Dragan Stepanović

Systems > SMART goals - especially in software development In April, I participated in the Berlin company run for the second time. So I was interested to see how I did compared to last year. I don't use Strava or heart rate monitors much, so I didn't know what to expect. Still, I was pretty sure I could beat last year's performance. That's because I've been doing a variety of workouts 5 times a week for the past few months. 📌 Set up a good system and the score takes care of itself The same goes for software development. If you want to increase your test coverage, start pair or ensemble programming on tests. If you want to get better at public speaking, find ways to practice in meetups and team all-hands. If you want to make progress on your project, start with a workshop and have regular discussions on Slack and in meetings. SMART goals makes sense when you have predictable processes. I don't find that useful in software development or in my personal life. And not motivating either.

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Developers these days are so darned lazy. And cheap. OK, sorry, that was not fair. Developers have always been lazy and cheap. I was really surprised by this when I started out as a software developer, fresh out of college 25 years ago. I noticed that whenever my more experienced colleagues were asked to add new functionality, the first thing they did was to check if there was pre-existing code that did the job. Preferably free. This blew my mind. But as I thought more about it, it made sense. Especially after I attended a Business Strategy class at Southern Methodist University SMU Cox School of Business. Build vs Buy vs Reuse is a part of Business Strategy. Why build or buy something if it is freely available? When we start with something good-enough that is freely available, we can customize it to our needs. And if it is well-maintained, we get free upgrades. This frees up more time and money for us to build things that no one else can build as well as us, which makes customers very happy. It reduced the TCO (total cost of ownership) of our solutions and it increases our EBITDA, which usually makes investors very happy, which makes the board of directors very happy. So it turns out that developers are not only lazy and cheap, but they are also strategic and there is a lot we can learn from them. Especially when it comes to building Software Product Development Lifecycles. You may be tempted to reject the pre-existing frameworks and build your own because none of them are good enough for you. Newsflash! You might think you are unique and special and nobody is solving the specific kinds of problems you are. Maybe yes, maybe no. You are just as unique as every other snowflake. And while you might be doing something nobody else has done before, you don't need to develop your own SDLC. Think like a developer. Be lazy, cheap and strategic. Start with a pre-existing framework, make use of all the free training available on the market, and customize only what you need to. Your EBITDA will go up and your customers, investors and Board of Directors will be happy. You are welcome.

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Nobody wants to spend +𝟭𝟬𝟬𝗸 𝗼𝗻 𝗱𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀. But many do and 𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗹𝘆 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗽𝗮𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆 they hired. It's not because the developers they hired were necessarily inexperienced. But the process and pricing were simply off. Many are aware of the downfall of hourly pricing - and ask for fixed pricing. Which is not much better if done poorly. Check this blog post if you want to build software with a tighter budget and still get what you want. We are expensive at first, but only because we save you much more than you spend. Pricing software projects the right way: https://lnkd.in/dQfPwm5P

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RSVP - May 10: https://lnkd.in/eUhuQQAM Not So Extreme Programming, with Amitai Schleier Summary: Where " #agile " sounds pleasant and inclusive, " #extremeprogramming "... doesn't. But it's a differentiator: teams practicing #xp are seen to move with uncommon agility. The name has other problems, too. For one, XP is about much more than programming. For another, when compared with other ways software still gets developed, XP is much *less* extreme. This talk -- for anyone involved with Agile in any role, at any scale -- will take you through where Extreme Programming came from, where it's going, what it requires, why it remains as relevant as ever, and how to take advantage. NB: For additional agile engineering references, please visit this page: https://lnkd.in/eSN4gaEK RSVP: https://lnkd.in/eUhuQQAM #morewithless Bastiaan van Hamersveld Frans Meuwissen

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My slides from yesterday's presentation at DevOpsCon Berlin are now available: Gamify it until you make it Improving Agile Development and Operations with Gamification https://buff.ly/4b2UQuE So many challenges, so little time. While we’re busy developing software and keeping it operational, we also need to sharpen the saw, but how? Gamification can be a way to look at how you’re doing and find out where to improve. It’s a great way to have everyone involved and get the best out of people. In this presentation, Ben Linders will show how playing games with the DevOps coaching cards can help to explore your current development and deployment (DevOps) practices and decide as a team what to improve or experiment with. The games that we play are based on an engagement model. Instead of imposing change, the games enable people to pull in ideas for change and apply those in a way that best suits their collective needs. By playing games, you can learn from each other. Teams can use games, exercises, and coaching cards to discuss values, principles, and practices, and share their experiences and learnings. Different game formats can be used to share experiences on DevOps principles and practices and explore how they can be applied effectively. This presentation provides an overview of playing formats and will inspire you to come up with your own formats.

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Klaus Häuptle recently announced the release of the 4th book supporting developer engineers in writing clean code: Clean SAPUI5 [https://lnkd.in/epmsdgWe]. This reminds me of what I learned 4 decades ago with ELAN. The programming language ELAN [https://bit.ly/47gR6W0] was widely used in school computer science classes and was especially popular in Germany during the 1980s and 1990s. It emphasized structured programming, clear logical thinking, and focused on modularity and algorithmic precision. With these principles in mind, even complex challenges can be broken down into maintainable and efficient code. Proof of concept was the multiuser operating system EUMEL [https://bit.ly/3Tks1ns] mainly based on ELAN.   Having ELAN, EUMEL and the 8 inch floppy disk in good memories, I wonder if anyone has had the idea to make it run on a Pi ;-)

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Idea of training sessions for developers. Start with the problem. Not the solution. Way way too many "training" sessions or courses I've been on just jump straight into the solution. "Here's why DDD is great! Here's what it is! It's super cool! Let's talk about aggregates!" I want to see training where it starts out with the problem the tech is trying to solve. Even better... why not show 6 problems ... and start explaining WHY you'd use whatever technique you're talking about for some of the examples and not others. Talk about the ideal fit for the technology in problems. This would do a few things: 1. Reduce anxiety - whenever I hear about a new technique I'm worried. "What are they not telling me?" 2. More practical - applied to real life. No training exists in a vacuum. 3. Applied - by showing when you'd use the topic and when not this empowers your students to apply the idea when it makes sense. This means students can go away and use your technique or tech when it really shines. This avoids the "every problem looks like a nail" issue. And yet so few do it. Why? Post your theories below.

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I'm very interested in how companies manage to combine business and open source, and this interest has grown since I joined Storyblok. At Storyblok we have an entire team dedicated to open source SDKs, and most of the engineers who build our headless CMS also contribute and maintain our packages. This costs money, of course, and comes with other problems, such as having to maintain not just one product, but a collection of tools exposed to the public, each potentially with its own set of problems and maintenance overhead. Why do we do this? This is not an easy question, and I think many companies and individuals can answer it in different ways. My entire career has been built on open source, so I know many of its benefits, but for a company it's different, and I'm starting to find some interesting answers. For starters, open sourcing our SDKs and tools promotes transparency, allowing developers to understand and trust our integrations. It also fosters innovation through collaboration, leveraging the collective expertise of the global developer community. This accelerates problem solving and creates valuable learning resources for developers at all levels. And engineers are happier when they contribute to open source, which is no small thing. I'm curious, what are your thoughts on the role of open source in business? I will continue my exploration... #opensource #business

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"Our documentation is great!" said no one ever. It is always interesting to talk to folks about this problem. It'ss a problem that can be hard to grasp, measure, and even harder to solve. That is; unless you think about it in a different way. A little bit of simplification, structure, and even some AI might do the trick. I also found a new AI tool, Unblocked, while at LambdaConf this week. I am excited to start experimenting with Unblocked and think it could be a game changer when it comes to managing documents across an organization. Check out my latest article where I talk about #knowledgemanagment. Dennis Pilarinos Daniel Horton

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Microservices architecture provides a good solution for multi-team development. Sadly, organizations are seldom aware of the associated high DevOps costs. Often a modular monolith would be more cost-effective and still support parallel development. Later, if necessary (Meaning that there are tens of thousands of concurrent users), you can migrate to a distributed (micro-)service architecture. I often see companies jumping on the microservice train and complaining later about the costs of their solution. I strongly advise: "Think big, Start small".

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So I was told to to make a small simple tool for analysing "issues"/"inconsistencies" in a huge real-life database - and they can get pretty dirty - as some of you may know. This tool I made in Java. We expected to use it maybe once or twice to clean up the database and then never use it again. So the question was: Should I skip my usual TDD approach and just write the unholy thing? I mean, this is code that we need NOW, we will use it a couple of times, and then never again. If there ever was a scenario where one could relax ones principles, this must be it. Thank God I didn't! I took the TDD approach and I must admit that I was surprised how many stupid mistakes I made along the way - but they were all revealed by my tests. Additionally I discovered significant holes in our original idea, but I discovered them early in the process by writing the tests, since if you are trying to do something that doesn't really make sense or have logical flaws, it is impossible to write a test for it. This gave us a chance to discuss and refine what we were trying to do. It took a day writing the tool and I ended up with approx 2 "pages" of application code and 6 "pages" of unit test code. Yesterday I ran the tool, got the result, sent it to the domain experts, got feedback today. They like it, but guess what! They want changes to it! Not major changes, but still changes that may break things, so now I'm happy for the tests. If I hadn't used TDD I would likely still be hacking away at my "simple tool" and debugging and getting more and more stressed about when I was going to finish. The "take home message" is: TDD is more efficient in the short term as well as in the long term. It is especially valuable for startups and other scenarios where working software is needed FAST under strict deadlines.

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RECORDING: Not So Extreme Programming, with Amitai Schleier https://lnkd.in/eQ627KPk Where "#agile" sounds pleasant and inclusive, "#extremeprogramming"... doesn't. But it's a differentiator: teams practicing #xp are seen to move with uncommon agility. The name has other problems, too. For one, XP is about much more than programming. For another, when compared with other ways software still gets developed, XP is much *less* extreme. This talk -- for anyone involved with Agile in any role, at any scale -- will take you through where Extreme Programming came from, where it's going, what it requires, why it remains as relevant as ever, and how to take advantage. RECORDING: Not So Extreme Programming, with Amitai Schleier https://lnkd.in/eQ627KPk #morewithless #agileengineering #organizationaldesign Frans Meuwissen Bastiaan van Hamersveld

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😈 API horror stories! 😈 Many API design issues stem from the same root cause. We don't treat API design with the same care as UI/UX design. Despite many companies claiming to be API first, they treat APIs as a way to deliver a cool UI/UX feature rather than a tool to be crafted and an end product that developers use. 🤯 Inconsistent or unexpected APIs surface: For example, a well-known cloud storage solution sometimes requires data to be sent via headers rather than in a request body or a query string. Every time this area of code needs to be touched or understood it's back to the API docs. 💯 Too many/confusing input parameters: As APIs grow over time and features get added, developers can cut corners, often for valid reasons, and a simple call can become a nightmare to use. A good example is an Invoice API I worked on. When it came time to add receipt functionality, we tried to repurpose the API into a general Document API; it was a nightmare, and we scrapped it almost immediately after developer feedback. 🥴 Too granular: We all know those API workflows where it takes 30 API calls to render a dashboard; this is a DX nightmare and leads to brittle features when some of the calls fail. I'm not a fan of creating APIs based on UX/UI flows, but when it takes several calls to render a screen, it often means the API is missing a concept. 📒 Bad documentation: The whole purpose of an API is to simplify achieving a goal; one could have the best API in the world, but without documentation, using it will be trial and error. ❎ Success with an error message: 200 OK { err: 'bad request' } - need I say more? Respond with appropriate HTTP status codes unless you are building a hypermedia API. What pet peeves/API horror stories have you experienced?

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👉We have been chatting to a couple of new clients in Germany this week, about using freelance Developers/Engineers outside of Germany (Nearshore), the same questions pop up; ✔How do we know if they are good or not? ✔How much can we save? ✔How quickly can they start? 👀Like anything, there is pros and cons to everywhere, but we have built a network of Freelance Nearshore Engineers who have been rigorously vetted with technical expertise guaranteed, that could save you a 50% reduction on your current freelance rates. If you are interested to understand more about this option and how this could help your business. 🚨Feel free to book a call in my Calendly and let’s see if we can help - https://lnkd.in/eygXyhaz

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Playwright is without a doubt one of the most popular testing libraries out there at the moment. But what makes it so popular? How does it work? What can Playwright (not) do for you? What makes it different from other tools out there? To address all these questions, I’ve created my one-day Playwright workshop, where you’ll learn everything you need to know to get started using Playwright for your test automation efforts through a range of hands on exercises. The best way to learn is by doing, after all! Need some help transferring what you’ve learned to your own context? I’m happy to offer you a package deal where after the workshop, we’ll work together on building the first Playwright tests in your context, for your applications, bring them under version control and make them part of your CI pipeline. In other words, we’ll go through the challenge of transferring what you learned in the workshop to your specific context together. This will significantly boost the ROI of the workshop. More information? Link to the workshop description in the first comment. I’m looking forward to working with you.

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Clean architecture is great, but too often misinterpreted. In my opinion, It's not a rigid framework to follow blindly, It's a set of pragmatic and good sense design principles. Steve Bishop in this nice article highlights some common mistakes, and explains a meaningful alternative in a DDD context. As usual adapt your solution to your context !

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Test organization is so important, I'm including it in my next webinar "10 Tips for Better Playwright Tests". Tuesday 18-Jun Europe: https://lnkd.in/eQYiPPtX US: https://lnkd.in/er7UnZhb #Testing #Playwright #WebTesting #WebAutomation #TestAutomation

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Save the date — the virtual #AgileCampBerlin is back: #Free on Nov 12-14, 2024. Okay, I rebranded it to Hands-on Agile 2024. 🙏 It will be an Open Space, or BarCamp, like the ones we had in 2020 and 2021. The 2024 topic will be: “From Concept-Based to Context-Based Agility.” Stay tuned; I hope I can launch the website next week. Useful? Like | Repost | Comment

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