advice – Page 2 – robhorton.net

Just Keep Building

November 11, 2015January 15, 2015 by Rob Horton

Do you ever get overwhelmed with software complexity? There is always it seems, a new framework this and a doomaflagit-that coming out. More to learn, more to learn. Learning is not a bad thing. As we all know in IT, that’s kinda our thing … we keep doing that learning thing. The upside of this … Read more Just Keep Building

What If You Need a Team?

March 15, 2017January 7, 2015 by Rob Horton

In my last post, we talked about “Are You Team A or Team B?” and ran through what those teams might look like. I showed the post to a friend of mine and he noted that I might be leaving some folks out. Maybe folks that are just looking to get on their first team at … Read more What If You Need a Team?

Are You Team A or Team B?

March 15, 2017January 2, 2015 by Rob Horton

Today I wanted to talk a bit about team environments. If you’ve been in IT for awhile, having worked on a few teams, you’ll get where I’m coming from. If you’re still a bit green to the industry, take heart, for today I will explain the two main team buckets out there in our field. … Read more Are You Team A or Team B?

Terminology (Bug, Fixes and Enhancements)

March 15, 2017January 15, 2013 by Rob Horton

We in the IT field have many buzz words with which to keep up. I find quite often that, people I talk to (when I’m not talking to myself) are confused as to the differences between a bug, a fix or an enhancement. So I thought I’d help clear up those terms today. The … Read more Terminology (Bug, Fixes and Enhancements)

What is up with all the 8 Hate?

March 15, 2017December 10, 2012 by Rob Horton

I for one do not get all the “8 Hate” out there. Although I suppose that I shouldn’t be surprised. Each time that Microsoft releases a new version of Windows there is an giant amount of criticism. People hated Windows 7, people hated Windows XP. People have hated every version of Windows out there. So … Read more What is up with all the 8 Hate?

To log or not to log …

March 15, 2017August 14, 2012 by Rob Horton

To Log or Not to Log Honestly, really? Let’s hope we’re not still asking ourselves that question in 2012 kids. Say in ain’t so! So let’s say its safe to assume we’re all logging things somewhere. The question is not “to log or not to log” but rather where should yon logs go? (yon logs … Read more To log or not to log …

Get a clue! or .. write a requirement

March 15, 2017March 21, 2012 by Rob Horton

Guys and gals, we’ve all done it. Written code without requirements. Me too. Guilty. However what is your preference? Are you the developer that needs a mountain of documentation that details your every line of code? Are you the developer that thrives on having some creativity by just having a loose outline of what is … Read more Get a clue! or .. write a requirement

The Simpleton Pattern

March 15, 2017December 5, 2011 by Rob Horton

No, you read that correctly. Simpleton, not Singleton is the subject of choice today. Recently a fellow developer was looking over some code that I had written.

He commented on it by saying, “Rob I just love looking at your code. It’s simple, easy to read, well-commented, and just makes sense”.

I replied, “Well that’s likely because I’m a simpleton”.

So jokes ensued with my friend asking, “Is that the design pattern you follow?”. I thought, well yeah actually I guess it is and thus was born the idea for this blog post.

The Pessimistic Programmer

March 15, 2017November 28, 2011 by Rob Horton

If you’re a programmer of any kind and have done it for any length of time at all; particularly as your profession, not just a hobby, you know this one rule:

Good programmers expect things to go bad.

One of our prime directives as lord or lady of the bits and bytes is to predict what can go wrong and prevent it. Or at the worst case, handle it gracefully.

Being a developer isn’t exactly all baby giggles and sunbeams so a healthy amount of pessimism is certainly warranted.

Check it and check it again

March 15, 2017November 4, 2011 by Rob Horton

The other day at work an interesting thing happened. I was working with someone else in order to troubleshoot an issue with pushing some software out to our live site. I had tested my changes on my local machine as well as the test site. So we rolled things out to an external test site so our client could preview the changes before we flipped the final switch. Drum roll please …