This Is My Opinion! Before reading too much into this, this is simply my opinion of agile development.  While it is flavored towards software, it could be used for other creative processes. In addition, I am not an “expert” per se with Agile practices.  I very well could misrepresent a fundamental concept.  Either way, I […]

The Problem In my previous post, I outlined how Python makes development a lot faster. Unfortunately, Python’s lack of a static type checker can really hinder development in large applications. As a great example, I was working on some slightly older code just a few days ago.  This code had not been touched in probably […]

Python is a dynamic language.  In a nutshell, this means it is really easy to develop something quickly.  This fits in really well with a lot of the programming environments I have been in: we must have it finished yesterday! In addition, Python is quick to learn.  If you are familiar with an existing programming […]

If this post resonates with you, and you would like help becoming more proactive, send me an email (tim [at] developerautomation.com) or leave a comment!  This habit can drastically change not only your career but your entire life. What Does It Mean to Be Proactive? I have recently started reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective […]

Where’s the Hardware? In the embedded software development world, I have run into a common issue.  The company is developing a new embedded board.  It is supposed to be delivered in a month.  Hardware will not be available to developers until two weeks before the board gets delivered. The best case scenario would be to […]

What Is Docker Toolbox? Docker Toolbox is a way to run Docker on Windows or Mac. Docker is run within a VirtualBox VM.  In order to interact with the Docker daemon in that VM, command-line executables are added to the path. Docker Toolbox is a clever way to use Docker on non-Linux machines.  That being […]

I am a huge fan of Docker.  Being able to replicate the exact environment in both development and production is very valuable.  So I was quite excited when I learned Windows 10 has Docker for Windows. Docker for Windows has better support than Docker toolbox.  The main feature, in my opinion, is the ability to […]

My Blogging Schedule I make a point of posting every Tuesday and Thursday on this blog.  I’ve been consistently doing this for several months now. Weather conditions over this week have broken some habits.  In particular, I have not written these blog posts as early as I normally would have. This has led me to […]

What Is Flexible Code? I may have made up the term “flexible code”.  Oh well.  Flexible code to me means the architecture can be changed easily (and support multiple integrations easily). I once read in a software architecture book that the best architects don’t immediately answer software architecture questions.  They keep pushing them off to […]

What are Regular Expressions? For those that don’t know, regexes are text patterns used to search or find and replace text.  For example, the asterisk (*) usually means to match anything. You can use a regular expression to change lots of code or text to something else.  Rather than manually replace a lot of text, […]