Disclaimer: this was not sponsored by any of the software products mentioned, it merely reflects my experiences and honest opinions. So many tabs. In one sits my Google Calendar - with a series of random reminders. Another tab for Trello boards - attempting to organize several project’s tasks into the classic to-do, in progress, and done lists. Then there are the Google Sheets for tracking progress against fitness, financial, and learning goals. Adding insult to injury are the to-d...

“But how on earth will we test it?” This was my question to Sophia. She told me to “just use the marbles.” “I can’t, I think I’ve lost my marbles writing this code. I’m already programming with pure functions. Why can’t I just assert the actual output equals what’s expected?” Sophia was offended: “Because that’s not how programming with asynchronous streams of events works!” “You mean that’s not how programming with Observables works.” “You’re just not embracing the right mental...

If it’s a good idea and it gets you excited, try it, and if it bursts into flames, that’s going to be exciting too. People always ask, “What is your greatest failure?” I always have the same answer: We’re working on it right now, it’s gonna be awesome! — Jim Coudal Too many people attempt to improve an inefficient process by adding more process. The thinking goes that if we just shield ourselves from the fickle whims of our customers then somehow they will be happier with our work. Quali...

The frontend JavaScript ecosystem is full of magical tools. 🔮 There are a range of UI frameworks available from ones with built-in solutions for everything to lightweight libraries for building only what you need in a modular fashion. You have options for writing your view as a template language for interpolating HTML or syntactic sugar for plain JavaScript objects known as the virtual DOM. There are different philosophies for state management from using implicit/imperative Proxy objects to the...

Simple is a word with a long and sordid history. The meaning has gotten watered down over the years to the point where today simple is used as a generic inoffensive term of praise. Let’s take a quick tour through some of the common connotations for simple that are used and see how they would apply to software testing. easy This is one of the more commonly used definitions of simple, and likely one of the most dangerous as well. Rich Hickey (Clojure’s benevolent dictator for life) gave an entir...