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Tag: Software Engineering (Page 2 of 2)

rewrite vs refactor

The software rewrite vs refactor debate: 8 things you need to know

March 26, 2018 / / 3 Comments

So, if you’re reading this it means you’re involved in a software project that’s a steaming mess and you want to explore your options. Don’t be embarrassed. This is a safe place; we’ve all googled “rewrite vs refactor” at some point.

The problem is that our profession is long on opinions and short on evidence for what to do with troubled projects. And the opinions we have are all over the map. So, it’s hard to know what you should believe.

In this post, I’m going simplify things for you and help you navigate the rewrite vs refactor debate.

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Books I read in 2017

December 25, 2017 / / 0 Comments

In this post, I’m going to share some of the books I read this year. In the nonfiction realm, some of them are very much on point for software developers. Others are just good books that let you know what’s going on in the world.

In fiction, I’m drawn to technology-driven Sci-Fi. I found some great reads this year. I also listed some books at the bottom of this post that weren’t that good. I think it’s just as important to tell you about the good books as the not so good books.

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Worthless software: risks and prevention

November 13, 2017 / / 3 Comments

We (software developers) write astounding amounts of worthless software. I find it hard to fathom just how much junk we are producing. As someone who spends a fair bit deal of time thinking and writing about how to be a 10x programmer and effectiveness, I believe we have lots of room for improvement here. In this post, I’m going to examine the problem of worthless software and what you can do about it.

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How to make time to repay your technical debt

November 6, 2017 / / 0 Comments

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of articles about how to pay down your technical debt and most of them miss step one. They don’t tell you how to make the time to repay your technical debt. It’s unlikely that you’ll be able to convince management to let you stop working on features and bug fixes to repay your technical debt for long enough to truly make a difference. And since it’s always hard to quantify the impact of repaying technical debt, it rarely gets to the top of anyone’s backlog. Well, I’m going show you how to get around this problem.

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Technical debt: we need better communication, not better metaphors

October 30, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Technical debt as a metaphor is not serving our profession well. It was meant to help us talk to business people and make better decisions about our software projects. But it has largely been a failure. Part of the problem is that business people aren’t afraid of future interest payments.

In business school, I learned about the power of leverage: what it is, how to get it, how to measure it, and how to manage it. Debt is a tool. My fellow business school grads are comfortable with leverage and debt. So when the programmers come to the business people complaining about technical debt, the business people are unconcerned. And why would they be? The metaphor is misleading; technical debt is only superficially similar to financial debt.

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Is Uncle Bob serious?

October 9, 2017 / / 9 Comments

Robert C. Martin (Uncle Bob) has been banging on the “software professionalism” drum for years and I’ve been nodding my head every with every beat. As a profession, I believe software developers need to up their game big time. However, I’ve become concerned about Uncle Bob’s approach. I reached my breaking point the other day when I read his blog post titled Tools are not the Answer.

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