Prioritization is Always Relative
When asking non-technical team members to prioritize their issues on an absolute scale I’ve noticed that they always classify their issues at one of the two highest priority levels. For
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Continuous Integration and Deployment for PHP Command Line Apps
A few weeks ago I wrote a post for Codeship outlining our method for building a PHP command line application with Docker. Today, the second part of this series was
Explore vs. Exploit as an Architectural Choice
We make "explore vs. exploit" decisions all the time in software engineering. For example, if you were asked to build a new web application would you use a framework you
On Computer Science Education
This is the fundamental disconnect between our hopes for teaching Computer Science and the reality of our education system: we can’t hire and retain good technology teachers until we compensate
My First Weekend with Hyper.sh
I've been doing a lot of searching for a simple Docker hosting experience lately. I'm pretty committed to Docker Compose for running containers locally and Codeship for my continuous integration,
Building a PHP Command Line App with Docker
At The Graide Network, we needed to automate a bunch of reminder emails and text messages being sent to our users. Every hour, we wanted to go into the database
3D Printing and the Future of Manufacturing
I wrote this post in 2012 for PostDesk. You can read the entire article on their archive. Imagine that you are preparing a dinner party, and you break one of
Setting up a Remote Development Environment with Google Chrome and DigitalOcean
I tried out this remote development setup for about 6 months back in late 2015, but it just ended up being too painful to use the remote IDE all the
Knowing Your Startup's Technical Maturity Level
As a startup developer I'm always trying to strike a balance between pragmatism and optimization. Since publishing this in October, 2015 I've continued to come back to this checklist as
Knowing When Your Business is Ready to Launch
I can't tell you how many conversations I've had with entrepreneurs who fit into the Founder A or Founder B boxes at this point, but it's probably in the dozens.
Continuous Integration on a Budget
Since I wrote this in September, 2015, continuous integration has become pretty much the standard for smaller, more nimble companies, and it's even making inroads at the enterprise level. The
Security Tips for Engineers at Early Stage Startups
Since publishing this post in August, 2015 I've become somewhat fanatical about getting my company's employees, my wife, and my family to use the internet securely. Data breaches are very
When Student Loans Go Bad, We’re All on the Hook
There’s not going to be a bailout for the next financial crisis because the federal government already owns the bad debt. 40% of federal student loans are given to parents
Know Your Competition When Hiring
Hiring software engineers hasn't gotten any easier or cheaper since I posted this in June, 2015. I've always been interested in the recruiting space, and I continue developing open source
Testing the Layers in a Microservice Architecture
We've gotten to make some huge improvements to the tech stack at The Graide Network over the past year, but one of the things I'm most proud of is our
Why I Gave Up Alcohol
I first wrote about this three years ago when I had just given up alcohol. At that time, it was part of a burgeoning asceticism. I had given up meat,
Creating a Tech Startup without a Developer: the Lean Way
Since writing this in 2015, I've only become more convinced that more startups need to start without a developer. Premature automation and optimization is a huge time suck, and developers
Five Takeaways from Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship
I first published this post in May, 2015, but Clean Code is timeless. If you're new to programming, read it because it's a great primer. If you're experienced in programming,
Roadblocks to Project Estimation
When I first published this in April, 2015, we were trying to obsessively estimate our projects at Packback. Looking back, this was premature. The truth is, we should have simply
Peopleware: All Technology Problems are Really People Problems
Two years ago I read Peopleware for the first time and wrote this blog post. That book was the most inspiring engineering leadership material I had read, and it's still