• Programming styles and books

    I confess, while I have my CS degree and am well-read, I've never read many of the "classics": Clean Code, Refactoring, The Pragmatic Programmer. So with Sandi Metz's "99 Bottles of OOP" on offer, I thought I'd make a start there.

  • Coding for fun

    Back at the end of 2020, Jhey Tompkins wrote an excellent article titled “Playfulness In Code: Supercharge Your Learning By Having Fun“. I loved this article and though the examples in it were more visually playful than technologically playful (and yes, HTML and CSS are technological – I just couldn’t find a better way to […]

  • Not all software development processes are equal

    Coding is easy / software engineering is hard – we need more engineers! Foreward: This post has been in my drafts for ages. I’m hesitant to publish because…well…how could little old me have a valid critique of such a software engineering giant? Yet I keep reading it and I’m really happy with what I’ve written […]

  • Pre-Brexit Price Risk-Reduction Tip

    "Brexit" is/might be coming. Is there an opportunity to get some cash in the bank and help out your customers at the same time?

  • Open Source vs Commercial Off-the-Shelf Software

    I think the key difference between open-source and proprietary (closed-source) software isn't openness, documentation, flexibility, or cost. It's that people who write OpenSource software give a damn. They care.

  • I’m a PHP Expert!

    OK, OK, yes, this post is partly blatent self-promotion, but it’s also a moment of honesty and a hopefully-interesting reflection on an interesting little test that I did today.

  • Pimp my browser

    Don't be content with a half-hearted internet-browsing experience!

  • Software Testing

    To miss a simple case like this makes me wonder, not just what other simple errors may not be tested for in my expensive, best-in-class software, but what's happened to software development processes.