Web Development | 8th Light

Sargable Queries & MUL Indexes; or Why My Query is Slow

You're on Ops. Debugging Error-s in Invoicing Rails app, as usual. They're stored in MySQL, and accessed through ActiveRecord and some helper methods. They've already...more.

Life after Moment.js

As of September 2020, Moment.js—probably the most popular JavaScript library for handling dates—became a legacy project in maintenance mode. As the Moment team explained: It...more.

A Color Coded Guide to Ports and Adapters

Ports and Adapters is an architecture pattern that aims to decouple your application from the details. By details here, I mean things like: Your web framework...more.

Continuous compliance on AWS

A looming deadline. A long list of requirements handed off to the team without their input. No room for flexibility. Just one shot to get...more.

SQL, JSON, and Domain Objects

SQL databases are amazing. They give you tools to create extremely powerful guarantees about the integrity of your data, evolve that data over time, and...more.

Dependency Injection in React

Dependency injection is a form of inversion of control. This means that a component’s dependencies are not part of a component’s internals, they are defined...more.

A Case Study in Vim Script 101: Making a Test Runner

Tony Distinti
05 Jan 2021
Tools
Testing

"Hello there, what's this?" you ask. It's a case study in how one might use Vim script, a programming language built in to Vim. We'll...more.

A maintainable, scalable front-end

If you're like me, you have a love-hate relationship with styling. Probably because along with HTML, these languages seem to force you to enact poor...more.

How E. Coli Taught Me To Work Smarter

In my previous post, I talked a little bit about how, if I can't think of a good solution from the onset, I sometimes start...more.

On Anxiety, Uncertainty, and Flow

I have encountered this graph twice in my time at 8th Light: once during my onboarding at the beginning of my apprenticeship, and again when...more.

ExState: Database-backed statecharts for Elixir and Ecto

On a recent project, working with Elixir, Ecto, and Phoenix, we were encountering difficulty modeling and managing a complex business workflow. This is a fairly...more.

From Web Dev to Android

Dave Torre
07 Apr 2020
Coding
Android
React

Most of my software experience has been in developing web applications that use various front-end frameworks. By now I've come to expect these frameworks to...more.

The Iowa Caucus App and the Challenge of 'Going Live'

Deploying an application is hard. Deploying an application that has only one real chance at success, coinciding with a live event that can’t be repeated,...more.

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.

Functional lessons learnt

I still remember the time I spiked my first application in a functional language—it was Autumn 2018, I had come to 8th Light to start...more.

OAuth2 and OpenID Connect Essentials for Web Developers (Part 2)

This is the second part of a series about OAuth2 and OpenID Connect. Read Part 1 here. In the first part of this series, we...more.

What is Software Architecture?

I'm sure at some point you've had to draw some boxes and arrows to describe the high level view of how a system works. But...more.

OAuth2 and OpenID Connect Essentials for Web Developers (Part 1)

Isn't it great to be able to sign in to one application (Trello, for example) using your credentials and user profile that are stored somewhere...more.

Handling Blocking Threads in Java

Thread Basics Let's start from the beginning—what is a thread? A thread stores the information necessary for your computer to execute some part of your...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.

Some Common Gotchas in Python

As a new Python programmer, I ran into three common language gotchas: passing variables by reference, unbound local errors, and mutable default arguments. Hopefully this...more.

X Marks the Spot (Part 3): A Strong Fit

This is part three (of three) in a series about ReasonML and typed functional programming. You can see the full series here. A Strong Fit...more.

X Marks the Spot (Part 2): ReasonReact

This is part two (of three) in a series about ReasonML and typed functional programming. Once posted, you can see the full series here. ReasonReact...more.

X Marks the Spot (Part 1): ReasonML

This is part one (of three) in a series about ReasonML and typed functional programming. Once posted, you can see the full series here. Introduction...more.

Types of Types in Elm

I've recently been working on a project in Elm, and it has been a blast. I have already learned a lot from studying the language...more.

Functional Exceptions In Java

Since the release of version 8, Java has been taking great strides to facilitate writing expressive and functional code. Unfortunately, these strides are often tripped...more.

A New Approach to State Management with the React Context API

In a previous post, I wrote about dependency inversion using render props. If you don’t know about the render props pattern, I would recommend checking...more.

What to Look for at RubyConf 2018: Jeremy Hanna and Molly Struve Previewed Their Talks at 8th Light

RubyConf 2018 kicks off today in downtown Los Angeles. Since 2001, RubyConf has gathered the global Ruby community to discuss emerging trends and share insights....more.

Jack of all trades, Master of One

Jack of all trades, master of none The above is a well-known saying that people tend to use when referring to polymaths or generalists. It's...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.

Microservices Aren’t Magic: Handling Timeouts

Microservices are a big deal. They can give us some pretty big wins for our architectures and teams, but microservices have plenty of costs too....more.

Dependency Inversion in React with Render Props

I remember the day when I “discovered” dependency injection. I was having a difficult time testing a console view, and all of my mocking strategies...more.

Exploring Error Handling Patterns in Go

When you're learning another language, there can be periods of frustration where you're having trouble expressing an idea that would have been easier in a...more.

The Hypermedia Maturity Model

This is part three in a series about hypermedia and REST. You don't need to read the previous post to follow this one, but if...more.

Decoupling the Client and Server with Hypermedia

This is part two in a series about hypermedia and REST. You don't need to read the previous post to follow this one, but if...more.

Duration vs. Concurrency in AWS Lambda

[Updated 2018-04-16] I was corrected on Twitter about how Event (async) invocation throttling behaves, and have updated this post accordingly in several places marked like...more.

Basic Web App Architecture 101

Okay, so you want to build a web app. Let's use a very basic web application for instance. The user story is this: The user...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.

Making a Static Website with Jekyll and S3

If you need to make a marketing website for your business, aside from the branding and design aspect, your main concerns are probably: Will the...more.

Refactoring React

One of my favorite front-end tools these days is React, and those who've talked with me about front-end work know I'm vocal about it. I...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.

Scope And Closures In Javascript

To understand closures and their use in JavaScript, it is essential to understand that closures rely on the scope mechanism. So, before we jump into...more.

How to set up a React project without flipping tables

When I first started learning React, I went through the “Intro to React” tutorial by Facebook, which you can conveniently follow on Codepen. It all...more.

Two Design Patterns You're Probably Already Using

I came into this field from a very non-technical background. And when I say very non-technical, I mean that I was an elementary fine arts...more.

Using an Elixir Umbrella

Elixir Applications In Elixir, an application is a component implementing some specific functionality. It is a unit that can be run independently, thus started and...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.

Comparing Common LISP and Clojure: Cons Cells

Sarah Sunday
24 Jan 2017
Coding
Clojure

The existence (or lack thereof) of cons cells in Clojure might be one of the first things LISPers notice when switching to Clojure. It was...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.

Assimilating with Clojure

Functional Programming nowadays is seen as kind of sexy by some sects of programmers and developers. Object Oriented Programming has for so long been a...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.

Clojure is boring

Colin Jones
06 Oct 2016
Coding
Clojure

You've probably heard the sales pitch for Clojure before. It's simple! It's scalable! It turns you into a genius who can machine-learn their way out...more.

TDD in ClojureScript

I recently started a ClojureScript project, for fun not pay, which might surprise those who know me well. You see, when I had used ClojureScript...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.

An intro to progressive web apps

There’s been a lot of excitement in our industry recently about progressive web apps, these shiny new websites that can transform themselves into native-like mobile...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.

Docker as a (workstation) service

Kofi Gumbs
27 Jul 2016
Coding
Java

Docker promotes itself as "a tool for developers and sysadmins to build, ship, and run distributed applications," and there is much literature available to describe...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.

How learning a static language helped me improve my design.

When learning something new, I need to see a lot of details around the subject. I crave something explicit and tangible — and naturally, concrete...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.

Hey Let's Learn About JavaScript Promises

Do you write JavaScript? If you do, you probably do a lot of asynchronous stuff. Here’s the thing about asynchronous stuff: typically we use callbacks,...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.

What Is Assumed When Deferring Database Decisions?

I first heard about the idea of deferring database decisions from Bob Martin, who pioneered the concept while working on FitNesse and has expanded on...more.

Don't Make Me Remember Things

Rob Looby
28 Jan 2016
Coding
Ruby
Java
Clojure

As a developer there are an infinite number of things to remember: everything from intricacies of the language you’re using to the domain knowledge of...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.

Concurrency Control Strategies for Secret Agents

In the 1963 movie "Dr. No," the first in the James Bond series, Bond travels to Jamaica for a case, and he knows that his...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.

Los Angeles Mastery Cohort Code Katas

Micah Martin Tom Kowal Tony Baik Zach Olauson Javier Saldana Jayden Sung Dave Moore
12 Jun 2015
Coding
Community
Craftsmanship
Clojure

8th Light's software craftsmen are bonded together by their singular pursuit of mastery. We challenge ourselves constantly to learn and grow through a combination of...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.

Handling Exceptions with Middleware in Clojure

Mike Knepper
19 May 2015
Coding
Clojure

My team was recently tasked with developing a few HTTP endpoints in our Clojure service to be used by a separate UI. The requirements included...more.

Reid Draper on property-based testing and test.check

Late last year, Reid Draper came to 8th Light University to give a keynote presentation on property-based testing in Clojure. Reid is a software developer...more.

Decomposing Asynchronous Workers in Ruby

I'm a proponent of building small, composable pieces over one large piece that does many things. The large piece usually works well, but it eliminates...more.

Using The Option Type Effectively

Uku Täht
29 Apr 2015
Coding
Java

In a previous blog post, craftsman Dave Torre showed how optional types can alleviate common problems with null values. Bulding on that post, we are...more.

Tail Recursion In Clojure

The ability of lisp programs to manipulate themselves is beautiful. When we take into account the amount of the language that is implemeneted by manipulating...more.

The Option Type

Dave Torre
11 Mar 2015
Coding
Java

I've been writing some Rust recently and have finally had my first experiences with the Option type, a data type that wraps either some value...more.

Functional-ish Ruby, Part 2: Functional Objects

In a previous blog post I discussed a few ways to think about writing Ruby methods from a functional perspective. But in Ruby, or any...more.

Loose Coupling in Go lang

Go lang offers a wide range of features that help us achieve loosely coupled program designs. Coupling refers to the direct knowledge that an element...more.

A one-day visit at 8th Light

In early October, Markus Gärtner visited 8th Light's Chicago office to give a presentation on "Testing With A Stranger" for an 8th Light University event....more.

Organizing Your Clojure Environment and Logs with Leiningen

Coming from a Rails environment, one of the things I took for granted was a nice logging setup in which all logs were written to...more.

Mistaking Encapsulation for Abstraction

"Abstract" is a commonly used word in software. I hear it a few times every day. "Can we make an abstraction around this?" "Let's move...more.

Flaky crusts: Good for pies; bad for test suites

Unit tests that fail intermittently, without exposing any production bugs, are the worst. Like the boy who cried wolf, they reduce our confidence that they're...more.

Clojure Stack Traces for the Uninitiated

Clojure is one of my favorite languages, and I love pairing with beginners to share the joy. Learning any new language is a process of...more.

Apprentice Blog of the Week: Did Java Break My `byte`?

Dave Torre
10 Sep 2014
Coding
Java

In Java, we use InputStream objects to read data. The smallest amount of data we can read at once is eight bits (one byte), using...more.

Functional-ish Ruby

In a recent Apprentice Blog of the Week, Alex Hill detailed one way that we can apply common Ruby patterns to our Clojure code. I’ve...more.

BEM Basics

The concept of CSS methodologies was pretty foreign to me for the first two years I spent building websites. During those early years, I approached...more.

ClojureScript Faux Pas: Forgetting the Extern

Taryn Sauer
31 Jul 2014
Coding
Clojure

When immersing yourself in a new programming language, as in a new culture, it’s important to take time to understand the nuances of its common...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.

Take Pride in Your Legacy (Code)

A developer joining a project, unless the project is starting a completely new application, will be working with dreaded “legacy code.” The process of becoming...more.

Apprentice Blog of the Week: Useful Clojure Macros For The Object Oriented Programmer

Alex Hill
10 Jul 2014
Coding
Clojure

One of the most difficult aspects of learning Clojure for most programmers who have been brought up in the object oriented tradition is the Lisp...more.

Pattern Language of Thieves

What do architects (designers of buildings), software developers, and thieves have in common? They each have a pattern language. I was watching “Ocean’s Twelve” recently...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.

Adding Namespaces To Ruby

A recurring practice of mine these days is to take a feature of a language and see if I can replicate its functionality or likeness...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.

Lispy Elixir

There has been some recent interest in the Elixir language and with good reason, it's an exciting language! Elixir not only brings the power of...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.

Modular JavaScript

JavaScript is a complicated language. One of the difficult areas is scope. We can think of scope as the world a particular line of code...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.

Conditionals Aren’t Evil, Unless You Duplicate Them

We Hate If Statements Many of us have been taught that, in OOP, most of a program’s “if” statements can be replaced by polymorphism. We...more.

Limelight Lives - Clojure Toolchain of Choice

I want to tell you about my Clojure toolchain of choice, but in order to do it right we need to go back; way back....more.

The Right Tests in the Wrong Order

For those new to Test Driven Development, understanding how to take small, incremental steps when writing your tests can be a confounding practice. Even the...more.

Strive for Simplicity

A few weeks ago I had an opportunity to pair with Uncle Bob. We were going to pair on a message queue convenience wrapper I...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.

Idempotent HTTP

Web developers have a habit of taking HTTP for granted because it just works. HTTP works so well that people all over the world exercise...more.

Performing Code Katas

Micah Martin
28 May 2013
Coding
Clojure

Coauthored by Kelly Steensma Wikipedia defines a kata as a detailed choreographed pattern of movement. Based on the Japanese word meaning "form", katas were originally...more.

Replace Temp with Query in Clojure

Colin Jones
21 May 2013
Coding
Clojure

Lately I've been re-reading some of the classic books in the clean code / OOP genre and trying to apply their lessons with renewed energy...more.

When is a character not a Character?

Colin Jones
11 Apr 2013
Coding
Java

Characters seem like an easy concept to grasp at first glance. , "Java"has a primitive type char and an object wrapper Character, and these are...more.

The Repository Pattern

A recurring theme on the 8th Light blog is decoupling your applications from the implementation of details. A detail can be anything from UI elements...more.

HTML5 Form Elements

In December of 2012 HTML5 gained Candidate Recommendation status by the W3C, and with it comes a large number of updates that browsers are officially...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.

Understanding Selectors In CSS

One of the more confusing and often overlooked parts of CSS are Selectors. By understanding descendant, child, and sibling selectors we can reduce the level...more.

Protect Yourself From SQL Injection

Don’t trust outside data! SQL injection attacks were once considered the greatest threat plaguing the Internet. They continue to be the source of many large...more.

CSS Typographic Flourishes

Quite often typography is one of most ignored aspects of website design. Poor typography can make your website feel bland or boring, and at worst...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.

Transformation Priority Premise Applied

Micah Martin
17 Nov 2012
Coding
Clojure

At SCNA 2012 I entered into a kata battle against Aaron Bedra. The idea was that we'd both perform the Coin Changer Kata live in...more.

Servers in Source Control

8th Light has accumulated a lot of servers, the cloud kind, over the years. Each one configured by the team that was building our internally...more.

The Experience Gap

A recent search on Career Builder, found that out of over 12,000 software development positions, only 120 of them were tagged ”entry level.“ With a...more.

Implementing and Testing the Singleton Pattern in Ruby

What is a Singleton Object? The GoF identifies a singleton as a way to "ensure a class only has one instance, and provide a global...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.

Getting more out of SASS

SASS (Syntactically Awesome Style Sheets) is a powerful extension to CSS that allows you to use variables, nested styles, mixins and more, but for someone...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.

Owning Your Dependencies

Dependencies are nearly unavoidable for non-trivial software projects. These can be large dependencies, such as web frameworks and databases, or smaller decisions, such as pagination...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.

Explicit Collections

Don't extract that method yet! In programming, we tend to work with collections of objects quite often. For example, we may need to check to...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.

Designing in the Browser: Web Inspector Prototyping

I'd like to tell you a little about one of my favorite tools; my browser's web inspector. I'm often asked what I like to use...more.

Thinking Differently About the Single Responsibility Principle

When the Single Responsibility Principle is taught among developers, one aspect - the responsibility - is harped on the most. But what counts as a...more.

The Many Ways In Which Past You Could Be Ruining The Future Internet

Hey! Younger Self! Yes, you— eating Cocoa Puffs and watching Dragonball Z in your pajamas! I am you from the future, and I am here...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.

On Obsession, Primitive and Otherwise

Colin Jones
05 Jun 2012
Coding
Clojure

Primitive Obsession is bad stuff. But it's bad, not because primitives are bad, but because obsession is bad. From Merriam-Webster: ob-ses-sion, noun: a persistent disturbing...more.

Be a Relentless Programmer

Before I came to 8th Light, I didn’t write code all the time. I took some CS classes in college and I enjoyed programming a...more.

Quoting Without Confusion

Colin Jones
22 May 2012
Coding
Clojure

Many Lisp beginners find quoting to be a foreign concept. My own confusions around quote and friends began with my first ventures into Scheme, and...more.

Deliberate Practice

“Education comes from within; you get it by struggle and effort and thought.” — Napoleon Hill We all know the feeling of flow while coding....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.

Learn a New Language

We're already a quarter into the year. Have you learned a new language yet? In Pragmatic Programmer, one of the 70 tips is to invest...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.

Expressive HTML

Do you consider yourself to be a software craftsman? Do you find yourself frequently writing html? Would you feel comfortable giving a talk on Expressive...more.

Confession of a Web Developer

I have a confession to make. For the first five years of my professional career, I was a .NET programmer. The first four of those...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.

A Tale of Two Forms (Part 3)

Last week, we took a closer look at some simple “under the hood” changes you can make to your forms to improve their usability and...more.

A Tale of Two Forms (Part 2)

Last week, I wrote a brief article that demonstrated how to build a form with well structured, semantic markup. In that article, I started with...more.

A Tale of Two Forms (Part 1)

A few weeks ago, my co-workers asked me to demonstrate how to convert a form built using HTML table elements into a more meaningful form...more.

Clojure Mad Science: An Evil Threading Macro Experiment?

Colin Jones
27 Mar 2011
Coding
Clojure

You are a mad scientist, and you’d like to perform an experiment on your mysterious test subjects. You want half of the subjects to be...more.

CSS Formatting Tips

“…there is a huge likelihood that the systems will evolve from lower to higher entropy, which is a rough statement of the second law of...more.

Design Resources for Aspiring Developers

In a web saturated with numerous opinion blogs, gallery showcases, tutorial sites and technical references, where should an aspiring web developer go to seek knowledge...more.

Rolemodel Recap Day 2

My second day at role model found me pairing with Tim Irwin. Tim described this project as being “all about the data.” It was my...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.

A Leiningen Tutorial

Colin Jones
26 Nov 2010
Coding
Clojure

Leiningen, a project by Phil Hagelberg , has become one of the most contributed to Clojure projects, and also one of the most used. UPDATE...more.

Relevance Craftsman Swap Day 4

Today was my last day at Relevance, pairing again with Stuart Sierra. Along with Alan Dipert, we arrived at a solution for our data woes...more.

Relevance Craftsman Swap Day 3

Day 3 at Relevance began, as the previous days, with the company standup. Stuart Sierra, of clojure.test and Practical Clojure fame, was my pair for...more.

Relevance Craftsman Swap Day 1

I’m honored, humbled and excited to represent 8th Light, Inc. on its most recent Craftsmanship Swap, with Relevance in Durham, North Carolina. I’d first heard...more.

Relevance Craftsman Swap Day 2

Today was my second at Relevance for our craftsmanship swap. Chris and I continued work on the project we began to work on yesterday. I...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.

JRuby Helps Us Craft Quality Software

“It's kind of a Frankenstein.” We’ve used this phrase more than a few times to describe the architecture and technology used to design a product...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.

Embedded Ruby—First Steps

I spent the beginning of my career working on embedded systems for some audio company. These embedded systems were my first love in programming and...more.

How Jim got started programming

I was looking for a new major after deciding chemistry (and lab work in particular) probably wasn't for me. So I decided to try 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.

Code Less: A Language Keystroke Experiment

Paul Pagel
08 Jun 2008
Coding
Ruby
Java

When I first started writing code in Ruby, it was a breath of fresh air after writing C# code for a year. Ruby had 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.

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.