Recent Articles - Opinion
I Don't Want to Have to Think About It
Jul 26, 2025 · 6 min read
I spent a substantial amount of time in the first half of 2025 ensuring that I don't have to think about microservices my team owns that have a low rate of change.
Amortize Your Learning by Writing How-To Guides
Mar 4, 2024 · 6 min read
The time required to learn something new can be large, but you can make that cost worth it by teaching it to others.
Your Standup is Too Long
Aug 8, 2022 · 8 min read
The Agile Alliance recommends 15 minutes every day, I would recommend even shorter and less often.
Building Team Connection with Personal Fist to Five
Aug 7, 2022 · 4 min read
Fist to five is a technique for gauging consensus on a prompt, but it can also be used to build connections within teams.
Avoiding Blanket Statements
May 6, 2022 · 6 min read
One part of emotional intelligence is understanding how our words impact others.
Being Critical of Past Developers
May 14, 2020 · 2 min read
How were those past developers of this project so very wrong?
Pull Requests Welcome™
Feb 15, 2020 · 5 min read
Developers like to complain. We'll complain about lack of documentation, lack of tests, choice of framework, choice of linter settings, and so on. My response to it? Pull requests welcome.
Why You Should Use UUIDs for Your Primary Keys
Jan 30, 2020 · 4 min read
Universally unique identifiers (UUIDs) are 128-bit (16-byte) numbers that are designed to be globally unique, and as a result they make for great primary keys.