Why refactoring user stories is a bad idea

There is this old article that I wanted to discuss for a while and now is the time. If you'd rather say technical dept user story instead of refactoring that is ok. The logic applies to both.

What fire and forget really means

From time to time people implement something that they want to use in a fire-and-forget fashion. Typically it is some non-critical service you want to notify. Sadly most people get this wrong since they don't understand what fire-and-forget means and instead fire blindly.

Xbox Live History - Part 2

The excellent first part of Xbox history has been followed up with a second part.

Bleeding HTTP status codes

Developing web services there is an anti-pattern that I often see slip through the cracks and that is when HTTP constructs bleed through abstraction layers.

Should bugs be user stories

One topic that seems to come up regularly when teams try to be adopt agile is how to deal with bugs. Since these teams typically give Scrum a try they feel the urge to get as many story points as possible so it is natural to wanting to give these bugs story points so you get some credit for them. IMHO that is a huge mistake.

Maturity model for service monitoring

Over the years I've encountered organizations and individuals that all have different levels of service monitoring maturity. I figured it was time to talk a little about these. And by monitoring I mean the things you look at to understand the health of a service. And I'm especially considering how good vs bad health is quickly determined.

Object Calisthenics and Domain Modeling

Several times before I've covered how object calisthenics can save you so naturally I'm happy to see yet another example. This time referenced to as domain modeling which is probably a better approach than talking about calisthenics since that is a work many of us have no idea what it means...

A Swede's guide to US health insurance

When I moved from Sweden to the US the scariest unknown was how health insurance worked. And I must say that it is mind boggling at times. In my six years in the US I have experienced three different approaches. The short version is that if you consider moving to the US, make sure you understand how your health insurance works!

Software Development in different cultures

I was listening to this podcast which is talking about how the culture at different software companies is different in different parts of the world. I found it extra intriguing to hear how foreigners perceived working in Scandinavia vs their home countries since I've done the opposite journey.

Thinking for Programmers

I was watching this great recording from last year on how programmers should think. It talks a lot about the importance of writing a specification for your code.