Smash the Bug

Łukasz Bajsarowicz is a phenomenal developer and has become well-known for training other developers throughout Europe. What makes Lukasz’ story unique is that while he is extremely knowledgeable and very proficient at his craft, he firmly believes that money isn’t the goal, and that you can get so caught up in your pursuit of “success” that you forget about your mental health and get away from what really makes you happy. In the last couple of years, he has faced some incredible challenges, both personally and professionally, and we get a little peek into his experiences on this week’s episode of Smash the Bug.

 

SHOW NOTES [more on SwiftOtter.com]

 

3:52

Problems aren’t always technical, of course. Łukasz lets us into his world and shares with us a more personal challenge he has faced in his career over the past year, and reminds us of the importance of maintaining our mental health through the changes we experience.

8:18

Łukasz’ upcoming USA trip and his excitement over visiting people he hasn’t met in person or hasn’t seen in a long time.

10:32

The intense challenge of jumping into two projects as a tech lead that were at the same stage and had the same timeline, and the lessons that can be learned from such a difficult situation.

14:45

His massive project that required dealing with roughly 12 million products: how he spent about 3 months tweaking the admin dashboard / admin panel and debugged his way into a realistic solution. Hint: eversql.com

21:45

Łukasz’ bit of advice to developers regarding storefront usability and integration with the end customer.

23:00

How Łukasz is exercising his knowledge and seeking to sharpen his skills with core contributions (stay tuned for another podcast episode where Łukasz and Joseph will dive into that further). He also has been a part of CodeWars and other unique “game-style” exercises, which he strongly recommends.

28:30

Why Łukasz whole-heartedly agrees that “you learn the most by teaching others”.

Connect with Łukasz:

LinkedIn

Twitter

Connect with Joseph:

LinkedIn 

Twitter 

Do YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to [email protected] and you might be our next podcast guest!

This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers!

Have you joined the free SwiftOtter Slack community? It's exploding and we don't want you to miss out. Go to SwiftOtter.com/Slack to join for free and get plugged into what might be the best group of collaborating developers around!

Special thanks to TrendingAudio for our awesome theme music!

We caught Eric Erway right before Adobe kicked off their Magento Open Source Task Force, a newly-assembled group of great minds who are coming together to save and pave the way for the future of Magento/Adobe Commerce Open Source. Eric believes that developer experience is just as important as the merchant experience, and that Adobe really is committed to making sure the future of Open Source is bright and built to thrive, as it always has.

 

SHOW NOTES [more at SwiftOtter.com]

 

4:09

The in-person events that helped the Magento community to thrive throughout the years are greatly missed, according to Eric, because some of the most important conversations started and ended at events like Imagine. “Here’s to hoping that we are able to get together next year at Adobe Summit” - Joseph.

5:35

Here at the very beginning of the Open Source Task-Force initiative, everyone is wanting to know how this is going to work, when we will hear about planned changes and what communication we can look for. Eric helps to answer these questions. “It’s hard to do this 280 characters at a time” - Eric

7:49

The decentralization of the [Magento] communities as new technologies and new opportunities are brought into the picture, like Hyva, Vue Storefront, etc.

8:39

How do we look at innovation and take advantage of a new contribution model?

9:29

Regarding the future of the Magento Association and taking over the development/ownership of Open Source, what’s really going to happen here? Eric explains it from Adobe’s perspective.

11:52

Contributions seem to be really difficult, and when something really needs to be done, it’s hard to wait around for all the bureaucracy. Eric has a few thoughts to share about how Adobe will try to improve this in the future, how communication will work and what needs to be put into place to promote performance, security, etc.

16:11

Igor Miniailo’s blog/article (see it here) and why careful and clear communication is both a requirement here and a privilege.

18:10

So where is Magento Open Source headed? Adobe seems to believe it has reached a level of maturity, while the community doesn’t seem to agree with that. “Decentralized” is a big word that Eric uses, while diving deep into the concepts of “maintaining a lean core”.

22:31

Joseph dives deeper into the concept of maturity and the future of performance optimization. Eric brings up PHP 8.1 and the work associated with making sure everything is tested and working well. They mention GraphQL, Page Builder and more. Eric stresses the importance of creating a robust release calendar and having a better system for “roadmap communications”.

25:00

Here we are. Let’s talk about Mage-OS for a little bit. The OS alliance is set on protecting the future of Magento, and Joseph can identify with the struggles they’re voicing in that he is developing his own version of the product repository to fix an existing issue that he doesn’t think will get fixed through a pull request. Eric says that we all owe each other solid communication regarding the issues that are plaguing the platform.

28:00

How we move forward and solve this problem, as we can’t do it “280 characters at a time”. Eric has a lot of empathy for the developers in the community and wants to do this thing right.

 

Connect with Eric:

LinkedIn

Twitter

Connect with Joseph:

LinkedIn

Twitter

 

Do YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to [email protected] and you might be our next podcast guest!

This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers!

Have you joined the free SwiftOtter Slack community? It's exploding and we don't want you to miss out. Go to SwiftOtter.com/Slack to join for free and get plugged into what might be the best group of collaborating developers around!

Special thanks to TrendingAudio for our awesome theme music!

We write so much code and we love it! Just write it out, proofread it and you’re done! Right? Well..sometimes. In fact, many agencies still operate that way, but SwiftOtter can testify to the reality that code review processes are absolutely vital to the long-term quality of the code we write. In fact, SwiftOtter just hired a great developer to lead the code review process because they’re so good at this task. In a world where billable hours and quick turnaround times are supreme, we must remember that quality is the only option, before profits or short-term gratification.

 

SHOW NOTES [more at SwiftOtter.com]

 

00:40

News & updates! Reacticon, upcoming conferences, PHP 7.3 hitting “end of life”, PHP 7.4’s best new features, and more.

 

3:35

Our next Ecommerce Ninja Training (November 3rd - Set a reminder HERE) and Jesse’s live training debut with an introduction to PWA.

 

5:15

What really IS code review, a couple basic reasons why it’s so important, and how great teams should be thinking about it (spoiler alert: a lot of teams don’t really do it).

 

6:20

How the transfer from the developer (writing the code) to the code reviewer should work, and what the value is in having two sets of eyes on that code.

 

8:40

The importance and format of documentation in light of the code review process. How should the code be properly annotated to facilitate a smooth review?

 

10:15

Why being asked “so why did you do it that way” is very helpful for us!

 

11:15

Are you “getting in the zone” when writing code or “getting lazy”? Just knowing that someone is going to review your code is a huge benefit for developers (while frustrating, at times).

 

12:10

When someone thinks the code reviewer’s feedback is bad feedback - the value in disagreement, and how to move through that. 

 

14:00

Why SwiftOtter’s developers actually love the code review process, and why that is so good for company culture.

 

16:50

A few simple but incredibly detailed and important tips for when you are writing code and anticipating a code review, and the best way to respond to “nit picking”, whether you’re a junior or a senior dev.

 

22:00

Example: The difference between a secure and insecure query and how a good reviewer could catch that. Is your code secure?

 

23:30

A few big questions for a code reviewer to ask about the developer’s code, and things they should be looking for. What is “self-documenting code” and what is “cyclomatic complexity”? Joseph uses the term “code smell”.

 

26:35

How important is naming? It seems elementary, but it’s a bigger part of our job than we think.

 

33:45

Pulling out temporary code, commented code, and “cleaning up the mess” more often. Joseph mentions referencing and explains the excuses we often use to leave bad code in there.

 

Connect with Jesse:

LinkedIn

Twitter

Connect with Joseph:

LinkedIn

Twitter

 

Do YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to [email protected] and you might be our next podcast guest!

This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers!

Have you joined the free SwiftOtter Slack community? It's exploding and we don't want you to miss out. Go to SwiftOtter.com/Slack to join for free and get plugged into what might be the best group of collaborating developers around!

Special thanks to TrendingAudio for our awesome theme music!

Shawn Abramson recently made the switch from an agency to working directly with Adobe as a Magento Architect. The majority of his projects are large in scale, but in order to solve a problem, one of them took him to a place he's never been before. How far have YOU gone to smash a bug?

--

SHOW NOTES [See more at SwiftOtter.com/SmashtheBug]

 

3:30

What does a Magento architect’s day look like (tasks, teams and projects)?

5:18

Part one of Shawn’s intense challenge that took him all the way to Tokyo in order to solve a problem. Due to the way their Magento setup was configured, they had to make really hard decisions about how their databases were going to communicate and how new products were going to be launched. Spoiler alert: it seemed like a truly impossible situation.

10:05

Shawn’s great experience with implementing PWA on this big project, getting some much-needed help from Jisse Reitsma. Shawn explains how developers seem to fall into two different boxes when it comes to Magento front-end.

12:20

Part two of Shawn’s challenge overseas and how difficult dealing with customer data was in China. Data had to be strategically placed and moved, orders had to go through WeChat, and fulfillment/shipping got complicated.

16:10

Shawn’s advice to developers who are just starting out and/or looking to grow. He talks about mindset, goals and what to occupy yourself with in your spare time.

 

--

Connect with Shawn Abramson on Social:

LinkedIn

Connect with Joseph Maxwell on Social

LinkedIn

Twitter

Do YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to [email protected] and you might be our next podcast guest!

This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers.

Have you joined the free SwiftOtter Slack community? It's exploding and we don't want you to miss out. Go to SwiftOtter.com/Slack to join for free and get plugged into what might be the best group of collaborating developers around!

The Art of Ecommerce Debugging is AVAILABLE NOW! Check out https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ to order, get more info or download a robust preview. This is NOT a self-help book designed to change your title to "senior developer". Rather, it contains the information you need in order to become an excellent debugger and an invaluable developer, regardless of your job title. This is the next step to becoming an incredible developer and taking the next step in your career!

[Special thanks to TrendingAudio for our awesome theme music!]

Herve Guetin is getting hit with some intense issues on a daily basis. As a Magento Consultant at WIDE, he has amassed an impressive list of do’s and don’ts, especially on the topic of Magento architecture and store configuration. In an effort to save us all some time and prevent us from feeling the same heartaches, he explains a few of his recent experiences and what we can do to avoid the same pitfalls.

--

SHOW NOTES

 

2:10

Jumping into projects with deep legacy.

6:15

Fitting into Magento's framework without "best practices" requires......fitting into Magento's framework! But you have to figure out how.

11:30

Making sure the merchant can access the data they need, when they need it, and in a way that makes some sense to them.

13:00

The line between laziness and successfully simplifying your code writing.

18:45

Sometimes the "best way" is not the right way, especially if the merchant has been doing something a certain way for years and changing it would cause more harm than it prevents. Don't forget about backwards compatibility!

23:50

Closing remarks and summary.

--

Connect with Hervé Guétin on Social:

LinkedIn: herveguetin

Connect with Joseph Maxwell on Social:

LinkedIn: Maxwelljoseph

Twitter: swiftotter_joe

Do YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to [email protected] and you might be our next podcast guest!

This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers!

Have you joined the free SwiftOtter Slack community? It's exploding and we don't want you to miss out. Go to SwiftOtter.com/Slack to join for free and get plugged into what might be the best group of collaborating developers around!

The Art of Ecommerce Debugging is AVAILABLE NOW! Check out swiftotter.com/artofdebugging to order, get more info or download a robust preview. This is NOT a self-help book designed to change your title to "senior developer". Rather, it contains the information you need in order to become an excellent debugger and an invaluable developer, regardless of your job title. The book is $40 USD, shipped anywhere in the world for free. This is the next step to becoming an incredible developer and taking the next step in your career.

(Theme music courtesy of TrendingAudio)

What is Barny Shergold good at? Hmm...well, lots of things. Barny has been developing software for over 30 years, dabbling in a bunch of different coding languages and, of course, developing without proper frameworks and foundations. Barny discovered Magento in about 2010 when he got a job at an agency that was really excited about the up-and-coming platform. His job was basically to make it useful for their clients. Throughout the past 10 years, he’s shifted his focus a bit to helping developers get things right in the first place, before they write code and build processes that won’t age well. Sound familiar?

--

SHOW NOTES (full notes at SwiftOtter.com)

 

After 30 years in software development, he sees a clear connection between the developer’s ability to clearly communicate progress and technical specifics to non-technical parties and the ability for a developer to reach their highest potential.

 

Joseph posted a tip on LinkedIn a couple months before the filming of this podcast that stirred the community up quite a bit. It was a reminder that MySQL does not handle NULL values in the same way that PHP interprets them, and that devs need to be careful how they use NULL. Barny and Joseph explore this issue and share advice.

 

A challenge for developers and how well they understand database structures.

 

A reminder of creative ways to store data in order to make our lives easier down the road.

 

A suggestion for how to counsel merchants when they're thinking about a platform change. It's definitely not an easy conversation.

 

A challenge to leave notes in your code. Like Barny said, “I understood every word you just said, but I didn’t understand the sentence”.

--

Connect with Barny Shergold on Social:

 

LinkedIn

 

Connect with Joseph Maxwell on Social:

 

LinkedIn

 

Twitter

 

YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to [email protected] and you might be our next podcast guest!

 

This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers!

 

Have you joined the free SwiftOtter Slack community? It's exploding and we don't want you to miss out. Go to SwiftOtter.com/Slack to join for free and get plugged into what might be the best group of collaborating developers around!

 

The Art of Ecommerce Debugging is AVAILABLE NOW! Check out https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ to order, get more info or download a robust preview. This is NOT a self-help book designed to change your title to "senior developer". Rather, it contains the information you need in order to become an excellent debugger and an invaluable developer, regardless of your job title. The book is $40 USD, shipped anywhere in the world for free. This is the next step to becoming an incredible developer and taking the next step in your career!

 

Get it at https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/

(Theme music courtesy of TrendingAudio)

Who is Ray Bogman? Ray is a 6-time Adobe Commerce (Magento) certified developer who now works for Adobe, Inc. and finds himself completing a pretty vast array of tasks on a daily basis. To over-simplify his job, he supports Magento (Adobe) Commerce clients and helps a number of massive businesses around the world to maximize their experience on the platform. His newest project is to migrate a few big merchants over to the new Adobe Commerce Cloud, which will be interesting for us all to witness! With his insider knowledge at Adobe, he’s able to provide us with a few helpful insights on where Magento (Adobe) Commerce might be headed and why he’s excited about its future.

--

MINI SHOW NOTES (Full notes available at SwiftOtter.com)

Why Ray believes Adobe is improving Magento's total cost of ownership and improving its ability to adapt for aggressive growth.

How micro services are going to improve Magento's agility, and why some of the skeptical developers might take a second look.

Joseph takes a minute to break down the value of microservices with Ray and asks him if he thinks their value outweighs the concern that many developers have over the potential lack of customization present.

Ray insists that his greatest challenges with clients tend to stem back to violations of Magento best practices, and this is where saying "no" to the merchant might not be happening often enough.

How PWA is causing the community to feel the magic again, like back in the Magento 1 days when the sky was the limit and it was a whole new world. How quickly will PWA catch on, on it's React foundation, and are developers excited to learn it?

--

Connect with Ray on Social:

LinkedIn

Connect with Joseph on Social:

LinkedIn

Twitter

YouTube

 

Do YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to [email protected] and you might be our next podcast guest!

This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain ecommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers.

Have you joined the free SwiftOtter Slack community? It's exploding and we don't want you to miss out. Go to SwiftOtter.com/Slack to join for free and get plugged into what might be the best group of collaborating developers around!

The Art of Ecommerce Debugging is AVAILABLE NOW! Check out https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ to order, get more info or download a robust preview. This is NOT a self-help book designed to change your title to "senior developer". Rather, it contains the information you need in order to become an excellent debugger and an invaluable developer, regardless of your job title. The book is $40 USD, shipped anywhere in the world for free. This is the next step to becoming an incredible developer and taking the next step in your career.

Get it at https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/

 

(Theme music courtesy of TrendingAudio)

Well, it has been quite the year for Magento (Adobe Commerce), PHP and really just developer tools in general! Hyva was introduced, which is going to dramatically change the way Magento websites look and how creatively they can be presented to the world. PHP 8 will soon be integrated with Magento 2.4.3, and Page Builder for Magento ushered in the kind of efficient editability that we’ve been wanting for a very long time! 2021 has truly been a year full of useful upgrades and big changes, and it’s clear that the next chapter in the world of eCommerce web development is going to be a thrilling one. Are you ready for it?

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MINI SHOW NOTES (Full notes available at SwiftOtter.com)

A new Javascript convenience tool that you might want to remember!

https://how-i-experience-web-today.com is a great reminder of why websites must be strategically built, and not over built.

Sometimes, it makes sense to completely re-engineer a process and sometimes it’s literally the worst thing you could do, depending on your understanding of what actually is happening. Joseph has a great example.

Is GitHub too big for some of your needs as a developer? The answer is yes. Where will you go if you aren't going to GitHub? The answer is the SwiftOtter Slack channel. It's growing like wildfire and we don't want you to miss out. While it's growing fast, it's small enough for each and every member to make a difference in other people's lives and get high-quality help when they need it. Collaboration works best if it's not too complicated, so maybe going to GitHub should be your second option instead of your first option. Go to SwiftOtter.com/Slack to join for free!

--

Do YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to [email protected] and you might be our next podcast guest!

This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain ecommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers!

Have you joined the free SwiftOtter Slack community? It's exploding and we don't want you to miss out. Go to SwiftOtter.com/Slack to join for free and get plugged into what might be the best group of collaborating developers around!

The Art of Ecommerce Debugging is AVAILABLE NOW!

Check out https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ to order, get more info or download a robust preview. This is NOT a self-help book designed to change your title to "senior developer". Rather, it contains the information you need in order to become an excellent debugger and an invaluable developer, regardless of your job title. The book is $40 USD, shipped anywhere in the world for free. This is the next step to becoming an incredible developer and taking the next step in your career! Get it at https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/

(Theme music courtesy of TrendingAudio)

You might not have heard of him before (totally kidding here), but his name is Benjamin Marks and he is the director of growth for Shopware in the “places that don’t speak German”. Ben spent many years with Magento as what he would call their “evangelist” and was carried through the transition when Adobe purchased Magento. In 2021, he decided it was time to follow his hunch that Shopware was laying the foundation that Ecommerce would build its future on. Was he right? Maybe so, but as he quickly mentions in this conversation with Joseph, he believes that Adobe Commerce (Magento) will make strides towards greater openness in the near future. In fact, he believes they will have to in order to keep up with the kind of culture that Shopware is building. Ben actually believes this town is big enough for both platforms. Interesting, right? Let’s see why he thinks that.

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MINI SHOW NOTES (Full notes available at SwiftOtter.com)

What immediately drew Ben to Shopware was their culture of openness and how their business has been rooted in collaboration from the very beginning. Ben felt that Adobe was losing their sight of the “open source” goal for Magento, while Shopware was leaning into it more and more.

Ben's thoughts on which platform a new developer should spend more time on: Shopware or Magento (Adobe Commerce)? His opinion isn't simple.

Are there more front-end devs than back-end devs right now?

As Ben and Joseph dive into the world of frameworks, customization and dependency management mechanisms, they shed light on the maturity of ecommerce development and the issue of building overly complex tools that don’t age well.

An abundance of creativity and comradery is still at the core of this career path!

--

Do YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to [email protected] and you might be our next podcast guest!

This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain ecommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers!

The Art of Ecommerce Debugging is AVAILABLE NOW!

Check out https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ to order, get more info or download a robust preview. This is NOT a self-help book designed to change your title to "senior developer". Rather, it contains the information you need in order to become an excellent debugger and an invaluable developer, regardless of your job title. The book is $40 USD, shipped anywhere in the world for free. This is the next step to becoming an incredible developer and taking the next step in your career! Get it at https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/

(Theme music courtesy of TrendingAudio)

Ryan Keelaghan started at cbdMD.com as their "Principal Web Engineer" back in 2020. As you can imagine, 2020 brought some intense growth for his company, so his job description started bending and adjusting pretty quickly. Being the "jack of all trades" has benefits, but it can also be a bit confusing. As the lead back-end developer at his company, the successes and failures of their whole online storefront fall back on him and his front-end lead. How is he handling that reality, you might ask? Actually, he's handling it really well, and he has a lot of valuable information to share with us. Get comfortable and let's hear what he has to say!

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MINI SHOW NOTES (full notes on SwiftOtter.com)

What really is a "Principal Web Engineer", employed directly by an Ecommerce retailer?

How do we prepare for big projects like large-scale upgrades and maintain our sanity? On a similar note, how do we communicate progress to the merchant/client and fight against hurrying/skipping ahead?

Setting a routine to keep your system up to date is important. Proactive defense against data breaches is more important than we can put into words. How can we be proactive to defend against these data breaches, and how do we communicate the need for this extra work (to the merchant) which doesn't add to the company's bottom line?

People usually start careers in web development with a real love for the creativity and uniqueness that the job presents. However, as time goes on, devs tend to get away from doing the work they actually love. This might be because the job or position they take pays better (even though it isn't as fun) or they simply get burnt out with boring and annoying tasks. Ryan makes it abundantly clear how important it is to make time for doing "what makes you happy". How do you do that? Ryan has some suggestions.

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Do YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to [email protected] and you might be our next podcast guest!

This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain ecommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers!

The Art of Ecommerce Debugging is AVAILABLE NOW! Check out https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ to order, get more info or download a robust preview. This is NOT a self-help book designed to change your title to "senior developer". Rather, it contains the information you need in order to become an excellent debugger and an invaluable developer, regardless of your job title. The book is $40 USD, shipped anywhere in the world for free. This is the next step to becoming an incredible developer and taking the next step in your career!

Get it at https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/

(Theme music courtesy of TrendingAudio)