I read. A lot. And I share the 5 best things I read every week.
1. Bloatware and the 80/20 myth
2. The best error message troll. Ever.
3. How Spring security hooks to CAS
4. The hazards of going on auto-pilot
5. Information immunity
My notes
1. Bloatware and the 80/20 myth
I needed to reread this article. Primarily to balance out my bias for removing features from a product. I was assessing the deploy readiness for a brand new product that Qxf2 Services is currently testing. I noticed a number of low impact features and business rules designed primarily for a small subset of clients. I started noting down arguments for removing these features and business rules but then remembered this Joel Spolsky’s article.
2. The best error message troll. Ever.
If I ever develop a product, I am designing all my error dialogs like this.
3. How Spring security hooks to CAS
I already knew this. Sort of. But the sequence state diagram in this post is the clearest representation that I have seen of how Spring security hooks into CAS.
4. The hazards of going on auto-pilot
Here we go again. More on the testing vs checking theme. As a tester, I resent that the impact of automated checks are often over-estimated by the vast majority of my software colleagues. This article has a few gems. The point about skill atrophy and the point about industries where automation is nascent needing to learn from the mistakes that occurred in automating the cockpit deeply resonate with me.
5. Information immunity
This is a (yet another) fantastic article by Jerry Weinberg. I’m a big fan. I often marvel at how far ahead his vision, thoughts and ideas about software are. The article applies to developers, product managers, testers, business analyts, management, etc. Irrespective of your job role, if you work with software, read it!
I want to find out what conditions produce remarkable software. A few years ago, I chose to work as the first professional tester at a startup. I successfully won credibility for testers and established a world-class team. I have lead the testing for early versions of multiple products. Today, I run Qxf2 Services. Qxf2 provides software testing services for startups. If you are interested in what Qxf2 offers or simply want to talk about testing, you can contact me at: [email protected]. I like testing, math, chess and dogs.
