I wrote a piece of code recently to follow a linked list. We were linking records together in a way that a few records would normally be grouped together in a tree, with one parent above them all. However, because of the way the records were linked, it was also possible for a loop to occur -- that is A would reference B, B would... Continue reading »
If you're using Capistrano's multi-stage deploy addon, it makes things work really well. Staging servers are excellent for testing and demoing new features and code before releasing it to your users. If you need to change your database.yml files, or another config file, here's a technique for changing passwords or API keys depending on which stage you are deploying to.
In your main... Continue reading »
Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
This Agile principle is such good business advice, I could approach it from many other non-Agile directions. It almost transcends business and applies to all human endeavors.
Starting with the motivation issue. Larry Bossidy, one of the world's top CEOs, says that when hiring,... Continue reading »
Time for Agile principle number four, where we talk about the relationship between product owner and engineer:
Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
In the post on agile principle number two, I gave the example of a Secret Santa management system, as an example of how being able to accommodate changing requirements can benefit a project. As a refresher,... Continue reading »
“United for Families has worked with the excellent staff at Cloudspace for over 5 years. Their work is consistently high quality – whether it be in coding or graphics – and they often know what we need better than we do!”
Tammy Tappan, PMP
Systems Administrator,
United for Families
Last night I was pairing with John on a feature for an upcoming release. I wanted to count the number of rows in a table so we could run analytics and track performance. I <3 metrics, ya know?
"Tim, this is simple. Why are you writing about this?"
And it is simple. If this were MyISAM. See, MyISAM always stores the number of... Continue reading »
Jeremiah Hemphill was hired a little over four weeks ago as an engineer here at Cloudspace. He comes to us from the University of Rochester where he graduated with a double major in Computer Science and Music. He plays the Euphonium, it looks like a tuba but smaller, and is big into robotics. If the last name sounds familiar that because his brother, Jacob Hemphill,... Continue reading »