If you only read one thingUsing Metrics to Measure Individual Developer Performance (15 minute read) So many CTOs struggle with managing the performance of developers. They get pressure from the CEO to manage performance, often suggested to put out more features. If youāre desperate, then you do foolish things like counting lines of code. This article has many good points with which I wholeheartedly agree. It has some nuggets like āParticipation in architecture decisions, with consideration for the number of decisions with direct responsibility.ā MUST READ https://lauratacho.com/blog/using-metrics-to-measure-individual-developer-performance Picture of the week
From āThe Code Review Pyramidā https://www.morling.dev/blog/the-code-review-pyramid/
Stories Iāve enjoyed this weekThe Most Efficient and Environment Friendly Programming Languages (11 minute read) Oh, you think this does not concern you, how eco-friendly your programming language is. But this could be huge Some of my CTO coachees already get asked about the CO2 footprint, and calculate some AWS energy usage. If the CEO wants a lower footprint, she might pressure you into using a programming language. Think about the developer pushback if the CEO tells them to use Go instead of Python. https://stratoflow.com/efficient-and-environment-friendly-programming-languages/ Opening the codebase up to everyone (10 minute read) The core idea: Everyone in the company that wants to code can code. Get a GitHub account and code away, customer support, marketing, or the CEO. With proper code reviews in place, this enables enhancement and bug fixes that otherwise would not be done. Biggest impact: There is no developer silo, no king of the hill hierarchy, and everyone is part of a tech startup. Iāll try that one next time Iām CTO. https://ghiculescu.substack.com/p/opening-the-codebase-up-to-everyone How Ahrefs Saved US$400M in 3 Years by NOT Going to the Cloud (8 minute read) Yes, AWS is expensive. If you have the money, itās convenient. If you need to get an investment, hard to get one without being on AWS/GCP. But afterward, without AWS, your runway is much longer. When money got tight, some of my clients wished they would not have squandered money on AWS. https://tech.ahrefs.com/how-ahrefs-saved-us-400m-in-3-years-by-not-going-to-the-cloud-8939dd930af8 Kraken Technologies: How we organise our very large Python monolith (10 minute read) Some good tips. And often a monolith is faster, cheaper, and easier to develop for. https://blog.europython.eu/kraken-technologies-how-we-organize-our-very-large-pythonmonolith/ The One Method Iāve Used to Eliminate Bad Tech Hires (8 minute read) Let them write code. Here the candidate is paid money. I strongly encourage that for fairness, what I didnāt consider āSince the candidate is getting paid, the candidate treats it as a legit consulting session and therefore gives their best effort in solving the problem.ā +1 https://mattermark.com/the-one-method-ive-used-to-eliminate-bad-tech-hires/ Ten Years of āGo: The Good, the Bad, and the Mehā (16 minute read) I like Go. Itās so simple. I can read Go code after months. But there is the Bad and the Meh. https://blog.carlmjohnson.net/post/2023/ten-years-of-go-good-bad-meh/ Top 20 Must-Read Software Trends Reports for 2023 (6 minute read) Itās hard to predict the future. Even for CTOs. Very nice list to stay on top. https://www.ofbizian.com/2023/07/top-20-must-read-software-reports.html On Becoming a VP of Engineering, Part 1: The Path to VP (0 minute read) Becoming a CTO or a VPE is still a mystery to many. Part 2: https://www.honeycomb.io/blog/becoming-vp-of-engineering-pt2 https://www.honeycomb.io/blog/becoming-vp-of-engineering-pt1 Why software projects take longer than you think: a statistical model (15 minute read) So this is the reason why developers are always off? (Iād say donāt estimate, itās mostly not worth it, even for understanding the task, but what do I know). If you estimate - especially projects instead of Scrum Sprint tasks, keep this article printed out. https://www.honeycomb.io/blog/becoming-vp-of-engineering-pt2 Tax preparers that shared private data with Meta, Google could be fined billions (6 minute read) I wonder what data you are putting into Google Tag Manager and Facebook Pixels. And I wonder if this hits the fan, as CTO, you get out by saying, āWe just did as we were told by marketing.ā And if this works, why does it work? Is this our ethics? A professional CTO should stand their ground and do not do unethical things. Like the guys at Enron. š¤ AIWixās new tool can create entire websites from prompts (6 minute read) Sooner than thought. https://techcrunch.com/2023/07/17/wixs-new-tool-can-create-entire-websites-from-prompts/ Bardās latest update: more features, languages and countries (17 minute read) I need to look into Bard. You too? https://blog.google/products/bard/google-bard-new-features-update-july-2023/ Your Personal 10x Analyst: Everything You Need to Know About ChatGPT Code Interpreter (8 minute read) Did you know about āChatGPT Code Interpreterā? āA version of ChatGPT that knows how to write and execute Python code and can work with file uploadsā Wish it would do Go, but this is a start. Try it! https://www.datadrivenvc.io/p/your-personal-10x-analyst-everything Join the CTO newsletter! | |
