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My first React application

As a software development director, I don’t often get the chance to write code as part of my job. I still read a lot about coding because I love to learn new things, but reading is not the same as doing. A few months ago though, my company went through some significant restructuring and I found myself on working notice. With my old role quickly winding down, I suddenly had some time to do a small coding project that would both benefit my company and allow me to experience some great hands on learning. I got the chance to write my first React application.

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DevOps: not just for web applications

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Riding the wave of DevOps and continuous delivery. “Sun Curl” by ClarkLittlePhotography.com

Two years ago I didn’t think DevOps applied to my company. I was aware of the buzz word, but when I took a cursory look at a few articles about DevOps, they seemed to be all about web applications and web services. My company primarily develops firmware and enterprise software. In our world, production is owned by our customers or even our customers’ customers. We don’t deploy to a production environment that we own and operate – we just post new installers. As for frequent releases, our product managers weren’t asking for them.

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Read-later applications: strong medicine for browser tabitis

I love learning new things. For someone like me, the internet is a never-ending source of insights. It’s my source of answers when I’m curious about something, and my cell phone, tablets and computers are reading devices for Kindle books, Safari books, and facts and opinions from all over the web. I travel the internet where my curiosity and current problem-solving needs lead me.

Up until recently, I had a problem. My internet habit kept producing a virtual explosion of browser tabs. I’d do a search and find a number of promising articles that were too long to read right away. Wanting to come back to them, I’d leave them open in their own browser tabs. Over time I’d wind up with tons of tiny tabs making it hard for me to distinguish between things I was actively working on and things I wasn’t. I’d rearrange tab orders often, and do a deliberate cull a few times a week. Fortunately, I was recently introduced to a cure for this affliction: the read-later app.

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Metrics: With great power comes great responsibility

I had a few bad experiences with metrics early in my career that made me leery of metrics in general – so leery that I have to confess to shying away from almost all of them. I was fine with the standard agile metrics. Burn-down charts and velocity seemed harmless enough – but beyond those? The thought of proactively using metrics and reports to illuminate issues and drive improvements would always trigger worries about how drastically things could go wrong.

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The power of less specific goals

I’m not a big fan of SMART goals. For as long as I’ve been involved in goal and objective setting for myself and others, I’ve been advised that the right way to construct objectives is to make them SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-Bound. None of this sounds bad on the surface, yet I recall in the early 2000’s making an impassioned plea to my VP at the time against SMART objectives, and I’ve brought up concerns (though less passionately) to other managers since. Why would I argue against such a widely accepted best practice?

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Microservices – trend or fad?

I’ve been reading a lot about microservices lately, starting with the excellent Building Microservices book by Sam Newman, and then devouring various blog articles on the topic – including this article by Martin Fowler and James Lewis which provides a nice introduction if you’re new to the topic. Here’s my take on why this style of architecture is worth paying attention to.

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