Make Better Software

In this interview with Justin Searls, Co-Founder at development agency Test Double, we discuss issues in open source software and what we can do about them. Justin raises problems for both consumers and contributors - like managing hundreds of dependencies to security issues and burnt-out maintainers. We dive into the efforts being made to address these and what you can do too.

In this interview with Ed Finkler, Lead Developer and Head of Developer Culture at Graph Story, we discuss soft skills that are important for developers. We dive into how things like humility and empathy impact your effectiveness as a developer, as well as ways to ensure you're always learning and how you can give back to the community.

In this interview with Yitzchok Willroth, aka CodeRabbi, we discuss how he has applied Talmudic Maxims to improve Software Engineering practices at Grovo. We cover how in teaching others we can develop ourselves, the benefits of pair programming, how you can get product and engineering teams to work closely together and important metrics to focus engineering teams.

In this interview with Coraline Ada Ehmke, Lead Software Engineer at Instructure, we discuss data-driven refactoring and developer happiness teams. Coraline gives some great advice on the kinds of tests we should write for refactoring, tools to use and metrics to monitor, to make sure our refactoring is effective. We also learn about the role of refactoring in the Developer Happiness team at Instructure.

In this interview with Oren Ellenbogen, author of 'Leading Snowflakes', we discuss development team leadership. We dive into the things great engineering managers focus on, how to 'code review' management decisions, keep code quality high and developers happy, as well as work well with other teams.

In this podcast, coinciding with Fog Creek’s 15th Anniversary, we take a look back over the years at the various successes and failures we’ve had at Fog Creek. We discuss the early days of Fog Creek and how we recovered from a doomed first product. As well as dealing with technical debt, the missed opportunities we’ve had along the way, and what we’ve learned from them. We also get into how we develop new products and the impact of bootstrapping, before finishing with tips for those starting companies themselves. Contributors are: * Joel Spolsky – Co-Founder of Fog Creek, CEO of Stack Overflow and Founder of Trello * Michael Pryor – Co-Founder and President of Fog Creek, Board Member at Stack Overflow and Trello Founder and CEO * David Fullerton – Former Fog Creek Developer, now VP Engineering at Stack Overflow * Justin Gallagher – Former Fog Creek Program Manager, now VP Product at Trello * Jack Bowman – Veteran FogBugz Developer at Fog Creek * Allie Schwartz – Host of the Podcast and VP People at Fog Creek

In this interview with Kerri Miller, Lead Software Engineer at LivingSocial, we discuss how to hire and interview developers. We typically don't get trained on interviewing and we've all experienced the haphazard approaches of those new to it - poor organization, repeated questions, fizzbuzz... Kerri tells us how to run interview days, the types of questions to ask, how else we can evaluate candidates and what to do after the interview.

In this interview with Matt Wynne, Co-founder of Cucumber Ltd. and author of The Cucumber Book, we discuss Behavior-driven Development. We go into the typical problems Agile teams have, and how BDD can help. Including the importance of conversations, automated testing and concrete examples. We also discuss common mistakes made by those new to BDD and its drawbacks.

In this interview with Kate Heddleston, an independent Product Engineer, we discuss technical onboarding. We cover why onboarding is important, the essential elements to effectively onboard engineers, the areas you should focus on, who should do it as well as common mistakes made.

In this interview with Rachel Ober, Senior Developer at Paperless Post, we discuss developer mentoring. Rachel teaches us the lessons learned from mentoring developers at Paperless Post, General Assembly, Turing School and beyond. These cover how to get started, tips on building successful mentor-mentee relationships, the benefits of mentoring as well as common mistakes.

In this interview with Ernie Miller, VP Engineering at nVisium, we discuss Humane Development - a development approach that prioritizes developer happiness and the human element of software development. We discuss what Humane Development is, its benefits and how to put it into practice.

In this interview with Roy Osherove, author of 'Notes to a Software Team Leader', we discuss how you grow self-organizing software teams. We cover the importance of developing team members, different phases of leadership, code reviews, and some common mistakes made by new tech leads.

In this interview with Pete Goodliffe, author of 'Becoming a Better Programmer', we dive into the non-coding issues that separate the good from the great developers. We cover things like attitude, communication skills, managing complexity and what you can do to learn more and keep your skills up to date.

In this interview with Cal Evans, author of 'Culture of Respect', we discuss how to find, hire, and retain Developers. He gives tips on where to find great developers, how to write job ads which appeal to them and how to interview them. We also discuss ways to build great team culture.

In this interview, Laurent Bossavit debunks myths common in Software Engineering. He explains the findings of his research into the primary sources behind theories like the 10x Programmer and the Exponential Defect Cost Curve.

In this interview with Jay Fields, we discuss Unit Testing. How to write tests that are maintainable and can be used by all team members, when to use TDD, the limits of DRY within tests and how to approach adding tests to untested codebases.

Interview with Pat Kua, discussing becoming a Tech Lead - important aspects of the role, common mistakes made by those new to it, and recommended resources to learn more about how to be successful as a Tech Lead.