WHAT WOULD THE CORGIS DO?

Autodeploying Angular Applications to AWS OpsWorks

OCT 11, 2016 Written by Don Denoncourt

Amazon OpsWorks is an excellent, low-cost option for Platform-as-a-Service hosting. OpsWorks provides relatively easy-to-use UI mechanisms to manage, deploy and host applications on AWS EC2. Corgibytes uses OpsWorks to host both Rails-based and Angular-based servers for one of our clients. Configuring the Rails-based OpsWorks hosts was easy – mostly because there are tons of blog posts on how to do it. But setting up the Angular server was a bit more problematic for me, as my good friend, Google, provided little help.

Bootstrapping a Simple Blog Scheduler

OCT 4, 2016 Written by Nickie McCabe

As our blogging efforts increased this past quarter, our Lead Content Whisperer, Jo, requested a mechanism to publish blog posts in advance. I was happy to volunteer to build a simple solution using the tools we already had in place.

Surviving as a Less-Technical on a Highly-Technical Team

SEP 29, 2016 Written by Jocelyne Morin-Nurse

Markdown, GitHub, Atom, Jekyll, rubber duck, refactoring… Those are just a few of the terms I had never heard before starting here at Corgibytes. Yes, I had heard of a rubber duck, but not being a rubber duck. In case anyone’s thinking “Oh, she’s one of those drips,” let me stop you right there. I’m a knowledge-thirsty geek.

Setting up a Minimal, Yet Useful Javascript Dev Environment

SEP 27, 2016 Written by Kamil Ogórek

In an era of omnipresent frameworks, libraries and tooling, it may be hard to decide what tool to use and when. I know from experience, that the first thing you do, once you decide to write a module or CLI tool, is set up an environment. Some people love it, some hate it. But no matter on which side you are, you’ll most likely end up spending way too much time doing it, polishing every aspect of the setup.

Embracing the Red Bar: Safely Refactoring Tests

SEP 20, 2016 Written by M. Scott Ford

Do you ever refactor your test code? If not, I hope you consider making this part of your normal practice. Test code is still code and should adhere to the same high standards as the code that's running directly in production. As important as it is, refactoring your test code is actually a little risky. It's very likely that you could turn a perfectly valid test into one that always passes, regardless of whether or not the code that it covers is correct. Let's explore a technique for protecting against that possibility.

Three Books That Influenced Corgibytes Culture

SEP 15, 2016 Written by Andrea Goulet

One of the comments I get frequently is how the culture of Corgibytes feels distinctive. Clients enjoy working with us, employees are happy and not stressed out, and the company just kind of purrs. This didn’t happen by accident. It’s the result of lots of intention and implementing specific strategies.

I’m Not a Ninja Programmer, I’m a Yogi Developer!

SEP 13, 2016 Written by Catalina De la cuesta

One of the many cool things that we do here at Corgibytes is yoga classes three times a week. The word “yoga” conjures up images of fit ladies on their mats in a classroom, and the teacher in the front doing crazy poses. You probably don’t imagine a group of people, each one sitting at his own desk, on different continents, connected online with the teacher and doing the crazy poses in their chairs. Well, that’s how our yoga classes are, and as unusual as this might sound, it is amazing. I love yoga classes!

Moving Remote to Remote

SEP 6, 2016 Written by David Grieser

My first job out of college took me 1,500 miles from where I grew up. After a year of working there, I spent most days working from home along with my other co-workers. The team commuted to a single point about once a week since we enjoyed hanging out with each other and it helped us catch up on what we were working on. Shortly after this, I had a desire to move back home to spend time with family, but wanted to keep working with a great team. That wasn’t a problem and this soon unlocked the awesomeness that was being remote.

Bridging the Technical/Non-Technical Divide

SEP 1, 2016 Written by Andrea Goulet

Eight years ago, I went to my high school reunion. I had worked successfully in the field of sales and marketing since graduation. I had started my own consultancy when I was twenty-four which helped clients with sales and developing their “brand voice.” I was the human voice behind businesses large and small. At the time I loved my job and had no plans on leaving my industry. At the reunion, I looked around, and after the mandatory mingling that comes with being a social butterfly, I locked eyes with someone I recognized. He was leaning against the bar, drinking a soda, and looking utterly uncomfortable. Yep. That was none other than M. Scott Ford.

My Quest for Mediocrity

AUG 30, 2016 Written by Don Denoncourt

“How would you rate yourself as a programmer?” They always have to ask THAT question in job interviews. And I hate it. So much. Why do I hate it? Because I know they won’t like my answer. But what am I supposed to do, lie? Nope. I have to be honest. Which is why I take my time before responding. I take a deep breath, look deeply into the eyes of the interviewer, and, finally, I say: “Average.”