Question Mark

Questions are an essential part of any development process. Developing software is a continual process. We are always writing the next piece of software. New tasks are kind of like the mail for mailmen, the mail just keeps coming. The tasks just keep coming. It is very easy to get heads down and stop asking…

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The Art of Data Contract Design

At Don’t Panic Labs, we care a lot about building software that can survive the test of time. We don’t care to build software that has to be thrown away after a couple of years. That focus on building sustainable software allows us to help deliver on “enabling sustainable business agility.” The basic principle from…

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Protecting Master Branches with Policies in Visual Studio Online

At Don’t Panic Labs, we love tools that help us ensure we are writing quality code and following our development patterns and practices. We are using Visual Studio Online for many of our current projects and we have found some very useful features for protecting the master branches. Requiring pull requests for a branch On…

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Don't Panic Labs - Funability in software development teams

Funability, Part 5: A Layered Approach to Quality

Note: This post was co-authored by Chad Michel. The rest of this 5-part series can be found here: Part 1 – What and Why Part 2 – Leverage Your Leadership Roles Part 3 – Maximizing Productivity Part 4 – Processes Can Be Fun   We’ve now come to the last post in our series on…

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Don't Panic Labs - Funability in software development teams

Funability, Part 4: Processes Can Be Fun

Note: This post was co-authored by Chad Michel. The rest of this 5-part series can be found here: Part 1 – What and Why Part 2 – Leverage Your Leadership Roles Part 3 – Maximizing Productivity Part 5 – A Layered Approach To Quality   In the fourth part of our series, we will be…

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SQL Aliasing – Why You Need It

Quick word on Aliasing. In the past few months I have come across a SQL issue that occurs in many different configurations, across various physical locations, and amongst several engineers. Since it was so prevalent I thought it might be helpful to talk about aliasing SQL instances. When you install a SQL instance, no matter…

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Don't Panic Labs - Funability in software development teams

Funability, Part 3 – Maximizing Productivity

Note: This post was co-authored by Chad Michel. The rest of this 5-part series can be found here: Part 1 – What and Why Part 2 – Leverage Your Leadership Roles Part 4 – Processes Can Be Fun Part 5 – A Layered Approach To Quality In this third part of our series, we are…

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Managing Azure WebJobs with Base Classes

Azure AppService is my go-to when I want to create cloud-based applications. I have no desire to set up or administer a VM. Sometimes, though, you just need a service that quietly does its job in the background. That’s why I love WebJobs. However, I found myself in the situation where I needed a WebJob…

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Don't Panic Labs - Funability in software development teams

Funability, Part 2 – Leverage Your Leadership Roles

Note: This post was co-authored by Chad Michel. The rest of this 5-part series can be found here: Part 1 – What and Why Part 3 – Maximizing Productivity Part 4 – Processes Can Be Fun Part 5 – A Layered Approach To Quality   In our previous post we covered how we think software…

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Don't Panic Labs - Funability in software development teams

Funability, Part 1 – What and Why

Note: This post was co-authored by Chad Michel. The rest of this 5-part series can be found here: Part 2 – Leverage Your Leadership Roles Part 3 – Maximizing Productivity Part 4 – Processes Can Be Fun Part 5 – A Layered Approach To Quality   We’ve been in the software business for quite some time….

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