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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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Line drawing of a rocky mountain peak with a base camp and people building structures

Quality you can’t generate: AI is only as good as your constraints

AI changed the cost structure of software. It didn't change the value structure. The value is no longer the code you write. It's the taste, judgment, and constraints you encode into the system that shapes what AI produces.

Dave Mosher

A figure looks off towards the horizon. On the left is a giant robot, on the right a splash of vibrant color, connected nodes and a city unfurl.

Why we're not chasing the AI hype (And what we're doing instead)

Todd Kaufman

Speed is a side effect of making the system work

Doc Norton

Maximize software investment

Rubber duck in fedora and trench coat stands next to a vintage microphone

IndyPy Talk: Pydantically perfect in every way

Kyle Adams

Software tooling & tips

Double Takes

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Double Takes

TDDing with Claude is like having a pair that removes all the failing assertions every time you go to the bathroom.

Steve Jackson

State machines are the answer for those seeking determinism in the era of AI agents.

Dave Mosher

A Slack conversation left Doc reflecting on what bug bashes say about the systems we work in.

Doc Norton

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

Testing ESM with Mocha and testdouble.js

Dive into the world of ESM testing in Node.js with this detailed comparison of Mocha and Jest. Learn from my failures and find out what finally worked!

Pam-Marie Guzzo

Pam-Marie Guzzo

testing

javascript

node.js

automation

Double Agent Profile: Anya Iverova

Anya Iverova

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Why junior developers are seriously awesome

Explore how bringing junior developers into your team can infuse fresh ideas, improve diversity, and boost overall code quality. Embrace the potential of early-career talent.

Pam-Marie Guzzo

Pam-Marie Guzzo

Communication & teams

teams

professional-growth

communication

Double Agent Profile: Glenn Harmon

Glenn Harmon

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Understanding product engineering vs. consulting

Dive into the key differences between product engineering and software consulting. Find out where you fit best and how to shape your ideal tech career!

Alex Martin

Recruiting & careers

consulting

Double Agent Profile: Viral Patel

Viral Patel

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Double Agent Profile: Daniel Flynn

Daniel Flynn

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Search results for how to build a search engine with Ruby on Rails followed by suggested searches all answered in this post

How to build a search engine with Ruby on Rails

Implementing search in your Rails app can be vexing. Here's a great pattern to use that combines the best parts of ActiveRecord and Postgres.

Justin Searls

Software tooling & tips

ruby

rails

postgres

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