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How-to guides, tooling tips and real-world advice for developers and product managers tired of broken software. Let’s fix this mess together.

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How-to guides, tooling tips and real-world advice for developers and product managers tired of broken software. Let’s fix this mess together.

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Dumpster fire next to a bike shed

You’re holding it wrong! The double loop model for agentic coding

Joé Dupuis has noticed an influx of videos and blog posts about the "correct" way of working with AI agents. Joé thinks most of it is bad advice, and has a better approach he wants to show you.

Joé Dupuis

Accelerate quality software

Don't play it safe: Improve your continuous discovery process to reduce risk

Doc Norton

Product management

Line chart increasing from left to right

How an early-stage startup engineering team improved the bottom line fast

Jonathon Baugh

Maximize software investment

Desktop computer with session flow chart and security lock

End-to-End Testing Auth Flows with Playwright and Next.js

Dave Mosher

Double Takes

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Double Takes

Whenever this kind of thing happens, the biggest mindset shift is not going from single tool to platform (though that's useful to translate to business use cases), it's what happens when you realize there's an entire ecosystem at play here. 🤯

Cathy Colliver

TIL you can use redirect.github.com in links to avoid a back reference being created on github from commits, comments, PRs, etc.

Jason Karns

Test-driven development is to programming what double-entry bookkeeping is to accounting.

Neal Lindsay

The fundamental character flaw of the software creator is not the misguided belief that they can solve any problem with software. Instead, it is the belief they can understand how their own software works before they create it.

Steve Jackson

We may need a SaaS appendix for Zawinski's law:

Any SaaS platform attempts to expand until it is a social network.

Matt Jones

Wow, 1 month for a rewrite seems a little aggressive.

Dustin Tinney

Three people embark on a journey

ESOP explained: How employee ownership really works at Test Double

Being 100% employee-owned means every Test Double agent shares in the company’s success. Here’s how our ESOP works and why it matters.

Todd Kaufman

Communication & teams

teams

communication

community

esop

esop

Gauge dial with icons of happy face, arrow, and dollar sign

Audentes Fortuna Iuvat: being bold amidst uncertainty

What should businesses do in the face of uncertainty? This is not the first time leaders are dealing with strange economic environments, and it won’t be the last.

Ed Frank

Maximize software investment

budgeting

efficient software

eliminate-waste

outcomes-over-outputs

Rubber duck wearing a trench coat and fedora against a colorful background

LLMallard: the low-key AI chat bot you secretly need

The most perfect dev workflow for taking advantage of deeply powerful AI tooling that’s hyper efficient on token usage with minimal API calls—and the perfect pair programming partner.

Daniel Huss

Software tooling & tips

ai-ml

communication

developer-experience

productivity

Complex system of gears and pipes

Why we coach the system, not just the team

Slow delivery isn’t usually about your people—it’s about your system. Shifting focus to incremental improvements in the system helps change not just processes but behaviors for lasting change.

Doc Norton

Future-proof innovative software

communication

teams

scaling-challenges

consulting

Clipboard with QA checklist and pen

Developer QA checklist for feature releases

Quality Assurance is a mindset integrated throughout development to catch issues early, build user trust, and reduce maintenance costs. These recommended procedures for dev teams without dedicated QA roles establish collective responsibility for ensuring feature stability, functionality, and usability before release.

Lee Quarella

Software tooling & tips

testing

developer-experience

quality

Two people view flow charts and mechanical fishes overlayed against a landscape backdrop and a compass

From engineer to consultant: The powerful shift from inward to outward focus

What transforms a skilled software engineer into an exceptional consultant? Approach new codebases with respect rather than judgment, embrace constraints as creative boundaries, and prioritize client needs over personal preferences.

Dave Mosher

Recruiting & careers

communication

consulting

professional-growth

teams

Steam punk chart showing trend line of data

Better alternatives to story points for software product teams

Story points weren't devised to measure productivity, but rather complexity. But teams keep using story points as individual or team productivity "score cards". Here's why that's a problem, and what to use instead.

Tammy Lawlor

Product management

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Developers need more context than you think they do. Here’s why.

Building software without context leads to wasted time, bad decisions, and frustrated teams. Here’s how to fix it and build software that actually matters.

Kate McGinty

Communication & teams

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