mfowler

mfowler, 3 days ago to random

NEW §

Juntao Qiu's next data fetching pattern looks at how to specify fallback behavior using markup. This allows developers to pull such declarations out of the JavaScript components and into the markup they use while laying out the rest of the page. Juntao's React example shows how this works with the Suspense element, with a similar approach in vue.js.

https://martinfowler.com/articles/data-fetch-spa.html#fallback-markup

mfowler, 18 days ago to random

My thoughts are with my colleagues (and others) in southern Brazil who have been hit with devastating floods

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/05/flooding-death-toll-brazil-rio-grande-do-sul-state-missing-people

mfowler, 1 month ago to random

In my view, AI is going to be more valuable in helping programmers understanding existing code rather than generating new code. Here @judell explores using AI to help write documentation

https://thenewstack.io/code-in-context-how-ai-can-help-improve-our-documentation/

mfowler, 1 month ago to random

The 30th edition of the Thoughtworks technology radar is out today. Enjoy.

https://www.thoughtworks.com/radar

mfowler, 1 month ago to random

As the enmuskification of Twitter continues, I've set up an account on LinkedIn. I'll be posting updates to martinfowler.com on there too. However these are the same as my posts here, so there's no need to move unless you prefer it over there.

https://martinfowler.com/articles/2024-joining-linkedin.html

mfowler, 1 month ago to random

John Kordyback, a treasured colleague and friend, died last week, aged 64

https://martinfowler.com/articles/kordyback-tribute.html

mfowler, 1 month ago to random

NEW POST

Mainframe systems run much of the world's computing workload, but the architectural challenges that make them slow to enhance also make them hard to replace. To reduce the risk, we use an incremental approach: which requires us to introduce seams into the mainframe. In a recent project Alessio Ferri and Tom Coggrave investigated several approaches to introduce these seams into a long-lived mainframe system.

https://martinfowler.com/articles/uncovering-mainframe-seams.html

mfowler, 2 months ago to random

NEW POST

When we gradually replace a legacy system, the legacy and its replacement need to interact. Since these legacy systems are often difficult, and costly, to change, we need a mechanism that can integrate elements of the replacement while minimizing the impact to the legacy system. Ian Cartwright, Rob Horn, and James Lewis explain how we can use Event Interception on state-changing events, allowing us to forward them to the replacement.

https://martinfowler.com/articles/patterns-legacy-displacement/event-interception.html

mfowler, 2 months ago to random

"The trouble is that the same abilities that allow models to hallucinate are also what make them so useful.... The fundamental problem is that language models are probabilistic, while truth is not."

https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2024/02/28/ai-models-make-stuff-up-how-can-hallucinations-be-controlled

mfowler, 2 months ago to random

NEW POST

I'm hearing of more teams working in a remote-first style. But many are making a mistake by never meeting face-to-face. Effective remote-first teams I've encountered do periodic gatherings 2-4 times a year.

https://martinfowler.com/bliki/PeriodicFaceToFace.html

mfowler, 3 months ago to random

NEW POST

LLM engineering involves much more than just prompt design or prompt engineering. Here David Tan and Jessie Wang reflect on how regular engineering practices such as testing and refactoring helped them deliver a prototype LLM application rapidly and reliably.

https://martinfowler.com/articles/engineering-practices-llm.html

Teri_Kanefield, 3 months ago to random

When people respond to an $83 million judgement with cynical comments about how justice is only for the rich and there is never enough "accountability" I feel like just deleting all of my social media accounts.

I won't do it, but I feel like it more often lately.

It isn't MAGA that makes me think democracy won't work. I expect an anti-democratic contentency.

It's the kind of bizarre expectations others have.

Autocracy is based on lies because so many people don't like the truth.

mfowler, 3 months ago to random

I've been using Emacs for many, many years. One aspect that's very much improved my experience with it is completion tools

https://martinfowler.com/articles/2024-emacs-completion.html

mfowler, 3 months ago to random

Nicole Forsgren (lead author of Accelerate and DORA) leads a study of the effectiveness of DevEx at individual, team, and organizational levels.

https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3639443

marick, 4 months ago to random

I had an issue with a https://www.humblebundle.com/ purchase. It seems crazy I know, but they dealt with the problem promptly and helpfully. Kudos.

mfowler, 4 months ago to random

NEW POST

2023 was a tough year of layoffs in the tech industry. But I'm hoping 2024 will turn around and we'll see more hiring. If so many companies will run into the problem of taking too long for new hires to become effective. Tim Cochran and Premanand Chandrasekaran address this in the sixth part of our series on the bottlenecks of scaleups

https://martinfowler.com/articles/bottlenecks-of-scaleups/06-onboarding.html

mfowler, 4 months ago to random

My article on Continuous Integration was last revised in 2006, but continues to be a widely used resource. Over the last couple of months I've been working on a major revision, which I've just released.

I've revised every section of the original, and added new material to reflect changes in the last couple of decades.

https://martinfowler.com/articles/continuousIntegration.html

mfowler, 4 months ago to random

If forced to name a favorite board game, it would be Brass. And rankings on BGG show it to be highly rated in the hobby. In this post I muse on the factors that make it such a great game

https://boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/156835/nature-brass

mfowler, 4 months ago to random

Another year, another time to pick six favorite musical discoveries. 2023 includes ambient bluegrass, Afro-Andean funk, Northumbrian smallpipes, dancing kora, and Ukrainian folk jazz.

https://martinfowler.com/articles/2023-music.html

simon, 4 months ago to random

If someone wants to start a blog, and they'd like the content they publish to stick around on the internet for as long as possible into the future, what are their best options?

Buying a domain is tricky because domain names expire

GitHub Pages is pretty great, because GitHub is free and has, to-date, a great track record of not breaking *.github.io content

What are other great options? WordPress.com I think are good on this front

I don't trust anyone with less than 10 years of track record

mfowler, 4 months ago to random

@kevlin

Running through my photos this year, I found this. I prefer my Kevlins when they are subtle

mfowler, 5 months ago to random

Throughout my career, people have compared software development to “traditional” engineering, usually in a way to scold software developers for not doing a proper job. But this way of thinking is flawed because most people have the wrong impression of how engineering works in practice. Here I suggest where to go to understand more

https://martinfowler.com/bliki/SoftwareAndEngineering.html

mfowler, 5 months ago to random

I think @kentbeck frames this exactly right. TDD is a design tool, it doesn't give you good design, but it gives you feedback on your design. And any XPer craves feedback

Furthermore it helps to separate design of interface from design of implementation. So many folks struggle with this separation, so TDD nudge here is important.

https://tidyfirst.substack.com/p/tdd-isnt-design