software engineering

A collection of 131 posts

java

Java Micro benchmarks (or how to enjoy holidays)

Brief tutorial for setting up a jmh project to measure performance of java code using micro benchmarks

testing

Isolating integration tests from external HTTP services with Talkback

A good test (be it unit or integration) should be fast, isolated, repeatable and in total control of its context. If you're doing integration tests that make real HTTP calls to external services, you're instantly breaking those 4 requirements.

docker

First steps on container orchestration using Docker Swarm

Nowadays Docker is an essential tool. As the infrastructure grows, the process becomes more complicate if we don't have specific tools. The solution: swarm

angular

Environment-based substitution in Angular 4

In this post we’ll cover the necessary knowledge to implement environment-based substitution. What do we mean by environment-based substitution? Environment-based substitution is being able to dynamically change the objects used by an application, based on the environment, using Angular’s dependency injection feature. We will begin by learning a

svg animations Featured

Creating SVG animations with Snap.svg

Animations can go a long way in making your application feel more attactive, friendly and immersive. Using SVG as the foundation of them, you'll get resolution independent, responsive animations, that might otherwise be difficult to build. Let's see how we can create one...

security

How to communicate via HTTPS between two Tomcat servers using a self-signed certificate

TL;DR There is no need to pay for an SSL certificate in order to communicate two applications through a REST API over HTTPS. You just need to know a few things about Java keytool and a little bit of setup to make it work! Why? REST APIs have become

experience

When we get stuck

Have you ever been in that position where your code does not progress? Being such a common problem in our daily work, I have been able to collect some helpful tips that help to overcome this state, which prevents us from keeping our usual flow.

technical debt

Technical Debt: the most forgotten (and hated) feature

Is technical debt an issue that only appears in an ongoing project or it is something that starts at the beginning? Let's say I believe it's the latter. I'm going to try to convince you of how I arrived to that conclusion, or at

elixir

Dissecting a fresh Elixir application

In this post we will explaining some key concepts of the Elixir language using the code generated by the Phoenix project template and some handpicked examples.

css Featured

CSS: From I hate it, to I actually like this thing

Do you feel hopeless when you have to work with css? Anxious knowing the site will break the minute you add a minor change to the styling? No more my friend! These 9 steps will make your life easier!

code quality Featured

The Many Facets Of Quality

Some time ago, in a talk, someone asked "What is software quality, what gives quality to software?". My immediate half-joking answer was "Software shouldn't get in my way, that's quality!". It was a half-truth, or a quarter-truth, because really, software quality is

experience

From a newbie, to a newbie

It's been less than a year since I joined 10Pines, and a little more than two since I started working officialy as a programmer. I don't like calling myself a junior developer because seniorities can be easily misused, as their meanings depend on what the person

tdd

An Inverted Test Pyramid

Are you familiar with the concept of a "Test Pyramid"? I’ve been working on a project suffering from an inverted pyramid, and here I share the downsides that relying solely on end-to-end tests might have.

ruby

Collection Filters in Ruby

There should be a filter object, and it should be placed between the user and the filtered object. Imagine you are modeling a person using a pair of glasses...

graphic design

A Little Bit of Color!

You may have never paid close attention to the colors you pick for your web or app, but having a good palette helps organizing the information in your site

git

svn to git

Svn to git, full migration Finally you've decided that git is more suitable than svn for your work. But, what happens when you have projects that where using svn for a while? All of that information represented in thousand of svn revisions is something that normally you don&

development

How, What, Why: The three essences of software development

"Facebook is as much sociology and psychology as it is technology" - Mark Zuckerberg In my previous article, Unitary vs Integral Understanding, I delved into how we understand a part of a system in terms of how it relates to the rest of the system. To recap, Unitary

tests

Be careful with the mocks

Mocking objects is a common practice when writing tests, however it can be painful when refactoring a class tested with mocks. I will show a simple example to explain the problems that mocking can generate

best practices Featured

There are null reasons

This post will try and maybe fail to convince you that using `null` in your code is an error. For those of you willing to listen, here are my reasons to stop using it.

ruby

Ruby On Pains

Have you ever heard about the Rails way? I would like to introduce some pains that I've seen and keep seeing in all the Rails projects due to the Rails way... ActiveRecord How many times do we need to find an object in a Rails project? How many

experience

Learning Programming

Dealing with failure and frustration I’ve recently finished my apprenticeship program here at 10Pines. The experience was way beyond my expectations. Really. I’ve learned much more than I expected. In order to show some of my experience during my time here, I was asked to write a post

best practices

Caring about coding

The Broken Window Theory states that how much people care about something is an important factor in how much you care about the same thing. Can it be applied to our code?

tdd

Tests: Paving our way

Three Months have passed since I started working in 10 Pines as a participant of the apprenticeship program. Although we covered different topics and technologies, one of the things that has touched me most during my short journey as a programmer is that you can actually use your tests as

technical debt

Organizational Debt and The Romantic Dev

Introduction While thinking what I could write about, I remembered a distant sunny afternoon, back at the beginning of my professional experience. I left writings about what is now a possible future post and began to write these words... In my early days on one of the first companies that

migration

How to gently upgrade your Java application

When I think about getting an upgrade I usually picture myself like this: But… as the time passes… I feel like Homer applying for the university, something like: Since in 10Pines we reached a successful migration I want to share with you our experience on the road. Also, I want