Avoiding Code Review Pitfalls: A Guide to Effective Evaluation

Software devs, you ever get a PR review that you just cannot understand? Like a “what in the world am I supposed to do with this?” PR review?

I got one the other week.

One of those big ‘request changes’ Github reviews, but not about the code.

It was about the way I approached the problem.

I did it in a way I found to be simpler than the reviewer preferred.

Now, you might think… “uh, maybe you approached it wrong? Maybe simple wasn’t the right idea?”

To my mind, that’s asking the wrong question!

By the time code is being written, approach should already be decided.

This was an architecture argument masking itself behind a code review.

It took about 20 minutes with leadership to clear up the dispute.

But, the thing that stuck in my craw was that the code review itself was just a poor way to argue the point.

In 20-odd years of writing software, I’ve been tempted to ‘request changes’ on a code review many times.

Usually along the lines of “could this be better done in F#?” (Answer: “of course it could.”)

But my subjective opinion about one language being superior to all others is just that. Subjective.

A good code review avoids the following:

  • Subjectivity
  • A negative tone of voice.

Finally, a good code review process avoids the following:

  • Buddy reviews – where Dev 1 approves Dev 2’s code and vice versa, despite having a larger team.
  • One approver.

Avoiding subjectivity in a code review is a hard but critical skill for any senior engineer.

Being subjective or negative in a code review is often toxic, and when other engineers do not want to work with you, your impact is necessarily lessened.

Avoiding process errors keep the purpose of code review to what a code review is intended to be.

Buddies are more likely to overlook flaws in one another’s code, and single approvers are just a bottleneck.

A good code review reviews the code, not the architecture, or the tech design.

Designs can and should be argued, but unless code does not produce working software, arguing design during code review is just a waste of time.

I have five major things I like to check for during code reviews.

First, I like to automate away subjectivity.

Linting or code-formatting tools exist for nearly every language out there, and pre-commit can be used for that same purpose.

Automate the formatting, and be done.

Second, I want to confirm the functionality. Ideally with clear, easy to read tests that are present in the code.

If tests are hard to read, that is a reason to consider requesting changes.

Third, clarity and coherence. Is the code idiomatic for what it’s doing?

Fourth, I want to validate that the code, as written, is necessary.

Many frameworks are quite large and complex, and some developers can miss ‘out-of-the-box’ functionality because they did not know it existed. Sometimes, it’s worth a check.

Finally, I want to check for design flaws or edge cases.

Note, this isn’t an approach check! This is more detailed. I want to test for edge cases that the structure will expose.

So to recap, try to do the following during your code reviews:

  1. Automate Subjectivity
    • Linting or code formatting tools are established now.
      • Example: “I would have preferred you write this in F#.”
  2. Confirm the Functionality
    • Does the code do what it says it should do?
      • Example: This is just correctness. If the code says it adds two numbers, and it, in fact, multiplies them.
  3. Ensure Clarity / Coherence
    • Does it fit in with the way one would expect it to?
      • Example: Did they write a lot of object-oriented Python for a pandas task? Or did they use the word ‘Model’ to describe what should be a ‘View’ in an MVC app?
  4. Is it Necessary?
    • Are there out-of-the-box, or framework options that do the same thing?
      • Example: Did the person rewrite aspect oriented hooks, because they didn’t know Spring did that?
  5. Catch Design Flaws.
    • Are there edge cases the current structure will expose?
      • Example: Do the types allow for data that are not tested? (Strings and ints do this a lot, as people don’t plan for an Int32.MaxValue regularly.)

Hope this helps!

What Life Looks Like, Revisited

There has been a lot of changes since my initial “What Life Looks Like” post. I was rereading it, looking at the goals I had, and the goals I have now, and I noticed that a number of things have changed in the two years since that post. Many of the goals I blew through, others I’m still working towards, and some I’ve put completely on the back burner.

Here’s my current worksheet.

1 Year / Jan 2024

CategoryGoalProgress
CareerPet Store, XXK/Year101%
Blog 200 FollowersI think like 45?
HomeCondo, Owe $204K~208. On pace? by EOY.
New BathroomsCompleted.
HealthWeight: 220#~240.
Body Fat %: 1822.3
CrossFit 5x a Week5-6 times a week.
Occasional WeightliftingEvery Sunday
1.5 Miles Running Daily0 miles daily 😦
Biking 20 Miles biweekly0 miles biweekly. 😦
Finance401K fully fundedContribution on track to max out
After-tax investing $XX/month160% of goal per month
FamilyZoe in College, HappyZoe enrolled at WSU
Lydia driving, some sort of athletics. High School, Maybe a running start?Lydia in Drivers Ed. Aerial Silks 2x a week!
Emerson sports?, High SchoolEmerson fencing and rowing.

I made this sheet in January of this year, and I’ve done fairly well against my goals!

Met Goals

Career – Salary. I am right where I wanted to be at the beginning of the year. I got a decent review, and a solid bump in my salary that tipped me over the edge in April.

Home – New Bathrooms. After 17 years in the condo with 3 kids, 3 dogs, and up to 2 cats (RIP Edgar… we still miss you), the house was in some dire need of some TLC. The bathrooms were the next big thing, and it’s GREAT to have them completed!

Health – CrossFit and Weightlifting. It is just a daily habit now. It is awesome and I love it.

Finance – 401K and investing. I’m on pace to fully fund my retirement plan, and I’ve done a TON of work to REALLY ramp up my investing to nearly 160% of my monthly goal.

Family – Everyone’s doing pretty much exactly where we were hoping they’d be. Emerson has fencing and is rowing in high school. Lydia’s finally started driver’s ed, and does her aerial silks athletics twice a week, and Zoe is enrolled for her first semester at WSU.

Not Yet Met Goals

Blog – Follower Count – Blogs likely get more followers when they don’t get updated for a year. Gotta get back on the horse here.

Condo – Mortgage – I’m on pace to be close here, but the bathrooms were more expensive than I had anticipated. It’ll be a photo finish at the end of the year.

Health – Weight & Body Fat % – I’m headed in a good direction here. I’m down from my heaviest on the year (265… ugh), but even when eating mostly clean, it’s still a struggle.

Health – Running and Biking – I was doing well on this one. I was going about 2-3x a week, and had built up to some real distance. My longer runs were in the 8-10 mile range but I started getting some pretty severe hip pain afterwords. The biking just is not that interesting right now. I might just sell the bike to clear up some space.

Things that Changed Since 2021

When looking back at my old “2024” post, I wanted to be further along in my writing. I feel like had I stayed at the Credit Union, that would be a possibility, but a job change moving over to learning whole new stacks and languages required my research time to get good. On the plus side, I’m a decent Python, Kotlin, and Java programmer now, and I’m not so bad at AWS and Terraform.

I do not really include local travel goals anymore, unless they would require real planning. A trip to Walla Walla or Chelan only requires a little coordination with a hotel or AirBnB that allows for dogs. I would still like to get to New Zealand, but that’s still very much in the 3 years or more away.

I also changed my investing amount significantly. In 2021, I was working on pushing my “months ahead” forward in YNAB. After making a fair amount of progress on it (getting to nearly 4 months ‘ahead’), I started wondering if keeping all that cash on hand was truly necessary.

Now I feel like having much more than a month’s worth of cash on hand seems to be ‘enough.’ We are investing about 15% of post-tax income now.

The three and five year goals look very similar.

3 years / Jan 26

CategoryGoal
CareerHappy in my job. Knowing what I’m trying to do, and who I’m helping. Current + 10% a year?
Blog, 2500 followers
1 Book Written (Published? I dunno.)
HomeCondo. Owe $170K on it.
Health210# Maybe down to 1 blood pressure pill
5x a week CrossFit + occasional weightlifting, running for 10-15 miles weekly.
TravelNew Zealand
FinanceRetirement accounts funded to legal maximum.
Investing 2.5x current per month. (Somewhere between 35-40% of income?)
FamilyZoe and Lydia should be in College?
Emerson doing at least one sport

5 Years / Jan 28

CategoryGoal
CareerHappy in my job. Knowing what I’m trying to do, and who I’m helping. XXK + 25% a year?
Blog, 15000 followers
1 Book Written and Published
HomeCondo. Owe $135K on it.
Health200#
CrossFit, weights, and running. Generally quite active.
FinanceRetirement accounts funded to legal maximum.
Investing 50% monthly post-tax income.
FamilyAll kids in College?

The reality is that in the next 5 years, it is going to be a lot of the same. Aggressive pushes on salary goals and investing goals. Ideally, we will get to investing half of our post-tax income within 5 years time.

My health and maintaining a regular active lifestyle is probably the highest priority item. I am continuing a slow burn on the weight loss. I plan on working more on my writing, and within 5 years get a book published, but the health is definitely the higher priority.

Frankly, the blog followers number goal I might just drop entirely, as I cannot exactly control that. I have thought about making a “number of posts” goal to replace it, but I have yet to pull the trigger.

Finally, the family goals are very fungible. For example, Zoe seems to be interested in health care (specifically and oddly, mortuary science.) That requires a degree of some sort, but if the other kids wanted to join the military, or go to culinary school, or work to be an apprentice welder or plumber, I could not object.

The ten year goals are even more unspecific.

CategoryGoal
Career2 Books Written and Published
Advanced Degree?
HomeNot living in the condo. Mount Vernon / Bellingham?
Health180-190#
Generally active.
Still living with the same heart I was born with.
FinanceRetirement accounts funded to legal maximum.
Investing >50% monthly post-tax income.
FamilyHappy and Healthy

The big thing to notice is the drop on the salary goal. I don’t expect a drastic change from the 5 year goal in terms of an amount (although that could happen?), I’m just not pushing for it as hard.

I have been thinking about persuing an advanced degree, so that is a new goal development.

Paying off the condo remains on the 10 year goal, although with the Seaview property not available, we will likely look north. Heather likes Bellingham, and always has. I’m more fond of Mount Vernon, but something in Skagit / Whatcom county area of Washington seems like the most likely location.

The health goal adds a pretty heavy goal, and one that largely reflects something that happened a long time ago. Assuming I keep things going, and keep up the healthy habits, it should be attainable.

Those are my updated goals. The nearer ones are again more specific, and more easily actionable, and SMART folks will notice each of them generally has a number associated with it so I can figure out whether or not I’ve achieved it.

I hope this post inspires you to think about your own goals!

Lullabies

When my children were small, I was the one who put them to bed. I did so with a lullaby I had invented for them.

The lullaby:

One, Two, Three
It’s time to say goodnight.
One, Two, Three
It’s time to say goodnight.
Goodnight to the stars, and goodnight to the moon.
Goodnight to <<child’s name>>
And I love you.

To save a little face, I will not sing it for you.

The kids adored this song. Even if I was tired at the end of the day, and just wanted them to go sleep they demanded it, usually loudly.

I would start bedtime with silly versions of the song, pantomiming being a rockstar, a big-band leader, or a lounge singer while I sung. I embraced every opportunity to be the ham.

But it always ended up flowing into a slow, sleepy, cuddly version that allowed my kids to fall asleep gently.

My wife created a photo book with the lullaby lyrics printed in it. Photos of my kids pushing their hands together and ‘sleeping’, pointing to paper stars, a paper moon, and eventually pointing to the camera for ‘I love you.’

That book is the most important one I have.

Fast-forward to the present. Specifically mid-August 2023.

My oldest prepped the bulk of her belongings into boxes. Her plan is to study health and biology at Washington State University. 300 miles away.

We travelled to Pullman on Saturday, her move-in day, and unloaded her into her dorm. At the hotel that evening, I had an idea.

I called my voicemail, and pressed ‘2’ to send a message.

I recorded myself singing the old lullaby, saying goodnight to my daughter, and subsequently sent the message to her.

The next day while dropping her at her dorm, I asked “Did you get my voicemail?”

“What’s a voicemail?”

I have taught her many things in my life: how to drive, how to hit a softball.

I got to teach her one more thing before I left, how to check her voicemail.

And specifically how to save a voicemail. To play it later. Should she need it.

Shoveling

The day before New Years Eve, 2021 I got locked out of my house.

I needed to get in so I could let in contractors for my kitchen remodel, and my wife and children were away in a house we’d rented for the holiday.

It had dropped well below freezing the night before and my deadbolt broke, so I needed to wait for a locksmith to come and help me get into my house.

It was still quite cold and I was going to have to wait at least 2 hours for a locksmith, so I figured it’d be better to get the blood moving outside rather than playing on my phone. 

I looked around, and noticed that the parking lot had not been plowed. So, I started shoveling.

The thing is the parking lot is huge. Holds like 50 cars. No way I could do the whole thing. With 2 hours and a cheap plastic snow shovel? Not happening. Too big a job.

Still, I started plugging away on my side of the parking lot when Royce, my 88-year-old neighbor, came out of his place. He told me he needed to get to the doctor and asked if I could shovel a path to his car. With his portable oxygen machine, he couldn’t do it himself. For him, the stairs to his house are a lot. Walking through the snow would be too much.

I stepped up the pace, and cleaned a nice path to his car so he could get himself to where he needed to get.

While I was shoveling, other folks started coming out of their homes to see the parking lot one-sixth-of-the-way done, and me in a beanie trying to clear more snow with a crummy plastic shovel.

One after another, folks grabbed shovels, and started clearing off their own little area of the lot, or areas around the other cars.

By the time the locksmith came to the house, the lot was fully cleared. All the snow was in nice, neat little piles.

Metaphors are dumb, but you can clear the snow.

We all can.

As long as someone starts.

Start.

It’s Only Embarrassing If You’re Embarrassed

I recently got an email from “Tony” asking if he could write an article on my site. He wanted to write up an article (“no charge”, he assured me) about entrepreneurship and tools.

An ad.

My immediate thought was a bit of shock… has my blog gone viral? Do I have enough traffic to warrant someone thinking they could successfully advertise on it?

A graph showing my blog's views and visitors per day in bar form, over the month of July in 2023. It is NOT impressive, showing a max of 6 views on July 14th.
Blog stats clearly showing it has NOT gone viral.

After looking through my old blog posts, I revisited that old recognizable feeling of “wait, didn’t I used to do this?” And frankly, I was embarrassed.

Once again, had I let something that I love to do fall off the planet.

In my old job at the Credit Union, I used to write an all-engineers email every Friday morning. I would start it on Wednesday and then spend hours Thursday evening finishing it.

Yet once again, I couldn’t seem to break away for 20 minutes a day to write down what’s happening.

I do best in routines. I eat the same foods for breakfast / lunch, and only change up dinner because my wife doesn’t particularly appreciate eating the same things every day. I go to the gym on the same cadence every week: 4:30pm on Monday / Tuesday, and 11:30am on Wednesday through Friday, Saturday 9am, and Sunday 11am.

If something I love to do is not in my list of habits, I lose track of it.

Now, it seems I have fallen out of something I once identified with. Something that shows me to be a fraud, or not what I claim to be.

Even worse the shame remains because even while writing this I fear that I’m attempting to, once again, restate the lie that I am something of a creator. A writer.

As if doubling down on it as an identity will make blog posts happen.

I mentor folks in my job. Every day. Literally my favorite part of being a Staff engineer.

I would allow absolutely none of the people I mentor to be as harsh about themselves.

No negative self-talk: a rule I read and remember from Pete Carroll’s Win Forever. A rule I demand entirely from my mentees.

I’ve never been so much of a rule-follower.

I choose to NOT be embarrassed by these things.

Did I fail to document my learnings while working at a pet store? Yep.

Have I failed to document much of anything while working at the pet store? Yep.

Do I still have the voice I once had? Of course I do.

I’ll tell Tony that I’ll pass on the free article. I think a DYI approach to blogging might be a better way to go.

Change is How You Grow

I haven’t had time to really write anything too deeply lately for blog posts lately. I’m learning SO much at the pet store right now.

I’m really pushing myself to get to that point where I understand the code underneath the abstraction.

But, the old blog calls out to me yet again, dear reader.

EVERYONE in tech feels underpaid, because recruiting / hiring in tech is completely broken and crazy. Financially, we are incented to switch jobs WAY more often than we are incented to stay in one.

Salary and turnover and hiring is a fun topic but I’m going to hit you with something.

You are more than your job.

Do you believe that?

Honestly?

It’s OK if you don’t. Took me till I was about 38 years old to really believe it.

Think about a hypothetical situation.

Meet Nia. Nia is an Associate Software Developer.

She applied for a job, interviewed well, and got it, and now is happily coding away under the direction of Software Developers and Senior Software Developers.

After 3 years… Nia’s got quite a few releases under her belt. She knows a few different languages well, she’s ridden a few late nights with releases that went sideways, but she doesn’t make anywhere near the same mistakes she made before.

The job, Associate Software Developer, is still exactly as it was when she took it those years ago.

Her title hasn’t changed, nor has the role in any real sense.

Nia did though. Drastically. She grew.

But, assuming she does nothing, she’ll stay an Associate Software Developer, and will likely get around a 3-4% raise every year for satisfactory performance. 

If she started with an annual salary of $50,000, that means after 3 years at a 4% raise, she’s making $56,243.20.

What happened to our hypothetical associate developer? She grew faster than her job did.

Ask yourself these questions:

Do you believe Nia is worth more than her job pays?

Me? I certainly do! She has more experience than the position requires, knows more languages, and is simply a better developer.

If she was your mentee, would you tell her so?

Me? I would! But I’m a cheerleader for you all anyway…

Would you advocate for her if you were her boss?

Of course I would! I’ve happily done so for many others!

Would you tell her to look outside her role if her boss couldn’t get it done for her?

You’re damn right I would, and I hope you would too!

What if I told you that HR has been recruiting, and offers for new associate developers need to start at $60,000, otherwise we aren’t a competitive place to work, and we won’t get good candidates?

ARGH!!! GO GET THAT F@%!#&G PAPER NIA!!!

(This should be apparent, but the salary numbers above are purely hypothetical.)

If you answered yes to any of the above questions, ask yourself why?

Why would you advocate for a hypothetical person, if you aren’t willing to advocate for yourself?

But maybe you’re spotting a trick…

“But wait… what if they just gave her a raise that put her in line with what they’d have to do to hire her as if she was new?”

There’s LOTS of reasons!

  1. Her Boss’s Budget. Unless Nia’s reporting to the CEO or the CFO, her boss didn’t set the budget for her raise. The budget came from an executive committee that looked at total salaries for the group.
     
  2. Her co-workers.  A limited budget–and even a large budget–has to be shared with your co-workers. If her boss is given 3 percent of her salary budget (see reason 1) for raises and gives a spectacular performer 5 percent, that means there’s less for everyone else.
     
  3. Her own salary band. Many companies don’t just give people salaries–they set salaries within what’s called a salary band. Her job is evaluated and given a range. If she’s at or above the midpoint of that grade, she’ll see very, very small raises.

Remember this.

Salary budgets aren’t personal. Ever.

Your salary just FEELS personal.

Forget about Nia because I made her up.

But YOU. You are real.

So let’s get real.

I’ve been in the position where the bank account is hitting the single digits, and I’ve got multiple days left until the next paycheck. Sure, I can hit the credit card, but that balance just keeps getting bigger.

I’ve been in that position where someone got hired with my same job title and started making 15% more than me.

I’ve felt that ‘I’m worth more than this in this market’ when I looked at my paystub.

I’ve felt that same frustration, anger, fear and doubt and most decidedly the self-recrimination. I HATE feeling stupid, or like I’m a sucker.

I’m worth more than my job.

I have heard cheerleader blowhards (great #selfown, Mr. Brown) and new-age-hippie-types (#selfown-number-2) say it plenty of times.

But simply put, mathematically, it’s just true.

My first job as a programmer was at a tiny video editing software company. I made $27,500 a year. Minimum wage was 4.25 an hour, and I felt like I was BALLIN.’

The company no longer exists, but if they did, the position I had, Application Developer probably would pay someone hired off the street somewhere in the low 90s. 

According to some F# I wrote (did you wonder when I’d get an F# reference in?) if I stayed in that job and got a 3 or 4% raise every year.

module Interest = 
    type InterestCalculationOptions = {
        Compounding : Compounding
        Rate : float
        Principal : float
        TermInYears : float
    } 
    and Compounding = 
        | TimesPerYear of float 
        | Constant 
 
    let compound options = 
        let core r e = options.Principal * (r ** e)
        match options.Compounding with 
        | Constant -> core System.Math.E (options.Rate * options.TermInYears)
        | TimesPerYear f -> let rate = (options.Rate / f) + 1.0
                            core rate (f * options.TermInYears)
 
/// Christopher gets 3% a year.
let threePercentRaise = Interest.compound {
                             Compounding = (Interest.TimesPerYear 1.0); 
                                Rate = 0.03; Principal = 27500.0;
                                TermInYears = 21.0  };;

/// threePercentRaise = $51158!!!

/// Christopher gets 4% a year.
let fourPercentRaise = Interest.compound {
                             Compounding = (Interest.TimesPerYear 1.0); 
                                Rate = 0.04; Principal = 27500.0;
                                TermInYears = 21.0  };;

/// fourPercentRaise = $62666!!!

The thing is I grew.

I took jobs that were different. More challenging. More interesting. Different languages. Different scopes.

And, well, they paid more.

Three years ago, I took a Principal Software Engineer job at the credit union that paid much more than an Application Developer in Bellingham. And you know what? I asked around, and I was probably underpaid.

Three years later I proved it moving on to the pet store.

I’m not the only one who grew.

You know who grew a ton, and did it all at the credit union? Rihanna.

(Not the musician Rihanna. This is a reference to a person who is freaking awesome like Rihanna, but whom I didn’t ask about publishing their name in a blog post.)

I won’t speak to her specific numbers except the following.

Rihanna told me that she’s currently making around 10x what she was making when she started at the credit union.

The job she held when they started at the credit union still exists. There are people right now doing what Rihanna used to do.

Those folks do NOT get paid 10x what it was back when Rihanna started.

Rihanna had to grow. Sometimes uncomfortably. She moved into other jobs, 9 times, and in completely different departments. She had managers go to bat for her and win…

… and probably a LOT more times than she knew about, go to bat for her and strike out.

Do you think each manager wanted “turnover” when it was time for Rihanna to grow? Probably not. In the short term, her managers would have preferred she stay in the role she was in, because it would have been easier to not have to hire a backfill for her.

Why would we ever want to encourage higher turnover?

Because turnover is how you grow.

You are more than your job.

When I first heard that, there were all these pictures of my kids and my family going through my head. Of course I was more than my job. My life with them was my highest priority.

But that’s not all it means.

It also means you will grow faster than your job.

Your brain calculates 38 thousand trillion operations per second!

That is in YOU, dear reader. You. Are. Amazing.

No job will truly hold the amazing machine that is you, unless you absolutely love it, and want to remain in it, but please accept this:

Change is how you grow.

New Things

A big part of my career has involved change. Part of being a developer over the course of the late 90s to now involves a TON of change.

Technology change: The code I write, and what tools I do it with has changed drastically. I started coding professionally with C++ and Visual Basic. I got VERY good with C#, and made much with it. I made a fair amount of noise in F# and now I’m currently working in Java, Python, TypeScript and Kotlin.

Methodology change: I mean “how we do the code we do.” Test-driven development came up in the development community just as I did. The ubiquity of containers. Agile work patterns.

Personal change: What used to drive me was the feeling of being ‘the guy.’  I LOVED being the guy you needed to make and fix the things. Now, I love being ‘the guy’ who helps people grow.

And now, a job change!

I’ll have to update my goals, because at this point, I no longer work for the Credit Union! I now work for a well-known an online pet store! I get to work with data scientists trying to make your search and product discovery experience better.

That’s the update… I wish it was longer, and more in-depth, but I’m still learning the space, so I’m in absorb-mode.

Test-Driven Development (TDD) for the Non-Developer

When I got hired at the Credit Union as the Principal Software Developer, one of the major elements of the job is to define how software development is to be done at our Credit Union.

One of the things I frequently mention is that ever since I took over the Principal role at the credit union, we became a TDD shop.

What if you’re not a developer, and don’t know what TDD is about? What about if you just learned what the acronym TDD means?

Test-Driven Development (aka TDD) is a model of writing software defined by a particular practice; specifically, writing automated tests before writing the software itself.

This model directly contrasts with the approach of testing the software after it’s written.

It’s a very low-level coding process, sometimes called ‘Red / Green / Refactor’ (as the tools that execute tests typically indicate failed tests in red and passed tests in green.)

An Example workflow:

  • I write a test, and it initially fails. (RED).
  • Then, I write code that causes the test to succeed (GREEN.)
  • I write another test, that initially fails (RED).
  • And once the feature is complete, I refactor the code, while maintaining green passing tests.

This creates two products. The software itself, and the tests that verify its functionality.

Software is a complex piece of machinery that is easily and regularly changed, and those regular changes can cause unexpected flaws. Those tests, when automated to be as a part of the build itself, can help prevent those unintended errors. Updates to dependent systems are made easier, as software typically talks to a database, or services, or libraries, and those updates can be tested quickly, with minimal human intervention.

They also enforce a level of rigor in the system design. Developers build systems that are designed to be ‘tested’.

So why does this affect you if you don’t write code? As written, this seems like mainly a developer function.

The thing is, the technique is entirely a developer technique, but the TDD mindset is the true switch

Start with the tests. Ask yourself: how do you know the software/thing/system will work?

Say you’re a Business Analyst or a Product Owner on the fence about a feature, how will you know your feature will work? How will you know it’s effective?

You know what the feature is. You know WHY the feature should exist, and that’s normally enough to prioritize it (or not) on the backlog.

Take the TDD approach and start with the tests.

  • How will you know that the feature works?
  • What is the test that will prove the feature is valuable, and useful?
  • What would be a test that would NEGATE that assertion?

Or say you’re the analyst working on the requirements for that feature, and you’ve fleshed out all the details of the fancy new automation your team is working on. How will you KNOW that automation is adding the value that you think it should?

If you’re automating a bad process that shouldn’t even exist in the first place, could you tell?

If you’re saving the company money, how much, and how will you tell?

For a more concrete example, say you’re a UX designer. Many UX elements are discretely testable, but what about the UX being “intuitive”, or aligned with our UX strategy?

Is the information you’re presenting easier to understand, or harder?

How do you know?

Say you’re an executive, a director or VP, or even a C whatever O. You have a vision for your organization, and where we are going.

How do you know it’s working? What is the test that drives your decisions?

What is the test that lets you know your vision is communicated well, and that everyone is marching to those orders in the same direction?

Would you know when to turn around if you’re making a mistake? Or would that mistake have to linger a bit for you to know it exists?

Like software, companies and organizations are complex machines that regularly change, and those regular changes can cause unexpected flaws.

These examples have been presented in a series of questions, as this is fundamental to the TDD process I described above. Designing a code snippet, function, feature, automation, UX, or company with the tests-first helps define your knowledge, and the information you’re trying to get.

To sum up: Define your tests first. Define what you want, and how you’ll determine that you’ve gotten what you want. Define how you’ll measure your effectiveness and measure how you’ve achieved it.

Write your tests first.

P.S. For further reading about TDD for the Non-Developer, take a looksee at this post from IExtendable.

Family Visits, Moms, and how AVG software is the worst

My mom had a huge impact on my technical career. My natural inclination to screw around with computers was well-nurtured but with a simple caveat.

“Everything better work by the time I get home.”

This past weekend I spent a few days in Pullman, visiting with my mom before she had to go back to school. My mom is a speech pathologist, and her school year started Monday.

Every time I visit, there’s always something she’s got waiting for my help with. Things too heavy to pick up. Things too tall to do without a ladder.

This time it was a question about her computer.

All tech people hate this, by the way.

“My computer seems to be slowing down pretty bad. Do you think it’s time for a new one?”

Her computer is 10-years old. Athlon II. 4GB of RAM.

Me – “Probably, but let’s take a look.”

Looking around, there were half a dozen programs that she’d stopped using 5 years ago, and a bunch of pictures from 2013. Aside from Zoom meetings and the the occasional Excel (Excel 2007 by the way) she didn’t actually touch much. But it was SLOW. Get up a go get a cup of coffee after you clicked a shortcut slow.

Me – “Show me how you normally start this up.”

She did. Turned off the box and after a few seconds, turned it on again. First thing she did was an AVG ‘scan.’

That ‘scan’ did something? And then her computer took multiple minutes for even starting up a notepad window.

Her – “See that? Seems like the computers giving up the ghost huh.”

Turns out AVG appeared to have a nasty bug that was opening hundreds of threads and leaving them open.

Hundreds of open threads hanging out, while AVG’s “Tune Up” application suggested she close OneDrive.

Funny thing happens when you shutdown down AVG software. It comes back. You can shut off services (they’ll come back on), uninstall the products (services stay on the machine, and start running again after a reboot), and change registry entries. AVG will still come back and try to convince you to let it ‘inspect’ things.

Frankly, for an ‘anti-virus’ software, AVG has a lot of ‘virus-y’ features.

Fortunately, Windows 10 has a pretty nice feature. Resetting to a clean install. Worked like a charm.

I did convince mom to buy the newest version of Office, but once that was done, she had everything working swimmingly. Faster than it had been in years.

Not fast by my standards, but extremely fast by hers.

Her – “Wow, it’s like I have a whole new computer!”

My professional opinion: AVG makes terrible software, and I recommend that you never install anything from them.

The photo is from my drive into town. It’s right on the 270, just as 195 splits off on Davis Way.

The credit union I work for put up the sign. Folks were there taking pictures of their kids being dropped off at school, which will be a great memory they’ll appreciate for a long time.

Crummy Paintings

An amateur painting of a mountain and a river.

Back ~20 years ago, I took up painting. Fun hobby.

The problem with taking up painting is that you sorta end up with a lot of paintings you can’t use. I mean, you hang up a dozen paintings and eventually you run out of wall space.

So I started selling ’em. The town I lived in had a pretty great farmers market, and they let near anyone in there, so I set up a small table and for a few weekends, I was pitching my “If Bob Ross had cataracts” style of paintings.

Vivian. Tall lady, with a huge hat that made her look massive. Sparkly thick pink glasses. Had a hoarse laugh and deep laugh lines like she had laughed for years. Sparse red hair and equally sparse teeth. Talked with me for an hour about her kids, her grandkids, her dead husband, and her deadbeat brother. 

To this day, she is only person to this day I’ve ever heard say the word “deadbeat” out loud. 

She really liked this ONE painting that I had not been able to even GIVE away. And I really wanted this sale.

She held the painting and stared at it for what felt like an hour. Told me about her daughter who came by on Thursdays to do laundry with her who’d have loved it. Told me about how it reminded her of Mount Si (a mountain here in Washington) and how she used to pick blackberries by the coffee-can full near the river there, and the river in the picture looked just like it, so much you could hear the constant rush and gurgling of quickly-moving water.

She was going on so much, I thought she was milking me a bit to try to get me to lower the price.

It was one of my last paintings, and the market was gonna close, so it was kind of working too.

“Well, I’ve got to pack up. Did you want to take it with you?”

“Oh no. Wouldn’t match the bathroom at all. Totally wrong colors. My bathroom’s pink.”

And then she walked away. Just smiled and turned away. I was left packing up with a table, my cashbox and the remaining 3 paintings.

2 of ’em I scraped the canvas and painted over. You can do that once the oil dries.

But I kept the one with the wrong colors.

And when you attach a lot of your self worth to what you do, that ‘not fitting’ can hurt. And when you’re not able to see folks in your day to day, that ‘not fitting’ can hurt. And when you’re the only person on your team that can do what you do, ‘not fitting’ can hurt.

Vivian loved the painting for about an hour.

But did it fit? Nope. Didn’t match her bathroom colors. Vivian was right. It’d look terrible on a pink wall.

I kinda like it on mine though. I’ve gotten pretty used to it.