven't done it. You know it's where you want to be, but it's not where you are. You know...more.

RubyMine Remote Debugging via Vagrant

Malcolm Newsome
03 Aug 2016
Tools
Ruby

I mostly work with developers who prefer Vim or Emacs as their editor of choice. This is certainly understandable, because each of those editors provides...more.

The Relationship Between Clojure Functions, Symbols, Vars, and Namespaces

Welcome! Often times when working with Clojure newcomers I sense a bit of confusion around the relationship between functions, symbols, vars, and namespaces. Typically the...more.

Speed up your tests with an in-memory filesystem

You've probably heard about what a unit test is. In fact, you may have even written one or two in your lifetime. Great! If you've...more.

Running tests in Vim

Chris Jordan
13 Jun 2016
Testing
Ruby
Tools

Being able to run your unit tests quickly from Vim is vital when doing test-driven development. I've often seen developers using Vim to write code,...more.

How flexbox alleviates some common front end development pains

Flexbox is a CSS module that efficiently lays out items inside a container. It makes sure that spacing and alignment are always consistent and that...more.

Go Build Your Own Tools

In building professions, as well as software development, there is the saying “don't blame your tools.” During a recent project, my pair and I were...more.

Ask DTrace: Why are my tests so slow?

We were in pain. We'd just joined a new Rails project, and the test suite took over 10 minutes to run. I've seen worse, but...more.

DTrace: [even better than] strace for OS X

Colin Jones
06 Nov 2015
Tools

strace is awesome [1] [2] [3]. It lets you see exactly what system calls are being made by your running application. Wondering what configuration files...more.

Retract with the old, add with the new

How Datomic made me reconsider data Recently I’ve been working on a client project whose data paradigm has opened my eyes to a new way...more.

Git Disciplined

Makis Otman
08 Jul 2015
Coding
Tools

In our day to day work, one of the most common tools we as developers use is Git. In a nutshell, Git is a tool...more.

Debug like a doctor

Connor Mendenhall
04 Jun 2015
Tools

"Programming today is all about doing science on the parts you have to work with." — Gerald Sussman Designing and maintaining good software is an...more.

Apprentice Blog of the Week: SSH Over the Internet!

One of my hobbies is Linux. My home server is a Raspberry Pi running Debian. It currently hosts a local gitlist instance over Nginx and...more.

Diving Into Swift With Swiftest

Brian Pratt
14 Jul 2014
Coding
Tools

When working in a language that’s new to you, it’s important to spend a lot of extra time making sure you are using the correct...more.

Leaky Libraries: How To Assess The Risk Of Dependencies

Ben Voss
26 May 2014
Tools
Architecture

A library is a package of code. Usually a library is small. It is focused on solving a single problem. A library is created when...more.

What Good are Strong Parameters?

Will Warner
05 Apr 2014
Coding
Tools

There are already several eloquent web postings available explaining the Strong Parameters feature of Rails 4. In this post I’ll provide my take on one...more.

Combining Clojure and ClojureScript Libraries

ClojureScript is an incredible new project that any Clojurian can appreciate. What could be better than replacing vexing JavaScript with the clean, flowing syntax of...more.

Nested Contexts are Only Kind of Evil

Brian Pratt
17 Dec 2013
Coding
Tools

If there's anything where opinions amongst my development colleagues differ heavily, it's about the evil of context blocks inside a spec suite. Proponents of nesting...more.

Check Your Work

Unit test frameworks automated the tedious work of verifying bits and pieces of code by hand, replacing a haphazard process of trial, error, and judiciously...more.

Ruby DeRailed: Fast Tests

I use TDD as my development workflow. Red, green, refactor. It creates a quick feedback cycle, allows me to build momentum, and gives me confidence...more.

Synchronization in a Distributed System

Rylan Dirksen
04 Oct 2013
Tools

Most of us use distributed systems on a daily basis, and for good reason; the stability, fault tolerance and scalability they offer give us the...more.

Using Katas To Improve

Chong Kim
26 Sep 2013
Coding
Testing
Tools

Some Background Thoughts There is an experiment from Richard Held and Alan Hein who raised kittens in total darkness. For a short period during the...more.

A Case Against Cucumber

Kevin Liddle
18 Sep 2013
Testing
Tools
Ruby

Cucumber has been a popular tool in Ruby’s TDD community for a while now. It offers a way to write tests in a way that...more.

For Want of a Static Language

Dariusz Pasciak
26 Jun 2013
Tools

For want of a static language the type checker was lost. For want of a type checker the variable type was lost. For want of...more.

Investing In Our Tools

As developers our workspaces are important to us. As software craftspeople, our tools are part of who we are. How many times do we settle...more.

Riak, MapReduce, and large numbers

Myles Megyesi
18 Jan 2013
Coding
Tools

The Riak database provides a great MapReduce framework allowing you to execute complex queries, leveraging the parallel processing power of distibuted systems. However, I recently...more.

How to use rails routing constraints: 2 use cases with code

Ben Voss
12 Jan 2013
Coding
Tools
Ruby

I’ve been using routing constraints a lot lately. Before I learned about constraints, my controllers were littered with data typing checks and filters, some of...more.

Don't Fail at Failure in Ruby

Brian Pratt
21 Dec 2012
Coding
Tools
Ruby

Silent failures are difficult to debug -- not only is the error not noisy and obvious, but it can introduce other errors downstream that may...more.

Reflections on Using Backbone.js

Cymen Vig
13 Dec 2012
Coding
Tools

JavaScript frameworks like Backbone.js can provide the structure missing in ad hoc approaches but there are some common pitfalls. Like many developers today my first...more.

Data Validation in Clojure

Myles Megyesi
16 Oct 2012
Tools
Clojure

When writing my first Clojure application, I came across a very common problem, validating user input. Even though there are a few libraries out there...more.

Mind Your Git Manners

Kevin Liddle
27 Sep 2012
Tools

If you've read The Clean Coder, you probably know that writing clean code is one of the marks of a professional developer. However a true...more.

Welcome To The Gilded Rose (in Clojure)

There's a special sort of satisfication I get from turning absolutely awful code into a well-tested, well-factored program. Not only have I increased the amount...more.

The Sheep And Their Feet

One day the king approached a shepherd. He asked, "how many sheep do you have?" Counting the sheep would have presented a problem, as they...more.

The Community Guide to Monads

Michael Baker
11 Aug 2012
Tools

Monads are ... .stanza { font-size: 1.1em; text-align: center; } Boxes full of fruit And a fruit to fruit transformer That takes apples from the...more.

Test Driven Assembly

Michael Baker
07 Jun 2012
Testing
Tools

I tend to be a skeptical person. When I encounter a new idea, I often start on the offense. I try to force the new...more.

Polymorphism in Clojure

“polymorphism is a programming language feature that allows values of different data types to be handled using a uniform interface” -Wikipedia In most Object Oriented...more.

Things You Should Know About JavaScript

Steve Kim
06 Feb 2012
Tools
Coding

I know some people cringe at the idea of writing JavaScript. They opt to write CoffeeScript instead and make every attempt to avoid looking at...more.

8 Things You Ought to Know If You Do Not Know Anything About Hiring A Software Developer

“The one absolutely solid place to store your capital today — if you know how to do it – is in software developers’ wallets.” ...is...more.

Hello iOS Development

Eric Meyer
19 Dec 2011
Tools
iOS

When first getting started with iOS development, there were very little resources to get up and started. And with the strict NDA Apple had over...more.

Avoiding Common Errors in Your Jasmine Test Suite

Mike Jansen
13 Nov 2011
Tools
Testing

Working with Javascript can be, at best, a mildly frustrating experience. As I've started to work more with Jasmine and Backbone.js, I've added some simple...more.

Appreciative Inquiry Retrospectives

Doug Bradbury
19 Sep 2011
Tools

I recently sat through a software development team retrospective. The facilitator began the retro by taking the “temperature” of the room. He asked us to...more.

Post-Agile: Standing on the shoulders of giants

This February 13th will mark a decade since the creation and signing of the original Agile Manifesto. The lean development thought leaders who came together...more.

Clojure Libs and Namespaces: require, use, import, and ns

Whenever I’m showing a newcomer to Clojure how to bring in code from other namespaces, I find myself apologizing that it’s a bit complex and...more.

Agile Manifesto Chinese Translation

At Agile 2010, I shared an airport shuttle bus with Henrik Kniberg and César Idrovo Carrillo, the organizers of the manifesto translation project. They told...more.

MMEmail: My First Clojure Open Source Contribution

While working on website for my sister, I was perturbed that there were no libraries on Clojars for sending email. I was using Leiningen which...more.

Limelight 0.5.0 Released

Micah Martin
19 Oct 2009
Tools

Today we released a new and exciting version of Limelight. Just a reminder, Limelight is a user-interface framework for Ruby. Included in this release are...more.

Up and running with TDD on Android

A couple of weeks ago, I happened to be in the right place at the right time (the first ORD Session) when Google hooked a...more.

That's Not Agile! Bibliography

Doug Bradbury
07 Aug 2008
Tools

Mondo Cane. 1962. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSZXe5NjqAw McConnell, Steve. Cargo Cult Software Engineering. IEEE Software. March/April 2000. http://www.stevemcconnell.com/ieeesoftware/eic10.htm Frye, Colleen. Alistair Cockburn on what’s agile, what’s not. 2007....more.

That's not Agile, Live

Doug Bradbury
26 Jul 2008
Tools
Ruby

About a year ago, I wrote That’s not Agile. The idea has grown a bit since then and I will be presenting it as a...more.

Announcing Limelight

Micah Martin
02 Jun 2008
Tools
Ruby

I’m pleased to announce the open source Limelight project: A thin client and application framework written in Ruby (JRuby). Check it out at https://github.com/slagyr/limelight. https://github.com/slagyr/limelight...more.

Rinda and setting up Rindlets

Paul Pagel
16 Apr 2008
Coding
Tools

Jim Suchy recently laid down some basics of Rinda in his blog Rinda 101. I would like to build on that and talk a little...more.

Rinda 101

Jim Suchy
11 Feb 2008
Coding
Tools
Ruby

When building a software system composed of multiple decoupled components, the need typically arises for interprocess coordination and communication. As an example, say that we...more.

That's Not Agile!

I’m a big fan of agile. I’ve long been convinced that the agile movement truly is uncovering ways to do software better. It’s revolutionizing the...more.

Apples and Tigers

Micah Martin
17 Nov 2004
Tools

Tiger Tech Talk, Chicago. This was a free, one day, conference held by Apple. The intent was to give developers a preview of the new...more.

Tools

Interested in 8th Light's services? Let's talk.