This is a recurring question in software development. Responses to this question usually lead developers to an intense debate confronting several points of view. Even though the question seems complex, the only possible answer seems very obvious to me. Some say that tests result in additional costs to the project because they stretch d...

If you haven't ever heard about Derek Sivers, visit his website now and read a couple of their blog posts. Paragraph by paragraph, your neck will become more elastic, and your head, freer to spin around, will start to notice a larger world than the one you were used to. Reading his first book - Anything You Want - by September of the l...

For a long time in my career, writing about programming meant writing in English instead of my mother-language Portuguese. It seems to be the usual way in a profession mainly led by native English speakers. By the way, a large number of programming tools are available in English only, leading non-native English speakers like me to inve...

Every time I read the documentation of libraries that promise to make the development of forms easier, I get deeply frustrated. I can't believe someone looks to those libraries and thinks they really improve the development experience. Some of the reasons would include the counterintuitiveness of those APIs, the amount of code a develo...

In my mother language, Carta de Apresentação is the term that translates to Cover Letter in English. At the start of the past year, I wrote a cover letter to compete for a position at Basecamp. Along with my text, I wanted to use a metaphor. After all, Basecamp is the "cradle" of Rails. But how to be sure that "cradle of" would express...

When Angular and React got on the stage years ago, we started to realize a way of building graphic interfaces other than the traditional MVC (Model-View-Controller). That way, popular these days, is called Component-Based Architecture. The new strategy delivers some benefits beyond components reuse and brings the foundations to better ...

Then you face the opportunity to walk through an untouchable and green field. A road still free from any obstacle. That is, it is time to start a new, promising and shining application from scratch. First step? Set it up, of course. That is the moment in which not-so-interesting decisions could rapidly make that green field yellow and ...

For those who have programmed a lot using AngularJS, the first impression when coming across a React component may not be the best. Seeing JavaScript and HTML sharing the same space is likely the most significant impact. But do not get carried away by appearances. React is far less strange than the first impression might suggest. Befor...

Something curious about lots of the most popular programming concepts, principles and good practices is that they seem to disappear or, at least, keep distant, when the software we are talking about is a web-client, also known as a front-end application. Very few front-end projects that I have seen in my life had a minimum of logical d...

Octocash. That was the name of the product that I, and two colleagues, launched four years ago. Starting to build a product in the early stage of your career is such a great experience. Every member overflows optimism. Optimism is so abundant that nothing more is necessary to develop the product. The level of enthusiasm is so high that...