We Don’t Need That Documentation
“We must write more documentation”. Have you heard that? I have, many times in many companies. Most people feel guilty for not writing documentation and agree. I don’t. There areContinue reading
Not an Expert in All Levels of Abstraction
Programming is not just writing code – it is working with a huge pile of abstractions. Starting from zeroes and ones, through processor instructions, memory addresses, low-level network protocols, dataContinue reading
The Point of Knowledge
We read. We watch. We learn. We gain knowledge. What’s the point? The point of knowledge is to allow our imagination to make unexpected connections between more and more elements.Continue reading
Login Tokens In Email Links
Your system is probably sending some emails. Sometimes these emails contain links to the public part of the site, sometimes they have links to the authentication-protected part. Either way, ifContinue reading
Database Migrations And Java
There’s a trivial problem that every project has – keeping the database structure in sync with the application. That is, when your code relies on a new table or column,Continue reading
Why Not Emacs?
Every now and then a “hardcore” programmer comes and mocks you for using a “sissy” tool like Eclipse or IntelliJ. Real programmers use emacs and vim. If you are luckyContinue reading
What Is Challenging For Developers?
In a previous post of mine I asked the question: do programmers get bored? And yes, sometimes they do, especially if there are no challenges. And the usual software projectContinue reading
Not All Optimization Is Premature
The other day the reddit community discarded my advice for switching from text-based to binary serialization formats. It was labeled “premature optimization”. I’ll zoom out of the particular case, andContinue reading
Generating Music
Recently I’ve undertaken a personal project (computoser) that is a bit strange. I tried to write software that generates music at random. Good music, that is, because “random” usually generatesContinue reading
Don’t Use JSON And XML As Internal Transfer Formats
You have a system that has multiple components and they have to communicate. They do that either via internal web services or using a message queue. Normally, you would wantContinue reading