Working Code

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This week on the show, we tip our hats to the Go Time podcast and have ourselves an Unpopular Opinion potluck. This means sharing ideas for which we feel strongly; but, which may not be so popular in the broader programming community. Topics include password rotation policies (which are dumb), relational databases (which are stupendous), the technical ability of an executive leadership team (which is important), the user experience (UX) of forms (which is often over-thought), automated deployments (which should be based on tags), and code duplication (which can certainly be the right approach).

Follow the show and be sure to join the discussion on Discord! Our website is workingcode.dev and we're @WorkingCodePod on Twitter and Instagram. New episodes drop weekly on Wednesday.

And, if you're feeling the love, support us on Patreon.

With audio editing and engineering by ZCross Media.

Sponsors

• Audible - get a free audiobook from Audible with no strings attached at https://workingcode.dev/audible

People don't burn out because they have too much work to do, they burn out because they feel powerless. And, for Ben, feeling powerless correlates strongly with doing work that he doesn't believe in. Which is why he's never understood the notion of, "Disagree and commit". After all, in order to quell the feelings of dissent, he has to numb a fundamental part of who he is; and, he's convinced that such a technique can't be good for the overall creative process.

To quote Elie Wiesel:

So what is the opposite of disagreement? Is it agreement? Or, is it indifference?

Follow the show and be sure to join the discussion on Discord! Our website is workingcode.dev and we're @WorkingCodePod on Twitter and Instagram. New episodes drop weekly on Wednesday.

And, if you're feeling the love, support us on Patreon.

With audio editing and engineering by ZCross Media.

Sponsors

• Audible - get a free audiobook from Audible with no strings attached at https://workingcode.dev/audible

On Adam's team, whenever anyone uses the phrase "just" to describe a level-of-effort, everyone jumps in and echoes "just" using air-quotes. Because, as many of us have learned over the years, nothing is ever as simple as it seems, especially in the world of web development. On this week's show, we talk about some of those tasks that end up being way more complicated than they should have been. Topics include: vertically aligning content, using JavaScript in 2022, logging data with sufficient context, tracking who made changes to a database, and storing notification flags for users that may never come back to your application.

Follow the show and be sure to join the discussion on Discord! Our website is workingcode.dev and we're @WorkingCodePod on Twitter and Instagram. New episodes drop weekly on Wednesday.

And, if you're feeling the love, support us on Patreon.

With audio editing and engineering by ZCross Media.

Sponsors

• Audible - get a free audiobook from Audible with no strings attached at https://workingcode.dev/audible

This week on the show, the crew talks about the Power of No. For many of us, saying "No" is usually a challenge. Saying "Yes", on the other hand, is usually the path of lease resistance. Saying "Yes" also feels good. In fact, saying "Yes" has so much appeal that we often rush into saying "Yes" to work before we even understand what that work entails or how urgent that work actually is. And, in many cases, that eager "Yes" ends up leading to a future failure. Which is why getting to "No" - or "No, But" - can help us maintain both our sanity and our professional relationships.

Follow the show and be sure to join the discussion on Discord! Our website is workingcode.dev and we're @WorkingCodePod on Twitter and Instagram. New episodes drop weekly on Wednesday.

And, if you're feeling the love, support us on Patreon.

With audio editing and engineering by ZCross Media.

Sponsors

• Audible - get a free audiobook from Audible with no strings attached at https://workingcode.dev/audible

On last week's show, we talked about "Side Hustles" - those extracurricular activities that we do in order to earn a little extra income. On this week's show, we want to talk about the flip-side to that coin: the coding that we do on the side because we freakin' love coding! Carol celebrates the WordPress site that she's built and now maintains for her son's band, including the ability to accept payments and donations. And, Ben talks about trying to build a feature flag system using Lucee CFML and Angular. He also confesses that his blog has historically had a negative impact on his resolution to do more exploratory work. We also get to argue a bit about just how sexy TypeScript actually is.

Follow the show and be sure to join the discussion on Discord! Our website is workingcode.dev and we're @WorkingCodePod on Twitter and Instagram. New episodes drop weekly on Wednesday.

And, if you're feeling the love, support us on Patreon.

With audio editing and engineering by ZCross Media.

Sponsors

• Audible - get a free audiobook from Audible with no strings attached at https://workingcode.dev/audible

This week on the show, the crew talks about side hustles: the very American desire to be making money on the side. While many people in this world need side hustles in order to make ends meet, those in our industry (technology) often incur side hustles as a voluntary affliction. Of course, there's a fixed number of hours in each day; so, you're either earning passive income; or, your taking time away from your other interests (and commitments). This isn't always healthy. Nor should it be seen as a rite of passage - we on the show have a lot of respect for people that are simply content and can live their lives without grinding themselves down to a nub.

Follow the show and be sure to join the discussion on Discord! Our website is workingcode.dev and we're @WorkingCodePod on Twitter and Instagram. New episodes drop weekly on Wednesday.

And, if you're feeling the love, support us on Patreon.

With audio editing and engineering by ZCross Media.

Sponsors

• Audible - get a free audiobook from Audible with no strings attached at https://workingcode.dev/audible

Like Michelangelo with a block of marble, we engineers often like to dive right into the code and let the application reveal itself to us. And while this may work on a very small scale, this extreme bias-towards-action isn't prudent for larger teams or companies with a growing client-base. Mature companies have roadmaps. They weigh the benefits of building one feature against the opportunity cost of not building another feature. Mature companies get buy-in both internally and externally. They then evolve their vision based on that feedback when it make sense; or, they apply grit when it is required.

Or, at least that's the hope. Because, in reality, building a roadmap isn't easy. There are so many competing interests and such a limited amount of time. And then, there are Black Swan events like Covid-19, that force us all to stop and completely re-evaluate everything.

This week on the show, the crew talks about what goes into a good roadmap; how we can avoid certain pitfalls; and, we question how far into the future a company should be looking on their roadmap.

Follow the show and be sure to join the discussion on Discord! Our website is workingcode.dev and we're @WorkingCodePod on Twitter and Instagram. New episodes drop weekly on Wednesday.

And, if you're feeling the love, support us on Patreon.

With audio editing and engineering by ZCross Media.

Sponsors

• Audible - get a free audiobook from Audible with no strings attached at https://workingcode.dev/audible

This week on the show, the crew talks about documentation. Yay! As developers, there's no doubt that we all love consuming great documentation - especially for APIs. But, nary a one of us enjoys the process of creating documentation. Except maybe Adam, who's oddly passionate about communication. For the rest of us, however, documenting our choices and our subsequent outcomes feels a bit of a slog. It's never clear when we should be writing documentation; it's never clear what we should be documenting; and, it's never clear just how much detail we need to include. Sometimes, ironically, it seems that the more thoroughly we document a topic, the more likely it is to be misunderstood. So, that's awesome!

Follow the show and be sure to join the discussion on Discord! Our website is workingcode.dev and we're @WorkingCodePod on Twitter and Instagram. New episodes drop weekly on Wednesday.

And, if you're feeling the love, support us on Patreon.

With audio editing and engineering by ZCross Media.

Sponsors

• Audible - get a free audiobook from Audible with no strings attached at https://workingcode.dev/audible

On today's episode, we get to pull up the floor boards and once again peer into the dark recesses of Ben's brain: all the random and, frankly, sometimes incoherent chit-cat that Ben has with himself. Listen to him call B.S. on flaky tests; shake his first at overly-specific CSS selectors; preen about GulpJS build scripts; pontificate on the ROI (return on investment) of personal growth; and, theorize that building - not buying - can sometimes be the smarter (and less bureaucratic) move to make.

Follow the show and be sure to join the discussion on Discord! Our website is workingcode.dev and we're @WorkingCodePod on Twitter and Instagram. New episodes drop weekly on Wednesday.

And, if you're feeling the love, support us on Patreon.

With audio editing and engineering by ZCross Media.

Sponsors

• Audible - get a free audiobook from Audible with no strings attached at https://workingcode.dev/audible

Twenty-two years ago, Joel Spolsky wrote an article titled, The Joel Test, which outlines 12-steps for evaluating the quality of a software team. At the time, Joel was working with Microsoft, building products that were delivered on CD-ROM. As such, his day-to-day workflow was somewhat different than the kind of work many of us are used to doing today. That said, much of what he had in his 12-point litmus test still holds true! Which I believe is a testament to how fundamental his insights were. This week on the show, the crew reviews Joel's list, gives each item our personal Yay or Nay, and then adds a few requirements of our own.

Also, if you want a quick run-down of what we discussed, Adam summarized much of what we talked about in The Working Code Test over on his blog.

Follow the show and be sure to join the discussion on Discord! Our website is workingcode.dev and we're @WorkingCodePod on Twitter and Instagram. New episodes drop weekly on Wednesday.

And, if you're feeling the love, support us on Patreon.

With audio editing and engineering by ZCross Media.