Randomizing Test Data is a Bad Idea
March 8th, 2019
Any form of randomization in automated tests is a bad idea, yet everyone does it. It can lead to tests that fail unpredictably, while giving a false sense of confidence every time that they don't fail. Randomizing is basically hoping that with enough builds, we may find a bug that existed all along.
Fake PHP Version in Composer
February 23rd, 2019
Say you run the latest PHP version on your machine, but the server runs PHP 5.5. This means that when you decide to add a Composer package, it might propose a version that may not be installable on the server.
What Do Speakers Look for in Reviews?
February 15th, 2018
Every public speaker is different, so let me tell you to what I personally pay attention in post-talk reviews.
Testing Legacy PHP Scripts
January 26th, 2018
I gave myself a challenge: to test a legacy "controller" in isolation, yet with minimal impact on the original code.
How I Got 100% on Google PageSpeed Insights
January 4th, 2018
I set out to redesign my blog and throw in my consulting services in there. I decided to try a few techniques that I learned over the past couple of months, to get some practice. 90% of my work consists in experimenting, so that my customers would later benefit from the results.
Why Objects Over Arrays?
January 26th, 2017
I saw a tweet earlier today “there seems to be this obsession with turning everything into an object”. Here’s a detailed response as to why using objects instead of arrays is a good idea, in my opinion. The Problem I once took over a project written in ActionScript 3. It was a fairly simple project. Five mini-games […]
Increase Efficiency of Remote Communications
December 12th, 2016
Do you want to increase the efficiency of your remote communications by a factor of ten? Keep reading then. Respond immediately. If you have all the necessary information to respond to an e-mail, do it now. You already spent time reading the e-mail. By not responding immediately, you are wasting time re-reading it next time and categorizing […]
Conference Organization: Speaker Agreement
November 22nd, 2016
At ConFoo, we use a speaker agreement to ensure that accepted speakers take their commitment seriously and understand the impact of a cancellation. We used to lose thousands of dollars due to speakers cancelling after we already purchased their flight (as a non-profit, that hurts). It’s also an opportunity to remind them to be respectful and make sure […]
Yahoo!’s Password Security
October 13th, 2016
I posted this tweet recently and got many replies. Since I was answering the exact same few questions dozens of times, I’d like to summarize everything here. I will also add some new information that I gathered that will clear many things up. Yahoo: “Your password is too similar to the one you’ve used previously.” You wouldn’t know unless […]
Re: When it comes to submitting talks, how many is too many?
September 12th, 2016
I read this interesting post by Cal Evans about submitting conference proposals. He makes some very valid points, but I’d like to add my own experience as an organizer, so that when you submit, you have multiple perspectives. Here are my replies to some of the points made. Filter your list to only include talks that […]