Arkadiusz G.

"BAIT" I am writing this post exclusively with positive intentions and it is not my goal to offend anyone. Use case: BAIT A positive young programmer influencer presents his knowledge - which, among other things, represents one way of creating a network for fast and efficient job finding. It is also one of the ways to reach an employer. I appreciate and support such a way. He didn't do anything dishonorable. That young man writes a post in which he gives links to his articles and where he gets over 500 LIKES, and over 100 REPOSTS. AND then a well-known IT Leader APPEARS (on a young programmer post) with an ABSOLUTELY NEGATIVE ATTITUDE towards the hard work of a young programmer (comment starts with: "Seriously !" or "Are you serious?" or with negation) AND WITHOUT EXPLANATION OF HIS ATTITUDE. BUT THE CLAIMS OF THE FAMOUS IT LEDER don't matter at all. It's about BAIT - a pure marketing trick WITH ONLY ONE GOAL - that all 500 and more LIKES see him. For 4 years, I have been intensively looking for RELEVANT SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE and RELEVANT IT professionals. "BAIT" is a pure marketing pattern. What is absolutely wrong - is disrespecting the work of that young programmer. And, when that IT LEADER appears with his marketing pattern "BAIT" - it is usually liked by 7-20 people (the range is between 7-28) - NO MORE THAN THAT. In this post, I will not write about real RELEVANT IT Leaders - because that would not be fair to IT leaders who use the BAIT marketing pattern. Reacting to the BAIT marketing pattern should be absolutely ignored.

2

1 Comment

I'll be talking about building future-proof React applications on the 30th of May in Bucharest. Everyone needs to have a set of principles they follow so they don't have to think about every problem from scratch. I'll tell you how I've been building React applications for the last 8 years. What works. What doesn't. What to focus on to make sure you don't have to rewrite your application every year. Because programming is about solving problems. But engineering is about maintaining those solutions over time.

100

3 Comments

Over the years of managing talented developers at COXIT, I’ve seen firsthand how the proper workspace setup can significantly boost productivity and job satisfaction. Based on my personal experience and that of our developers, here are a few suggestions: My personal productivity boosters: - Quality keyboard and mouse: I use the Numphy Air V2 keyboard and Logitech MX Anywhere 3s mouse, and I couldn’t be more satisfied with them. - The right music choice: For me, it was Dubstep between 2011 and 2015, and since then, it has been a few Drum and Bass playlists. - Physical routine every few hours: Doing 20 push-ups and 20 squats makes the heart beat faster, stimulating the brain. - A 1-hour power nap: I try to split my day into two, so my productivity is revived after the first half-day sprint. Here are some more practices I try to maintain: - Keep physical and digital workspaces tidy (especially challenging when working from home). - Wear protective glasses and take regular breaks to look away from the screen every few hours. - Add greenery to both the office and personal workspaces. (This is something we've embraced at COXIT.) - Plan tasks ahead of time using sticky notes or handwritten reminders, a method I prefer. The goal is to create an environment that supports deep work, which is challenging considering the short attention spans many of us have these days. Explore other elements that might work for you—meditation, aromatherapy, power naps, or a standing desk—and incorporate them into your routine. Now, I’m curious about you. What’s your favorite working music or work equipment? How have you customized your environment to boost productivity?

18

3 Comments

Feedback I collected over the years from developers - colleagues, clients, and even myself some years ago - an overwhelming amount of meetings kills your team's productivity. Getting that focus back, once interrupted, can be really difficult for some. At the same time, you can't just fully cancel all meetings, forever, and let things go. So, a good balance I found that works really well for the team @ Metamindz UK; 1. Only one weekly planning session - per project - led by the PM / project lead - where all priorities are discussed, questions are answered, and all the technicalities are clarified. 2. Daily standups throughout the week - using ONLY Slack (Geekbot, specifically for that purpose). 3. Client-facing comms; Mostly relying on Loom, and Slack-based comms / emails. This means that project leads have literally 1 day of meetings per week, and only occasional 1-1s or pair-programming sessions to clarify things (and to avoid people being blocked, both internally and from the client's side). Call it agile, call it kanban, call it whatever you want; It works amazingly well, it's not over-bureaucratic, and very simple to follow. Meetings time is down by ~80%, while the team's happiness and efficiency went up as a result, so I can recommend this from experience 👍

15

5 Comments

We founded Signadot to simplify the lives of developers building cloud native software. Developers are asked to do a lot. First it was “you build it, you run it!” and now I hear a lot of “you build it, you test it!”. Developers need better tools that take care of the grunt work so they have time for creative work. Testing distributed cloud native applications is hard. If you are building such apps, ping me and I’m happy to have a discussion to see if we can help. #microservices #cloudnative #developerexperience

11

It is rather common in Finland to make a job ad with the header in English such as "Java developer" but the job description is only in Finnish. Why not write "Java-kehittäjä" then?

2

Software craftsmanship is just a good engineering. That's it. Sometimes people ask me about what is SW craftsmanship and why I speak about it more than agile. Especially given I gave dozens of presentations and conference talks on agile and zero on SW craftsmanship. I learned to value it because I realize one thing in IT management is constantly overvalued and another one is undervalued. Software teams and tech companies spend a lot on building managerial skills. They hire agile coaches, consultants, and trainers. They implement agile methodologies. And that's all great, and I am happy for that. It's a good thing. But companies don't invest this heavily into certain hard skills, and that's a shame: 1. Usage of tools like IDEs/Editors, testing frameworks, CI servers, Git, GitHub, code analysis tools, etc. 2. Habits like pair programming, mob programming, prototyping 3. Clean writing, including commit messages, PRs, code review messages, acceptance criteria 4. New developer onboarding 5. New project starting, including technology choice And craftsmanship focuses on all of those things. It's a natural counterpart to agile. Where agile is focused on good management focused on value creation for customers, craftsmanship is focused on highly skilled engineers having great hard skills and habits related to their technologies, tools, and day to day engineering work.

39

2 Comments

How to speak the same language with a tech team? Well, one of the things that they probably mentioned is API, right? What does it mean? It is an interface between the backend application and the outer world. So it can be that the front end talks with the backend through an API, or you can consume some third-party services, like, let’s say, consume data from Twitter or Instagram through an API. So they're just exposing their data through this interface. Think about this as of interface between the backend business logic and the outer world. This is it.

10

What if developers create an architecture? Product Owner goes to Devs and asks to add a cool feature in 1-2 sprints. Devs think hard and find the way. PO is happy - what a great velocity! Devs are happy - we're very cool! 6 months passed. Product Owner is very sad - these s̵t̵u̵p̵i̵d̵ strange developers take months to add a small feature now, they break existing features constantly. Devs are sad - in order to add a small change we have to either rewrite the project for months or add new workarounds that will be broken in weeks. How has this happened? System architecture was developed with a tunnel vision paying attention to short term goals of 1-2 sprints. The fate of such systems is always the same - a big ball of mud. How can an architect help? An architect thinks strategically, sees a whole picture. He/she doesn't care about short term goals of sprints. An architect sees how broken bicycle chain can lead to a broken leg in 2 months. Does it mean we should not delegate architecture creation to Devs? No-no. This is a pretty good approach, very popular in Agile world. But we should attach an architect sometimes/always to guide architecture development.

6

Should you develop native apps for both iOS and Android or use a framework like React Native? I get this question a lot from my clients. My honest answer would be, “it depends.” If your goal is to: -Ship a product as soon as possible, -Save on costs for IT resources and developers, I’d definitely suggest React Native. However, if your app: -Uses more native hardware features (like cameras), -Needs complex 3D graphics or intensive animations, I would suggest investing more time into building native apps. However, React Native has been a growing robust ecosystem with: -An active community that provides solutions, -third-party libraries, and plugins making it a great choice for most common use cases. In 2024, we can also integrate AR experiences in React Native apps using ViroReact. Developing with React Native is faster, leading to higher user engagement and reduced app uninstallation rates. At Qservices, we use React Native to provide the best for our clients. If you’re looking for outsourcing or a dedicated team for app building, please reach out to us at QServices IT Solutions Inc. Share your experience of using React Native in the comments.

8

Refactoring is the way of life in software. ... Yet some people still think that they can write their software once. That's why there is a concept of SDLC. Do you know what the "C" stands for? :) Cycle. Because it is a cycle. So, why is it that so many companies still don't have source control for their database code? No CI/CD? #software_development #database_development #ifpthenq

3

10 Comments

Job listings should stop using non-sense requirements like: ❌ 5 years in C# ❌ 7 years in React ❌ 10 years in enterprise software development They are not only poor metrics but also scare away developers. Judging a developer by the number of years is like judging a book by the number of pages. I know many young developers who are already better than many seniors with 10 years of experience but repeated the same year 10 times. Value developers for the depth of their journey, not the length of it.

1,555

152 Comments

Last year was the first when I attended one of the InfoQ conferences, QCon Software Development Conferences. It felt like the one conference you should attend yearly. Probably it would be even better to attend the spring one: EU - (well kind of...) in London and then SF in autumn. That will give you also the whole spectrum: more mature ecosystem attendees and hip ones from the Valley. Anyway, for me it became the yearly pilgrimage where you can learn a lot and also meet those leaders in the industry who were and are inspirations for me. Well, anyway. InfoQ actively listens to the people around it (editors, readers, attendees in conferences) and as a result of those thoughts another breed of event took shape: DevSummit. On the same model as QCon it has different locations in the Americas (Boston 23-24 June) and Europe (Munich 26-27 June). This is not promotional, just do yourself and your company a favor and attend one of these. It will be worth your time. Here are some discount codes to save 30%: Single ticket: Save 30% off individual registrations with code OlimpiuPopMemorialDay30IDS0624 2 for 1: Save 50% with our 'two tickets for the price of one' offer (minimum purchase of 2 tickets required) with code OlimpiuPopMemorialDayBOGOIDS0624 Group tickets: Save 60% when buying a minimum of 3 or more tickets for people working for the same company with code OlimpiuPopMemorialDay60IDS0624 P.S. The QCon events have the best food at any conference I attended so far!!! And you know what they say: ❤️ Knowledge passes through your stomach! Back

10

We Are Not Loud Enough! 🔊 I have watched Irina’s presentation from RailsConf 2024 for the second time. It’s brilliant and inspiring! Startup stories and the most needed things in our ecosystem! A lot of case studies and innovative ideas! I highly recommend you watch it, as it covers a really important topic for all of us Ruby developers! Any of us can contribute! I’m glad that we have similar thoughts, Irina Nazarova, and we are taking the same road! Here are the points on what startup CTOs miss or what is not enough in our ecosystem: 5. We Are Not Loud Enough! There are a lot of Ruby conferences and events. It’s great and worth sustaining, so keep going! On top of that, we should advocate more at non-Ruby events and platforms. As a team from the Polish Ruby User Group and Visuality, we are also discussing the topic of sharing great things that are so obvious for us Rails people but not so obvious for people in other technologies. We are planning to visit more non-Ruby-related conferences! 4. More Ruby for AI Agree. We are planning a big meetup for AI in Warsaw, most likely in November. 3. More Integrations What are the most crucial integrations you had in mind, Irina? It’s worth listing all of them to show people a path on how they can contribute! 2. Rails Frontend Ecosystem Hotwire is great, but people still don’t use it widely. When we presented at a meetup, only 4 out of 40 people raised their hands that they were using it in their projects. 1. Integrating with React/Vue.js We have implemented React into components in Rails views. It’s not that difficult, but there is no perfect solution. 0. Let’s Do This Together My mission to contribute to Ruby and Rails is to start local meetups and reunite Ruby people. Warsaw meetup, LRUG (Łódź), Barcelona.rb, Amsterdam.rb reactivated! We are also helping other meetups and established a conference in Warsaw! I’m not shy 😉 I encourage everyone in the Ruby community to get involved in meetups, conferences, open source projects, and to share your experiences. Our collective efforts are key to the growth of our community. Together, we can achieve great things and continue to improve in the Ruby world 💪 https://lnkd.in/dqgQfj-W

27

On Node.js servers, prototype pollution attacks originate from developers not validating their input data. A runtime or library cannot fully harden against such a scenario because it is a developer mistake. TL;DR do not trust any input, and always validate any user data before usage

90

4 Comments

I think private kindergartens in Croatia currently behave like developers in their golden era. 1. Pricing Autonomy: Similar to developers setting their own prices, private kindergartens seem to have the freedom to charge whatever they see fit. 2. Unlimited Demand: Just as developers could demand anything or anyone they wanted, these kindergartens can seemingly do the same. If they're not satisfied with a parent or child, they can easily replace them from a pool of applicants in waiting lists.

14

🍪 Why I Dislike the Idea of an 𝗘𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗦𝗲𝗻𝗶𝗼𝗿-𝗢𝗻𝗹𝘆 Team Some people think a small team of top #senior #developer can do better work than a larger team of average developers. This might be true for a short time, but it misses some key points: 👉 Burnout Risk: A few developers with too much work can burn out. This lowers their productivity and morale. 👉 Less Innovation: A team with different experience levels can bring new ideas that only seniors might miss. 👉 Mentorship: Junior developers can learn from seniors, helping the whole team grow. 👉 High Costs: Senior developers are productive but cost more, which might not be affordable for every project. 👉 Dependency Issues: Relying too much on a few people can create bottlenecks and slow down the team. 👉 Adaptability: A mixed team can adapt better to changing project needs. 👉 Long-term Success: A balanced team is more sustainable and successful in the long run. Relying too much on a few top developers can create silos and an elitist culture. This is hard to keep up, hard to grow, and risky if key developers leave. It's better to have a balanced team that includes everyone and can grow together. My advice is to aim for the "Average Developer." This idea helps seniors make things simpler for mid-level developers and gives juniors a good chance to grow. ♻️ Fellow developer, please share and let us know your opinion. 👇 Adrian 🤓 Read SnackableCTO Blog – About Engineering Culture

15

12 Comments

Taking into account how “good” is Gemini at giving correct answers, I am sure will be “useful”. Especially when you get CORS errors. Captain obvious in Chrome DevTools bascially!

3