WHAT WOULD THE CORGIS DO?

Using Metaphors to Drive Business - Part 2, the 200-Point Inspection Metaphor

MAR 14, 2017 Written by Wendy Closson

In my last blog post, I explained why metaphors are so important and how they can help raise our chops (and our hopes) when it comes to influencing the business side of things. The Seat Belt metaphor used in my previous example may have worked great for some, but not for others. Keeping a few different ones at the ready helps you adapt on-the-fly and better connect with whomever you’re speaking with. Another one of my favorite car metaphors to use is inspections.

Custom Azure Machine Frustrations

MAR 7, 2017 Written by David Grieser

I'm getting very comfortable with Hyper-V on my Windows 10 Pro machine, and I'm really happy I have this as a development environment. After updating Corgibytes' Chief Code Whisperer, Scott, about where I was at for a current client, we talked about remote machines and Azure. This lead to attempting to upload a VHD to Azure.

Dude, Where's My Code?

MAR 2, 2017 Written by Brian Bassett

Stop me if you’ve heard this one... After spending years understanding the inefficiencies of a marketspace, a brilliant subject-matter expert strikes out on their own as an entrepreneur. Using their grit, knowledge and connections, they build their business. Soon after, investors and paying clients follow to benefit from the new product.

Computer Science Degree Optional - Part 1, Skillset

FEB 28, 2017 Written by Nickie McCabe

A commenter on dev.to recently posed the question, “What should someone without a computer science degree focus on learning?” As someone who was lucky enough to know I wanted to study computer science as an 18-year-old, I thought I’d weigh in on the topic. I had some ideas floating in my head about what I considered most important, but also decided I’d poll my colleagues to get their opinions.

Integration Tests Can Be Fun!

FEB 21, 2017 Written by Kamil Ogórek

One of the most mundane and frightening tasks for many developers is writing integration tests. It's a time-consuming, fragile, and often difficult and frustrating task to accomplish. What makes it even worse is that it quickly gets out of hand and breaks often, which leads to frustration and dropping the idea completely.

Make Friends with Feedback

FEB 16, 2017 Written by Jocelyne Morin-Nurse

Does this sound familiar? A nervous, yet wildly confident singer prepares to wow competition judges. Meanwhile, a clip of them telling the camera some heart-wrenching story wraps up. The frame ends on some mention of this being their last chance at happiness, and this is their Hail Mary plan to finally follow their destiny. The music starts. The singer wails.

Check Your Work: Ensuring Your Refactoring Doesn't Introduce Bugs

FEB 14, 2017 Written by M. Scott Ford

Code refactoring, as defined by Wikipedia, is “the process of restructuring existing computer code — changing the factoring — without changing its external behavior.” As such, refactored code should introduce no behavior changes. Otherwise, you're not refactoring. You're refactoring and doing something else.

I Am the Best Software Developer (That I Can Be)

FEB 7, 2017 Written by Catalina De la cuesta

A while back, I wrote a blog post about IDEs vs text editors. Ultimately, I was really writing about whether using an IDE made me less of a software developer. My conclusion was that while it definitely didn't make me less of a software developer, there were things experienced software developers did that I wasn't doing that were worth learning. So I've been trying to do what it takes to earn the right to call myself a “software developer.” I've learned a lot in the process: about shortcuts, vim and bash, but, mostly, about myself.

Thoughts on Doing It All

FEB 2, 2017 Written by Andrea Goulet

Recently, I was on the STEMxm podcast, where the host asked me a simple question: “You’re a woman in tech, you’re also a business owner and you have small children. Do you have any thoughts on the balance question and managing all of this?” Let’s first address the maternal bias that comes with just asking the question. Scott never gets asked how he “does it all” as a father, but I do all the time as a mother.

Handling AWS Bounce Notifications from Simple Email Service

JAN 31, 2017 Written by Don Denoncourt

About a year ago, I had to code a Rails application to handle bounce notifications from AWS SES. Amazon Simple Email Service is ridiculously easy to configure and use in a Rails application. As the instructions at the GitHub gem page explain, all you need to do is add the aws-ses Rails gem and create a configuration file called config/initializers/amazon_ses.rb that contains your Amazon credentials (soft-coded of course). But, if you need your application to handle bounce, complaint, or delivery notifications, things get a little more complicated.