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Published in Engineering Insights

Gnarly Learnings from September

Gnarly Learnings from September
Table of contents
  1. The Siren Song of the 'User' Model
  2. Blue-Green deployment
  3. How to Break Apart a Rails Monolith
  4. Feedback Equation
  5. Event Listeners Explained
  6. The Forest Succession Principle
  7. Linux/BSD command line wizardry: Learn to think in sed, awk, and grep
  8. ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct
  9. Document All the Things Before Handing Off a Maintenance Project
  10. Ruby 3.1: Shorthand Hash Syntax (First Impressions)
  11. Contributors

We love reading, watching, and listening to constantly update our skills and learn new perspectives. Here are some of the exciting pieces we learned from this month.

The Siren Song of the 'User' Model#

Naming things is hard. When you have a name that's descriptive and clear, cling to it with all you have. Even if it flies in the face of what most people may consider "conventional". If you weren't allowed to name something in your application's data model a "user", what would you call it instead?

Blue-Green deployment#

This snippet captures the story of how the practice of running multiple versions of an application concurrently came to be, and how it got its name.

How to Break Apart a Rails Monolith#

The terminology and technology mentioned in this article apply to rails; however, the philosophy and approach is relevant to software architecture with any set of technologies that I can think of.

Feedback Equation#

People need feedback. It helps improve individuals, processes, and outcomes. If you're in a position where you need to give feedback, this article proposes a framework to follow.

Event Listeners Explained#

What's the difference between an event listener and an event handler? Is there one? This article explains!

The Forest Succession Principle#

How do you go about promoting sustainable change in your organization? Let's consider how nature does that, to see what we can apply to our own situations.

Linux/BSD command line wizardry: Learn to think in sed, awk, and grep#

These commands can be overwhelming, and difficult to feel like you can get a start integrating into your workflow. This article proposes some starting entry points to use to reach for grep, sed, and awk, without needing to understand the totality of the commands' options.

ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct#

The Association for Computing Machinery has a code of ethics that, whether you're a member or not, seems appropriate to review consistently and consider if you're upholding in your professional work.

Document All the Things Before Handing Off a Maintenance Project#

Project hand-off can be a stressful time. Building a checklist to ensure everyone has the information they need going forward can help eliminate concerns of if you've forgotten something.

Ruby 3.1: Shorthand Hash Syntax (First Impressions)#

Here's something to remind you of the most exciting thing to happen in December: a release of a new Ruby version! Here we see where Ruby has taken some inspiration from Javascript for new syntax coming in Ruby 3.1.

Contributors#

Learn more about how The Gnar builds software.

Frequently asked questions

Why question the name user in a data model?

The naming advice asks what you would call it if user were not an option. It favors a descriptive, clear name over convention.

Do I need to understand every command option before using grep, sed, and awk?

The linked article offers starting points for using these commands without understanding all their options.

Is the ACM code of ethics only relevant to members?

The post encourages reviewing the Association for Computing Machinery's code regularly and considering whether your work upholds it, whether or not you are a member.

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