I just completed the second and final weekend of a two-weekend hackathon with a 3 month gap in-between the weekends. I was joined by an old friend turned developer in the interest of creating a small project together. Our requirements included project self sufficiency and limited future maintenance. …

(ANGEL SHOULDER) AWS Lambda: I love it! Quick, easy deployments and a better model for more granular on-demand pricing. (DEVIL SHOULDER) AWS Lambda: I’m feeling JavaScript fatigue again. …

The first time you pad an estimate, you’ll feel guilty for all the extra money you’re about to make. The last time you do it, you realize you’re accounting for what you’re about to lose. Client: Asks for a new feature Me: Recognizes I can build this simple feature for $100.00…

Last night I had the pleasure of participating in and mostly listening to the speakers at the NYC Ethereum meetup. I met some great people. I took some notes, and decided it was a good opportunity to document some of the ideas coming from this vibrant and growing community. For…

I’ve been thinking for a few years about the plight of the quickly reproducing alien termite race that is npm modules. It’s no secret that this community sets the records on module creation, adoption, and eventual abandonment. In the face of rapid change, it’s a human reaction to cling to…

I’m a developer. I like text editors. I like code. I like markup. Like many 90s kids, my early skills were forged in the fires of Adobe Dreamweaver, Microsoft FrontPage, and GeoCities. Finding the right mix of WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) web development seemed to be…

If you’re just tuning in, allow me to get you up to speed. This article is part three. Part three of a five part series introducing the various techniques in which team leaders and architects can make their projects contributor ready. The target audience is those with new or relatively…

Two weeks ago, I introduced my manifesto for contributor readiness in this article. To American readers a manifesto sounds somewhat sinister. Let’s just say I am taking back the term and using it the way British politicians do. As I mentioned at the time. A project cannot be considered…

We all knew that kid growing up. I can still picture my friend Tommy’s basement. Tommy had all the latest toys. Electronics, miniature cars, sports equipment, collectibles, he even had the toys that I was told were ‘too expensive… I’ll talk to your father’ — Mom Tommy’s home was a…