Code Obsession

Technical debt is a metaphor which is thrown around a lot, but what is is really? In this episode, Dave and Allan discuss the metaphor and how well it holds up when compared to financial debt. Regardless of the name, we have to spend time and money addressing this unavoidable, perennial problem. So what can we do about it? https://crafting-code-podcast.github.io/episodes/023-technical-debt.html

Software frameworks are so useful we can hardly imagine working without them. Yet they have an insidious tendency to invade, corrupt, and wrest control away from us. In this episode, your hosts discuss the good and bad of frameworks and offer some suggestions for keeping them at arm's length. https://crafting-code-podcast.github.io/episodes/022-fending-off-frameworks.html

In this episode, your hosts (finally!) share some actual code examples to illustrate some of our thoughts about crafting code. Follow along with the code at https://github.com/crafting-code-podcast/crafting-katas as we discuss how we implemented Conway's Game of Life in multiple languages. Testing strategies, optimizations, and feedback loops all demonstrate that crafting code is ultimately an iterative process. https://crafting-code-podcast.github.io/episodes/021-crafting-katas.html

 The works of Edsger W. Dijkstra have made a huge impact on the software industry. In this episode, your hosts dive into his paper, The Humble Programmer ( https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/355604.361591?download=true ), to discuss how well it holds up to today's programming world. We cover hardware, cleverness, abstraction, proofs, and more. Even when we disagree with his specifics, we find ourselves still nodding in general agreement. https://crafting-code-podcast.github.io/episodes/020-the-humble-programmer.html

There are many benefits to having communities of practice, so long as the community continues to exist. In this episode, special guests Jon Turner and Neil Sorensen discuss what they've learned over their many years attending and facilitating the Utah Software Craftsmanship group ( http://utahsc.org/ ). Listen here:  https://crafting-code-podcast.github.io/episodes/019-sustaining-communities.html

Allan published the latest episode of our podcast. Matt, Allan, and I talk about complexity in software development systems. You can find it here: https://crafting-code-podcast.github.io/episodes/018-searching-for-simple-tools.html

On 13 June 2019, I had the opportunity to speak at Utah .NET Meetup in Salt Lake City, Utah. Code Reviews (Don't have to Suck) - 13 June 2013 According to a 2016 survey by Smart Bear Software code reviews are the #1 way to improve code quality. Come to this session to learn the benefits of reviewing code, as well as different tools and techniques for conducting code reviews. Surprise twist; the best way to code review is to pair or mob, so we had a small group mob on a kata for the last 20 minutes. Info about the meetup can be found  here . The slides for Code Reviews can be found   here .