Configuration files or APIs

Configuration files is something we have always been familiar with and with cloud services I think more and more configuration has started to move into code. But I was very intrigued by yet a different concept used by a team I worked with a while back; configuration APIs for temporary changes.

TDD helps you enforce the single responsibility principle

When I was writing last week's post I also thought about how TDD (or rather BDD) has helped me to early detect violations of the single responsibility principle.

Will TDD really drive your design?

One of the most common arguments I've heard from TDD skeptics is that TDD does not drive your design. And this statement is both true and false.

Xbox Live History

Having worked in Xbox Live I often get questions about its past.

REST efficiency

Making simple REST API is easy but once you do more complex things you don't want to stick with the simple rules any more.

Clients and eventual consistency

If you're working with a distributed system it is likely that you use eventual consistency to make your system scalable and robust but what does this means to clients?

How to know when to auto scale

When it comes to auto scaling I tend to see one of two approaches. But neither is actually good.

Abstracting vs Isolating dependencies

Anybody who is practicing TDD or BDD knows that it is important to abstract dependencies. Especially external dependencies you have no control over. But that might not be enough always.

The last fire watch

Last week I promised another leadership story so this time it will be from the military.

More psychology of shipping

Last week I talked a little about things I saw the leadership team do during the Xbox One launch. But there are two more stories I wanted to tell.