All entries of my technical and business blog

Who Do I Tell "I don't know" To?

Jan 18, 2021 business

When interviewing a junior programmer a couple weeks ago, I was asked a very insightful question: “Who can I tell ‘I don’t know’ to?” At first, I wasn’t sure what they were exactly aiming at with the question. But, as I formulated an answer, I realized this was a great question. Let me share a longer version of the answer with you.

Finding Slow Tests in PHPUnit 9

Jan 4, 2021 php phpunit testing

When your unit test suite gets larger, it can take quite a long time. One of the many ways to speed this up is to hunt down and fix slow tests. Let’s use PHPUnit’s test listeners to do just that.

Coming Up With Your First Portfolio Project (with coding walkthrough)

Dec 23, 2020 business css html javascript

When talking to junior developers, I hear the same question over and over: “how can I demonstrate what I know, or show experience, if I haven’t had any gigs yet?” Old-timers tell you to build a portfolio, but how do you do that? Where do you get ideas? How do you choose a project that’s not overwhelming? Let me explain my rationale as well as demonstrate how I might make my first portfolio project.

Sometimes Just Ask Why

Nov 16, 2020 business management

This is part of a series of articles from the retired The Dev Manager website.

What happened to “why?” What happened to make people so afraid of asking this question? Perhaps it’s when all of the 3-year-olds start asking “why” about everything. Why does mommy have to go to work? Why do we need money? Why is the sky blue?