Tag: Software Development (Page 17 of 20)

Project TODOs: Track, Share, and Build Better Software

October 19, 2016 / Tom / 0 Comments

One of the challenges of working on a time-sensitive project is balancing getting something working while also keeping track of the various document, tasks, issues, and general project TODOs.

I don’t know what this looks like for you. But for me. project TODOs usually fall into one of two groups:

I need to go back and document a file, class, property (or properties), functions, or module.
There are places that I know need to be refactored. Perhaps a function needs to be split into two methods. Perhaps I need to rework an algorithm. Whatever the case, there’s something that needs to be done before I’m happy with it being final.

And when that’s the case, it’s easy to forget to come back to these areas in the code and rework them as you see fit.

This is where the idea of project TODOs come in, but I even think we can take it a bit further.

Development Tools for WordPress: The Industry’s Ego

October 12, 2016 / Tom / 0 Comments

Development tools are easy to come by these days. In fact, I think it’s harder to choose what to use than anything else. Never before have we had so many choices especially when it comes to the web.

Development Tools: Programming Languages

Just some of the popular programming languages, let alone tools.

Yesterday, I talked a bit about how there’s a particular breed of developers who love to get on their soapboxes and talk all about their superiority because of the development tools they use. If you haven’t read it, you can, but it’s not necessary for this post.

However, I will state that this is Part 2 of what I wrote yesterday. I even said:

Originally, I had this written as a single post, but it got a little long, so I’ve opted to split it into two pieces.

And I know: Yesterday was less about development and more of a critique of the nature of our industry. I try not to write too much about that, but there are times for exceptions. That was a time.

This one is not.

Software Development Soapboxes: The Industry’s Ego

October 11, 2016 / Tom

Software development soapboxes is a term that I use to describe whenever anyone tries to posit themselves as a superior developer because they use different tools than you.

Why, yes, my pipe is superior. Please hush and allow me to explain why.

For example, I just talked about my return to MAMP. It’s an option that we have, clearly.

Vagrant, Trellis, VVV, and other options are popular when it comes to building advanced solutions on WordPress. So when I wrote about my move back to MAMP, I expected some pushback or some argument(s), though I didn’t get any.

Perhaps no one cares, perhaps I’m writing into a void, perhaps everyone agrees with me (which is likely the case 😇), or perhaps it’s not worth talking about it.

I’m kidding, of course. Instead, I did receive one tweet that resulted in a great conversation. And I mean that non-sarcastically.

@fgacv asked:

have you tried vagrant? or the trellis box?

— The Notorious G.A.C. (@fgacv) October 10, 2016

And I think it’s a fair question especially because anyone who writes software in WordPress is likely to come across these (among many other) solutions, possibly evaluate them, and then find the one they like most.

Why You Should Learn Your Debugger

October 6, 2016 / Tom / 0 Comments

I’ve talked a bit about debugging (using an actual debugger) in a few posts, but I don’t know if I’ve ever talked about the challenges that come with debugging.

MacGDBp is one of the available debuggers.

First, in this context, debugging refers to using an actual piece of software versus various language features. Secondly, using a debugger has its learning curve just like any other piece of software.

And in this tweet, Julia Evans captures it perfectly:

https://twitter.com/b0rk/status/768300858450640896

Not bad, right?

Singleton Design Pattern and Dependency Injection, Part 3

September 2, 2016 / Tom / 0 Comments

In the previous two posts (available here and here), I talked a bit about the Singleton Design Pattern, dependency injection, and dependency injection containers.

Singleton Design Pattern as a Dependency Injection Container

Not that kind of container (but it’s still a cool shot).

These are all topics that I think are important for developers to know and to understand. If you’ve not read the previous posts, then I recommend it because the code that’s shown later in this post assumes you know a little bit about each of the topics mentioned above.

Furthermore, this is going to be a bit shorter as it relates to the previous two posts. The purpose is simply to show how to use a singleton as a simple dependency injection container.