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The Latest from Our Team
Agile Is Not A Silver Bullet, Part 1
Hopefully this headline got your attention. I considered trying to come up with a hashtag like #NoTDD or #NoEstimates that seem to be popular these days. I opted for a (hopefully) catchy title instead. The purpose of this post is not to bash agile methods or to somehow suggest that we should not be following…
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DPL Reading List – November 3, 2017
Here are some of the articles we’ve been reading around this office this week. The 10 Statistical Techniques Data Scientists Need to Master – “With technologies like Machine Learning becoming ever-more common place, and emerging fields like Deep Learning gaining significant traction amongst researchers and engineers — and the companies that hire them — Data Scientists continue to ride…
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What We Mean When We Say “Software Engineer”
It’s very easy to throw terms around in our (or any) industry. In our hurried culture, we latch onto words or phrases that may not fully encapsulate their original intent. I’m afraid that is what has happened to the label of “software engineer”. And it has not been without consequences. I believe the real, working…
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A Website Without Servers – Using Azure Functions: Part 6, Some Basic Plumbing
If you haven’t been following along in this series, we are building an “Engineer Fashion App” using Azure Functions. I recommend looking back at Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 to see what we’ve done so far. At this point, we have an Angular site and we have a backend that can communicate with…
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DPL Reading List – October 27, 2017
Here are some of the articles we’ve been reading around this office this week. AI and the rise of the emotional economy – “As AI agents (whether software applications or physical robots) take on more of our non-emotional tasks, we will begin to value more the things that remain dominated by humans. The emergence of…
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A Website Without Servers – Using Azure Functions: Part 5, Pulling Wardrobe Data
Previously on Using Azure Functions, we set up a very simple Angular website. This week, we are going to set up an Azure Function that pulls some wardrobe data from an Azure Cosmos database. Why not just build the wardrobe into the app? Well I’m hoping to update the wardrobe by season, so having to…
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Validating Multiple Fields in ASP.NET MVC
ASP.NET MVC has the ability to validate forms with minimal effort thanks to the attributes in `System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations` (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/mvc/overview/older-versions-1/models-data/validation-with-the-data-annotation-validators-cs#using-the-data-annotation-validator-attributes). You can simply slap an attribute such as `Required` on a property and get nice validation messages. But what if you want to validate multiple fields on a model? There are a couple ways you can solve…
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From Educator to Software Engineer, Part 3: Learning on the Job and Looking Toward the Future
Make sure to check out Part 1 and Part 2 of the series if you haven’t done so yet. I am a 30-year-old developer finishing my first year as a software engineer. I didn’t get where I am by any traditional means, but I’ve learned some things along the way that might encourage someone to…
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DPL Reading List – October 20, 2017
Here are some of the articles we’ve been reading around this office this week. Why Product Thinking is the next big thing in UX Design – “Thinking in products makes sure designers build the right features for the right people and tackle real problems people have. It empowers to make the right decisions and is…
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The Quest for Network Security at Home
Since I started in IT consulting years ago, I’ve always had an interest in network security. It’s amazing how in the last 15 years the nature of threats has radically changed (from simple viruses, to malware, to phishing, to ransomware, and even mass device compromises to create botnets for coordinated Denial of Service or other…
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