yegor256 podcast

Latest Episodes:

M87: If you are afraid of being replaced, you are not a good programmer May 27, 2019

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Most programmers feel uncomfortable realizing that their employer may replace them one day. To make this event less likely to happen they do many things in order to make themselves unreplaceable. One of those things is unmaintainable source code, which nobody else will be able to understand if its author is fired. I think that this mindset is not only toxic but also very typical for unprofessional engineers. If you are professional enough, the market always has something to offer you and you always know what is the next step for you, after this team gets rid of you or you decide to quit. If you feel scared, just look into the future and start checking opportunities. The video is here: https://youtu.be/yRm97umW4vE

M86: The README file must be the only provider of product specification May 22, 2019

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I think that any repository, be it open source or proprietary, must have a single README file, which must include everything a new contributor needs to know about it: the product statement, the vision, the list of features and non-functional requirements, the list of technical decisions, which are important to know. Unfortunately, this file is very often forgotten, especially in non-OSS products. If you don't have it now, it's never too late to create it, and make it right. The video is here: https://youtu.be/1zCH0xBiCP4

M85: The source code is just a part of a software project, not the biggest one May 20, 2019

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We started reviewing software projects of other companies, just a few weeks ago and our first finding is that programmers don't pay attention to anything aside from the code they write. They don't have build automation, unit testing, static analysis, continuous integration, test coverage control, database versioning, and many other things which are supposed to keep the code together. It seems that this is happening because of the lack of knowledge and experience. The video is here: https://youtu.be/keGVpncTn4Q

M84: Don't chase your team members, make them chase you May 16, 2019

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The job of a good project manager is to organize the team the way that every team member wants to contribute and is ready to go through all possible obstacles and barriers, in order to make sure their results are accepted by the project. If the project manager has to chase programmers, ask them, beg them, and pull results from them, it is a bad project manager and the project is mis-configured. The video is here: https://youtu.be/4j4Kddo5Xgw

M83: Strong opinions loosely held is not a problem, the absence of an architect is May 13, 2019

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A software team where everybody expresses their opinions loudly and strongly, always being ready to admit that "I was wrong," is not able to produce anything serious. This is what I read in one blog post recently. And I do agree with this. However, I disagree with the solution suggested in the blog post. The author suggests programmers be more humble and skeptical, which I believe will only lead to more compromises. We know that compromises are bad for quality. My solution is to have a formally assigned architect, who makes all final technical decisions.

M82: Is it possible to open the entire source code base and still make business? Definitely. May 10, 2019

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When I start talking about 100% open source business model, most people wonder how is it possible to give away the entire source code base and still remain profitable, money wise. I think that any modern digital business has three components of success: the source code, the database, and the community of users, programmers, clients, and so on. If you make your source code fully open, you will only help your other two components (data and community) to grow. In Zerocracy and all our satellite projects, we rely on this business model. We open the code and invest in the community. The video is here: https://youtu.be/4-7fth8Iku8

M81: How to make your GitHub repo popular? Eight things to pay attention to. May 08, 2019

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Do you want to be known in the open source world? If you don't, don't watch this video. If you do, there are eight things you should pay attention to when making a new GitHub repo: 1) make it small, 2) don't depend on other libraries, 3) make your README sexy, 4) write up a complete documentation, 5) ask everybody around to give you GitHub stars, 6) release it, 7) configure continuous integration, 8) communicate with your users via issues and pull requests. You can see how I do it in my libraries, in my GitHub account: https://github.com/yegor256 The video is here: https://youtu.be/vhOg-7uPbvA

M80: Every two weeks you should hire a new auditor to review your software project May 06, 2019

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Very often software project sponsors complain about the low quality of their programmers. They also say that changing the team doesn't really help. They believe that it's possible to hire the "right" people and everything will be great. This is a myth. Instead of expecting your people to be great, you should control their results, by auditing it with an external expert. I'm suggesting you find such an expert in our Telegram chat: https://t.me/zerocracy. There are almost 400 people, most of whom are true experts. Pay them by the hour and you will be impressed by the changes you will see in your project. The chat is here: https://t.me/zerocracy The blog post is here: https://www.yegor256.com/2017/11/21/trust-pay-lose.html The blog post about technical reviews is here: https://www.yegor256.com/2014/12/18/independent-technical-reviews.html Here a blog post about questions such an auditor must answer: https://www.yegor256.com/2019/04/02/software-project-review-checklist.html The video is here: https://youtu.be/TxYi7J0vKC8

M79: Make as many open source libraries as possible, eventually one of them will become a success May 03, 2019

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I created a simple Ruby library just about two weeks ago: https://github.com/yegor256/iri. I already have more than 60 GitHub stars there. How did I do that? I just published it where I usually publish my open source libraries. There is no secret. I just create them, publish and then some of them (!) become popular. You should do the same. Every time you see an opportunity to make a small piece of code open -- do it. And make them small. The smaller your open source products the easier they are to use and the higher the chance that they will be popular. The video is here: https://youtu.be/jeflGHMpfDc

M78: Programmers are not your property, don't invest in them! May 02, 2019

Show notes

Most companies and project managers feel proud of spending a lot of money for finding programmers, training them, getting them on board. They tell me very often that programmers are their valuable assets and they don't want to lose them since they invested so much into them. That's a terrible approach, which is only disrespectful to us programmers. We are not your property or your assets. We want to be equal partners with your team. Change your attitude before it's too late. The video is here: https://youtu.be/UFfJCRhLCZ0

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