If you only read one thing2024 Stackoverflow Developer Survey (10 minute read) Many many gold nuggets, hurray for âMost developers code outside of work as a hobby (68%)â and minor ones âSix years later, PostgreSQL is used by 49% of developers and is the most popular database for the second year in a rowâ Take a coffee, sit back, read about what developers think. Also surprisingly to me as a German, the second-highest number of respondents after the US is from Germany, wouldnât have thought. https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2024/
Stories Iâve enjoyed this weekUpwork Study Finds Employee Workloads Rising Despite Increased C-Suite Investment in Artificial Intelligence (6 minute read) Last time Iâve linked to a Forbes article, which had a paywall and - as some of youâve said - was thin on details. In general, I sort paywalls out, and also try to sort out satisfied websites that want to force you into subscribing or signing up. Sometimes I keep a link, but in general be assured I donât like paywalls. Here is the link to the source of that article. [Video] Destroying Lego Towers (23 minute read) If you want to understand agile, this is the video for you. You want to achieve something, donât know in the beginning how the solution looks and then iterate over your solution until it works. Not iterating with month-long roadmaps is not agile. Watch the video! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HY6q9hwYcoc&t=295s Cringey, But True: How Uber Tests Payments In Production (25 minute read) âMost engineers even cringe at the idea of testing in production.â I did! So many nuggets in this article, fresh ones like âUber has outgrown the idea that defects can be completely solved at staging.â But the article is about rolling out services to new regions - where every region is different (uses different payment methods in this case) - and you donât know in which way it is different. Good article about something that is important for many CTOs but which is rarely talked about. https://news.alvaroduran.com/p/cringey-but-true-how-uber-tests-payments How we do trunk-based development (and why you should too) (33 minute read) Sometimes clients ask me how to develop software. And I say, âTrunk development and feature flagsâ. No feature branches. Why? No more merging, less bugs, decouple release from feature availability. HOW? This article gives some practical advice on how to make it happen. https://posthog.com/product-engineers/trunk-based-development Ship / Show / Ask (11 minute read) Another one related to trunk development. How to do PRs and code reviews? Martin Fowler says, mostly donât! Ship, Show, Ask! https://martinfowler.com/articles/ship-show-ask.html Costliest Coding Error (: minute read) I once was responsible for a coding error of several thousands of Euro, and once I took a large website down. This one mis-bought stocks for $10B - billion. One of the characteristics of coding is how much power you wield. My first job was well paid, putting lab assistants out of their job by writing code to control machines. The downsides, you can create a lot of damage - and this bug is not even killing people like other bugs in airplanes. Sometimes as coders, we forget the power we wield. https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-costliest-coding-error-anyone-has-ever-made What makes documentation good (28 minute read) According to the article:
and then goes into more detail. My take: Writing documentation is not a checkbox activity ([x] Documentation), it has a why. Start with the why, why are you writing that documentation or make developers write it? Then keep the reader in mind, documentation is for the reader not the writer. https://cookbook.openai.com/articles/what_makes_documentation_good Hiring women, rather than just talking about it, works. That doesnât mean all men are on board, it turns out (25 minute read) Nice experiment âIn 2019 it decided to open all academic job vacancies exclusively to women. If, after half a year, no suitable female applicant was found, men could apply.â Sure the article lacks any logic, like âItâs fascinating that centuries of systematic exclusion of women from universities has never led to any male eyebrow raisingâ which makes todayâs men responsible for men behaviour some centuries ago, or âIn five years, the percentage of newly hired female academic staff grew from 30% to 50%â, duh, when you only open positions to women. But I do think we need to experiment and come up with new approaches as the most important thing are more role models. Too radical? I suggest you make your HR department responsible to find at least one woman (X) for each open engineering role, before they send you other CVs. Not as radical, but works. Things do get better though, when I studied computer science 30 years ago, there were 2% women enrolled at my university in computer science. AI Replacing Software Engineers? Not Likely Anytime Soon. (6 minute read) I disagree, the end is near. The article has some good points though, on what currently works and what doesnât work. https://brettdidonato.substack.com/p/ai-replacing-software-engineers-not A New Type of Neural Network Is More Interpretable (35 minute read) I personally think, while everyone wants more interpretable neural networks, this is wishful thinking. With billions of parameters, itâs not clear whatâs going on in neural networks. Perhaps in the future we will arrive at a state, whereby asking some questions, like I ask a human, I can assume other answers. But currently I think current efforts are just compliance theater. https://spectrum.ieee.org/kan-neural-network GitHub copilot lessons (11 minute read) Another experience article on AI and coding. âCopilot is very useful to scan existing code for any errors or missed edge cases.â Reflects my experience, error handling and edge cases are much better from AI than from your average (or even senior) developer. Article has nice screencasts with Copilot working on code. Iâm mostly astonished by AI auto-complete in Goland. Most often after writing two lines, it can correctly complete the line or even some lines of code. It does speed up my coding on Inkmi - something I appreciate a lot as a solo entrepreneur. https://medium.com/sids-tech-cafe/github-copilot-lessons-7afc1f5130a6 The introverts are winning (11 minute read) Perhaps relevant as so many developers are introverts, and why they wonât come back to work. A kind of manifesto and battle cry of an extrovert author, who sees the world go back to the home, after centuries of extroverts drive for the world to go outside. Interesting perspective. I do think VR will take over eventually, see Asimovâs âThe Naked Sunâ. https://newhumanist.org.uk/articles/6306/the-introverts-are-winning Will Figma become an awkward middle ground? (33 minute read) âDesigners who can code spend more time sketching and less time in Figma.â Huh? Many other great points on the edge and gap between design and coding. A zone I was always interested in, a zone where development interacts strongly with other professions or ideas. Back in the days, in the 80s, there was no gap, everyone did everything. âIf it were faster to code something than draw it in Figma, no one would use Figma. Itâs a speed trade off.â And of course, as the article notes, AI will change that boundary. https://www.dive.club/ideas/will-figma-become-an-awkward-middle-ground How to Fine-Tune Llama 3 for Customer Service (42 minute read) Everyone talks about AI. But really practical, how can you use it beside Copilot and ChatGPT? A fine (pun intended!) grained description of fine tuning an AI model for some purpose. Start here! https://symbl.ai/developers/blog/how-to-fine-tune-llama-3-for-customer-service/ Join the CTO newsletter! | |
