Steven Hicks

Recently I had an experience where a conviction and my determination helped me dig deep to solve a problem. When reflecting on it, I started to wonder when conviction is helpful as a developer, and when it is harmful.

I've been thinking this week about code distance — the distance between bits of code that are related to the same feature. I wonder if there's a good metric for this?

I've written far more JavaScript tests than Ruby tests in my life. But every time I write a test in JavaScript, I long for two features from RSpec.

I'm planning to work on a podcast this upcoming winter about how developers work. I'm calling it, fittingly, "How Devs Work."

Sometimes you want to write tests for a business rule that's based on multiple variables. Covering every possible permutation of the variables quickly becomes unsustainable. I've found myself using a different approach — one test for the positive case, and one test for each variable's negative case.