Category: Software Engineering

When we ask someone to design something, we usually focus on the good. If you ask someone to build a notification service, it is expected to be a good one. But what about asking people to design a bad one? Asking participants to develop a poor design is what we do in our Software Design…

I like going back to take a fresh look at tools and technologies every once in a while. It is always interesting to see what has changed and what has stayed the same – especially mobile platforms because it feels like an area where there is a lot of room for improvement. I am very…

Application configuration has always been a pain. It was a pain back in the WinForm days. It was a pain in the ASPX days. It is a pain in the cloud days. Why is app configuration a pain? Quite frankly, it is because of the lack of a reliable and coherent solution. With no real…

Knowing that you are staying on task isn’t an easy task 🙂 As we build solutions, it is easy to lose conceptual integrity along the way. There are few things more important to the success of a project than having a development team all on the same page. Fred Brooks (from Mythical Man-Month) put a…

10. Good requirements Developers like to know what they are building and why. Good requirements are critical to this and are essential for getting developers started right. Also, good requirements are essential for reducing rework.   9. Not being micromanaged Good developers don’t want someone watching each keystroke. They want feedback and guidance, but they…

Developers are creators at heart. They like to create. A big part of the appeal of software development is the quick outputs from your work. You write code one day, and the next day it can be in a customer’s hands. How many other jobs have that quick of turnaround on effort? But many things…

Developers come and go throughout the life of a project, and they all tend to have their own personal coding nuances. With no style guide, no standardization, no rules, no linter, no style cop, etc., the codebase’s style – or lack-there-of – will inevitably become quite messy. Indeed, “messy” is in the eye of the…

Begin mini-rant… I am a huge fan of .NET. I have worked in .NET all the back in the v1.1 days. I enjoyed it then, and I enjoy it now. But I have a bone to pick with the .NET Core team. .NET Core is evolving faster than .NET Framework ever did. This fast-paced evolution…

I have often said that Visual Studio is Microsoft’s best product. But recently, they created Visual Studio Code, which ironically is giving “regular” Visual Studio a run for its money. While I still think VS is better in most ways, VS Code does have some advantages, particularly when it comes to JavaScript development. But now…

“Never give up, never surrender!” – Galaxy Quest Ironically, I think developers are quick to move to a “start over” mindset, especially when they’re working on legacy migrations. When it becomes difficult to arrive at a working solution, it is easy to assume that the whole endeavor is too difficult and that the team should…