kersplort
@kersplort@programming.dev
- Comment on How do you balance rapid iteration and merging/upgrading? 1 year ago:
Get good at the three point turn.
- Add the new code path/behavior. Release.
- Mark the old code path or behavior as deprecated. Release.
- In between here, clean up any dependencies or give your users time to clean up.
- Remove the old code path or behavior. Release.
This is a stable way to make changes on any system that has a dependency on another platform, repository, or system. It’s good practice for anything on the web, as users may have logged in or long running sessions, and it works for systems that call each other and get released on different cadences.
- Comment on How do you get your team to write tests? 1 year ago:
We use a little bit of property testing to test invariants with fuzzed data. Mutation testing seems like a neat inverse.
- Comment on How do you get your team to write tests? 1 year ago:
I think the best thing to do with TDD is pair with or convince devs to try it for a feature. Coming at things test first can be novel and interesting, and it does train you to test and use tests better. Once people have tried it, I think it broadens your use of tests pretty well.
However, TDD can be a bit of a cult, and most smart and independent people (like people willing to work at a <20 person company) will notice that TDD isn’t the silver bullet it’s proponents make it out to be.
- Comment on What is the best file format for configuration file? 1 year ago:
YAML works better with git than JSON, but so much config work is copy and pasting and YAML is horrible at that.
Having something where changing one line doesn’t turn into changing three lines, but you could also copy it off a website would be great.
- Comment on What is the best file format for configuration file? 1 year ago:
JSON5 is a superset of JSON that supports comments.
- Comment on What is the best file format for configuration file? 1 year ago:
XML to transform XML to import into more XML? Can’t we just have a config file that isn’t setting up some big tie in?
- Comment on What is the best file format for configuration file? 1 year ago:
I don’t know if it’s actual json5, but eslint and some other libraries use extended, commentable json in their config files.
- Comment on What is the best file format for configuration file? 1 year ago:
XML would be great if it wasn’t for the extended XML universe of namespaces and imports.
- Comment on How do you get your team to write tests? 1 year ago:
I’ve had some luck at using AI to get over the hump of the first “does this component work” test - it’s easy to detect stuff that needs to be mocked and put in stub mocks using GPT. GPT is horrible at writing good tests, but often it’s harder to write that first one than the meaningful tests.
- Submitted 1 year ago to experienced_devs@programming.dev | 17 comments
- Comment on Switching teams failed - how to continue working with current team? 1 year ago:
His manager at least had the decency to warn him ahead of time about the PIP. Still - it seems mostly about forcing him out of his remote position.
- Comment on how do you spend your learning budget your company provides you with? 1 year ago:
Cloud, and really any vendor specific stuff, is tough to keep up with both in terms of learning and creating training materials. You’re better off getting it straight from amazon, google or other practitioners. See if you can find some smaller conferences in your area, and if you can spend training budget on that.
Obviously $200 isn’t much, but coursera might be a better bang for your buck than some other systems. Learning core skills will help you level up, while a lot of Udemy and similar content will just keep you on the same track you would have been on.
- Submitted 1 year ago to experienced_devs@programming.dev | 11 comments
- Submitted 1 year ago to meta@programming.dev | 3 comments
- Comment on Trying to get release and testing in sync 1 year ago:
All of these things are less serious problems if things move faster. QA review of the master branch is the only thing you’re doing that has to be long running and synchronous.
For your acknowledged problems:
- This is huge, and should be a focus for you.
- This isn’t actually a big deal. Outside of fixing bad prod deploys, reversion causes more problems than it solves. If you get the devs out of QA, the need for this will decrease.
- If you freeze the code on tuesday and release on thursday, that sounds like a schedule!
It sounds like the QA department is overwhelmed. You need more test automation in order get the turnaround for regression testing down. Many end to end test tools have recording functions - a senior QA or engineer in test could quickly get simple but brittle automation in place.
Devs need to understand that QA stopping the line is a last resort, not a personal safety net. More unit and integration testing will keep more of the work on the devs until it actually is ready.
What does your source control and CICD situation look like?
- Comment on The Case for Developer Experience 1 year ago:
The overview is good, and the outline is good, but ultimately the problem is that the returns on big investments in DX are only really seen for companies at absolutely massive scale. There are far more companies that just burned through money getting a “nice” dev environment than there are companies that put a FTE or more into DX and saw worthwhile results.
- Comment on How do you manage your dotfiles? 1 year ago:
I still put them in gists, with no real tooling. I pull them in selectively when I get a new machine.