Jason Gorman

Software developer, trainer and mentor at Codemanship. Now run your tests.

Business: https://www.codemanship.co.uk
GitHub: https://www.github.com/jasongorman
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jasongorman
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasongorman/

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Last Notes

2024-07-17 14:06:56

I call this one "Extreme Programmers on a picnic watching Agile burn"
https://media.mastodon.cloud/media_attachments/files/112/802/214/984/629/310/original/70fde72b2ae08517.png

2024-07-04 08:36:07

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If Farage wins a seat, things will get worse.

2024-06-30 09:27:46

Hi folks. Looking for some rough stats on the prevelance of BUXDUF ("Big UX Design Up-Front"). For the purposes of this poll, take "up-front" to mean before programming starts, and "iteratively" to mean ongoing throughout development. And "the team" can include a UX expert who's a full-time member of the team, whereas "UX designer" means UXD is done by someone (not necessarily a UX expert) without much input from the team.

2024-06-14 07:05:08

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When I see teams using standard folder structures in projects that currently only have one file in them, I'm reminded of people who buy shelves and then feel they need to buy knick-knacks to put on those shelves.

2024-06-14 06:52:05

No, I can't show you the Separation Of Concerns .NET project template.
There is no Separation Of Concerns .NET project template.

2024-06-11 20:23:52

I've interacted with mainstream news media a few times. On every single occasion, they already had a narrative prepared and I was just there to service it.
Be warned, if they ask you for an interview, they've already written the story.
In that sense, they're a lot like job interviews.

2024-06-10 21:31:18

Thinking ahead's always been a good idea, but, like weather forecasts, the details get fuzzier the further out we look.
We solve the problem in front of us, but always with one eye on the horizon.
That's one of the things that makes software development so hard.

2024-06-09 16:23:48

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I think next week's "Rookie Mistakes" video is going to be about listening to some dude on the Internet.
And, yes, I am aware of the irony in that.

2024-06-09 16:22:09

Watching "How Senior Programmers ACTUALLY Write Code". Testing isn't mentioned once. Design patterns and documentation, on the other hand...
1.2 million views. I despair.

2024-06-09 06:33:07

6 Ideas That Transformed The Way I Make Software
--------------------------------------------------------
Day #7 - There Is No "Done"
After jotting down 6 of the most helpful ideas that have made a big difference to the way I approach software development, I thought it might be time to talk about some of the most harmful ideas that still, sadly, pervade our industry.
(thread)
https://media.mastodon.cloud/media_attachments/files/112/585/260/896/572/491/original/51855fbe142290b3.png

2024-06-05 09:19:48

Ah yes. Documentation. By far the most effective way of keeping secrets in a development team.

2024-05-28 23:28:47

If you genuinely believe people get worse at software development the older they get, you're a self-fulfilling prophecy.

2024-04-14 05:37:59

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If you want to know what that looks like, just ask Cisco
https://media.mastodon.cloud/media_attachments/files/112/267/954/138/586/450/original/b6df9d5d3132863b.png

2024-04-14 05:33:31

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The thing is, the 100x-revenue valuations of Nvidia, OpenAI etc (which is losing money hand over fist) are built on the anticipated exponential advancements in the technology and therefore in the market for it. If that's not coming any time soon, there'll be a *big* reset in market caps.
And the rest of us will have to go back to addressing real business problems.

2024-04-14 05:14:32

I called it a year ago - it's an S-curve.
If I were an investor in a proprietary LLM, I'd be looking to offload those shares soon.
https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/evidence-that-llms-are-reaching-a

2024-04-10 09:29:43

With layoffs and hiring freezes and so many employers not even considering entry-level hires, I'm sadly seeing rapid growth in business models that prey on people hoping to get into the industry.
This reminds me of what happened to the music industry when record sales collapsed. I still get emails from companies selling pay-per-play (payola), band/artist promotion services, training for artists on marketing etc, and occasionally labels asking *me* for $$$$ to release my music.

2024-04-08 07:45:21

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In a lot of businesses, the only people who've put that much thought into how a process works are the programmers who automated it.
And it's not uncommon for them to discover that the process *doesn't* actually work and have to fix it to make it automation-ready.

2024-04-08 07:42:34

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This is a common situation. Many very experienced business people don't really know how their business works. One of the outputs of hiring software developers to automate business processes is to actually describe them in cold, hard logic - typically for the first time.

2024-04-08 07:40:35

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I'm recalling meetings my team had with senior managers at a well-known broadcaster to try to understand international distribution rights. The more they explained it, the less clear it got, until it finally dawned on us that *they* don't understand it.

2024-04-08 07:06:05

"It's not realistic to expect junior developers to understand the business".
Or is what you're observing actually down to your inability to explain your business, not their inability to understand it?

2024-04-04 14:36:26

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And then there's the point where the "You're just some old guy" tech bro shows up, of course.
Welcome to software development, where breadth and depth of experience works in reverse.

2024-04-04 13:23:48

There comes a point in any discussion about software development when the "But I don't mistakes" guy shows up

2024-04-04 08:45:19

Developer "productivity" can look very different when you factor in downstream work. Will those minutes you saved today cost hours in the future?

2024-03-29 07:05:45

If you're not hiring and/or training software developers because you're thinking "We're not going to need them soon", I'm afraid you've been duped by executives, investors and pundits inflating a bubble.
Sure, some of those execs, investors and pundits duped themselves first. But I suspect some of the ringleaders know exactly what they're doing.

2024-03-28 08:35:10

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Here's the rub: if we don't take an active interest in what our users want or need, someone else will. And we'll end up calling that person "boss".

2024-03-28 08:10:22

Scrolling through my LinkedIn feed - which is 95%+ software folks - I see no mentions at all of end users, their needs or their goals.
And maybe this tends to reinforce the layperson's stereotype of us as a profession.
Users: "We keep losing orders because the system doesn't show up-to-date stock"
Devs: "Tabs or spaces?! Dark theme!!! Kubernetes!!!!!"

2024-03-25 07:44:43

It's so easy to get bogged down in the details of code that we can lose sight of the bigger picture. But when it comes to delivering real value, stepping back and seeing our work in a wider context is a superpower.
https://youtu.be/X8mrs7pmxkg

2024-03-24 09:46:29

At the end of my Rookie Mistake video on Test-Driven Development ("You keep using those words"), I mentioned in passing that I might want to revisit the tests I used as stepping stones to a design and reevaluate them as potential regression tests going forward. In this follow-up video, I demonstrate how I might do that with the tests I wrote in that TDD video.
https://youtu.be/Vba98WPU1GM

2024-03-23 06:46:29

I think an apt fate for the tech companies laying off tens of thousands of developers and refusing to hire at entry level - simply to appease shareholders - is to find themselves competing in a landscape a few years from now where the best and brightest of those have formed their own competing businesses.

2024-03-22 10:19:48

"Our automated tests are slowing us down. We need to ditch them!"
Technically speaking, the mass of the engines in a passenger jet is slowing it down.
In case you were wondering why I'm not so sure ditching your tests is such a good idea. Maybe keep the tests and focus on making them lighter?

2024-03-19 10:12:02

The problem with Test-Driven Development is that you have to think about what you want the code to do before you write it. And that ruins the surprise.

2024-03-06 08:30:51

If you interview 1,000 software developers at random (which is probably about the number I have), you discover that maybe 100 of them are competent, and maybe 10 are actually great.
The 100 who are competent tend to know they're not great, and the 10 who are great often believe they're one of the 100, and the remaining 900 often believe they're one of the 10.
Anyway, that's LinkedIn explained.