This series of blog posts is an extract from the script for my talk presented at ElixirConf 2021. Onboarding new developers with Living Documentation Knowledge Sharing: Leading and Lagging Indicators Living Documentation in Elixir (to be published) Leverage your source code (to be published) Augment your source code (to be…

The origins of the disciplined methodology used by CivilCode can be traced to the early careers of the company’s two co-founders: Nicholas Henry and Hugo Frappier. Both were independent contractors whose paths crossed on projects and at industry conferences, notably the annual Ruby on Rails Conference. In addition to sharing…

Embarking on a custom software development project is essentially crossing into uncharted territory. Although we most likely won’t face dragons, there are risks. But, it’s by taking risks that you reap rewards. The creation of new software with custom functionality gives you a powerful tool that’s unique to your business…

Context switching is a computing term that describes how an operating system stores the state of One process (A) before starting another process (B). Before resuming process A, the state of process B must be stored. We use the same term to describe how humans switch from one task to…

Most people picture software developers hunched over a keyboard, clicking away in silence, alone. A problem with that scenario is that one person is intimately familiar with the code and no one else knows what that person did without ongoing knowledge transfer. If you visited our offices, you would see…

In the software development world, a product owner is someone who takes responsibility for the success of a project from the customer’s viewpoint. An effective product owner will be able to execute the following responsibilities: 1. Understand what the business is trying to accomplish Knowing what success looks like from…

When demand increases and is about to cross a significant threshold, it’s an opportunity to show what a company is made of and how solid its foundation is. Will existing internal processes be able to handle the increased pressure and volume? …

When starting a software development project, there’s usually a story about how the existing solution grew into its current form. While that story can be informative, it’s important to clear the slate and design according to current, actual needs. …

Software isn’t concrete. However, the “waterfall” model of creating detailed plans, getting approval on those plans, and then sticking to those plans originated in the construction industry, and is still sometimes used in software development. The waterfall model has merits, but speed and flexibility are not encouraged in this heavy…