Refactoring katas with your own codebase

When it comes to refactoring, my preferred katas consist of experimentation with the actual code base I am working on. I just create a new branch from a certain commit, play with several refactorings and then throw it away. I usually end up with several experimental...

Mind the age and context of the book

Usually IT books don’t age very well, things change very fast in the sector. This is specially true of books on particular tools, libraries, frameworks… but even books about methods and techniques require critical thinking when studying them. If the book...

Reflexiones tras una emotiva CAS2015

No habia participado en una Conferencia Agile Spain desde el 2010 que fué en Madrid, la primera. En aquel entonces iba ilusionado con 50 ejemplares en mi maleta de nuestro flamante libro de TDD, que colocamos en el stand de Plain Concepts porque amablemente me...

Pairing: don’t have to always agree on the plan

So your pair is proposing a route or plan that you don’t agree on. Am talking about a refactoring, a redesign or just the way to test drive the next feature. You have told him your reasons no to agree with him and there is no way to get to an agreement....

Learning with Peter

Last week I was lucky to host my good friend Peter Kofler in his visit to Gran Canaria, where he came to facilitate the Glodal Day of Code Retreat and also to work together a couple of days in our biggest project at the moment. We’ve been working in the same...

Object references, state and side effects

C#, Java and other languages have the same behaviour when it comes to reference types. public class SomeClass { public string someField; } var instance1 = new SomeClass(); // instance1 is a reference to an object in memory var instance2 = instance1; // instance2 is a...

Everyone is potentially a teacher

In order to learn from others I must trust them and open my mind enough to see them as potential teachers even if  they are – apparently – less experienced than me in certain knowledge area. The lessons to be learned may not necessarily come from the...

XP Team Building

Let the team walk its path Every team walks at its own pace and I haven’t found a way to speed it up myself, I don’t think there is one regardless of whether you are an external coach or a regular member of the team. Trying to push the team will screw up...

ES6 + browserify + babel + gulp + jasmine

During Socrates Conference 2015 we decided that it’s the right time to jump in ES6 to developer a green field project that our customer is starting. Given that ES6 is already the stable and latest version of JavaScript, it does not make sense to start a new...