A Programmer, Refactored
Channel Details
A Programmer, Refactored
A podcast covering all manner of topics related to programmers, software developers, data developers, and other IT folks. Topics range from high-level career observations to more concrete technical discussions. The aim is for us to cover those things we wish someone would have pointed out to us ye...
Recent Episodes
51 episodes
Ep 49, Leadership and Junior Developers
We're all leaders to some degree. Even if your job title doesn't have words like "manager", "architect", or "senior", you're still every week present...
Ep 48, Avoid Dogmatic Thinkers
If you haven't encountered a programmer who's dogmatic about some aspect of their work, you will. Dealing with these software developers can be very...
Ep 47, New Year's Career Assessment
About once a year I like to do a career self-assessment. In this episode, I talk about how I go about doing it, why I think they're important for pro...
Ep 46, Things I Wish I Knew 10 Years Ago: Seniority Doesn't Always Count For Much
Software development is a fast-changing environment. New tech, platforms, libraries, and frameworks seem to come every week. How does being a senior...
Ep 45, Things I Wish I Knew 10 Years Ago, Coding Ability Does Not Determine Career Trajectory
As a young programmer, I figured that my abilities as a developer would be the primary driver of my career trajectory. As the years have gone on, I'v...
Ep 44, Things I Wish I Knew 10 Years Ago: Job Titles Are Often Meaningless
Up until a few years ago, I held this assumption that job titles carry at least some meaning and weight. As I've advanced in my career, I've found th...
Ep 43, Things I Wish I Knew 10 Years Ago: Job Postings Can Be Highly Inaccurate
Programming is unique in that job postings can be...creative with the truth. This is, unfortunately, something we typically only learn after a few ye...
Ep 42, Things I Wish I Knew 10 Years Ago: Friends and Family Have No Idea What You Do
Being a programmer means that often people outside of other developers will have no idea what you do. Trying to explain your career to them will ofte...
Ep 41, Things I Wish I Knew 10 Years Ago: Software Dev Is Often More Hype Driven Than Experience Driven
I like to think that our industry is one such that each generation of programmers builds on the experience of the previous. In some cases, I think th...
Ep 40, Things I Wish I Knew 10 Years Ago: Why Users Use Your Software
We like to think that users use our software because they've evaluated their options and found our software to be the best at enhancing their lives or...
Ep 39, Things I Wish I Knew 10 Years Ago: Code Quality Is Not A Primary Driver Of Success
We talk about code quality a lot, and for good reason, but where does it fall in the list of things that really contribute to a project's success? To...
Ep 38, On Blaming the Last Programmer
Blaming the last programmer. We've all done it. It's practically a time-honored tradition. I find it both fascinating and annoying. In this more l...
Ep 37, On What Makes for Bad Rollouts
Last week I talked about rollouts in general. Today we're going to talk about ways I've seen software rollouts go horribly wrong.
Ep 36, On Rollouts and Harsh Realities
Whatever kind of developer you are, for most of us shipping code is our overall objective. At some point, all the theory about patterns and business...
Ep 35, On Karma, Meritocracies, and Getting What You Deserve
We like to think that people get what they deserve, that their good or bad karma will catch up to them. This is true even of logical thinkers like pr...
Bonus Ep 2, On Professional Expectations and Being Realistic
I expect a lot of myself professionally. That comes largely from my upbringing and my early 20s, and it sometimes causes me to be really hard on myse...
Ep 34, On Trendy Programming and Actually Shipping Code
Incorporating trendy new tech into our projects can be a big temptation. Last week I talked about some of the dangers of doing just that, this week I...
Ep 33, On Fads, Career Burnout, and Standing the Test of Time
Programming, and web dev especially, can be prone to fads. In some respects, they drive innovation, but from another point of view, I think the const...
Bonus Ep 1, Thoughts On Communication, People's Feelings, and Being Diplomatic
I can be a pretty honest and direct guy, and that has gotten me into hot water as a programmer on more than one occasion. In this episode I talk abou...
Ep 32, Office Politics Exception Handling: When Relationships Go Wrong
Last week we talked about the importance of building key relationships in the hopes of giving you, your developers, and your project an increased chan...
Ep 31, Hello, World: Beginner's Office Politics for Programmers
"Office politics" brings to mind images of nasty people backstabbing each other to jockey for position at the office. These days people prefer the ph...
Ep 30, Various Thoughts On Lead Developers, Office Politics, Ignoring the Past, and Controlling Your Emotions
Guys, I have had a tough couple of weeks and frankly have not been able to nail down a single topic I've wanted to cover. For today's show I'm going...
Ep 29, Don't Be a Resume Driven Developer
"Resume driven development" is a humorous and often derisive term for a certain style of programming and programmer. It's a tempting trap to fall int...
Ep 28, On Being a Junior Developer
Junior developers. We've all been one, and some of us still are. In this episode, I talk about some of my experiences as and thoughts on junior deve...
Ep 27, Can the What and the How really be separated?
In many shops, you often have someone, typically a manager, who's in charge of what and programmers who are in charge of the how. Is this a natural d...
Ep 26, The Dangers of Goldplating
We've all heard the term "goldplating" in software development, but what exactly is it? Who generates it, and why should it be avoided? In this epis...
Ep 25, When Agile isn't so agile
The Agile revolution was supposed to bring us new abilities to adapt to change in software projects. In many cases, Agile has delivered on that promi...
Ep 24, Are Highly Talented Jerks Worth It?
We've all had to work with difficult programmers, but every once in a while we come across someone who's so onerous that they negatively impact the en...
Ep 23, Why I Hate The Phrase "That's not my code"
Have you ever had to fix a bug in code that you didn't write? Most programmers have. A common thing I hear when this happens is for the developer to...
Ep 22, Take Pride In Your Code But Remain Emotionally Detached
Taking pride in the code we write is really important. The best programmers treat it like a craft. But how much pride is too much pride? What happe...
Ep 21, Should New Development and Maintenance Be Separate Groups?
Some developers get to work on new projects, others of us provide maintenance on existing applications. Why do organizations separate the work like t...
Ep 20, Write Software For Your Users: A Bold, New Concept
As software developers, our job is to deliver software that is appropriate for our user base so that they may solve some sort of problem. This is som...
Ep 19, When is "ship early, ship often" appropriate?
We often encounter the phrase "ship early, ship often". What does it mean? Where does it fit into software dev and Agile specifically? In this episo...
Ep 18, What If Leaving My Job Isn't An Option?
So many tech talking heads will advise someone in a tricky situation to "find a better job", but what if that's not possible? In this episode, I dig...
Ep 17, Coding Against Deadlines
The vast majority of software projects have deadlines. Sometimes these deadlines are realistic, other times they're not. In this episode, I dig into...
Ep 16, Understanding Your Organization's Culture
Your organization has a specific culture. So does the department in which you work. Even your project team has a specific culture. Who drives these...
Ep 15, Understanding The Technical Vs Business Dynamic
Most software development projects these days divide tasks between the technical people and business people. Technical people include programmers, QA...
Ep 14, Deadlines and Scope Vs Code Cleanup
Hopefully, our projects reach their v1 ship dates. Those last few months can be exciting and nerve-wracking. Many times, development teams will want...
Ep 13, Technical Reasons Projects Fail
Last week we dug into the non-technical reasons that cause projects to fail. As promised, this week I turn our attention to the various things that d...
Ep 12, My Project Failed, Do I Suck As A Programmer?
Software projects fail all of the time. When they do, we as developers can take it very personally. I think it's important for us to reflect on how...